Sunday … not quite a day of rest!

I just realised I haven’t finished posting about our girlie weekend away last weekend … so here’s the final instalment – that is, if I can remember everything now!!!

After imbibing a fair bit of vino on the Saturday, and the fact I was driving, we took it a lot easier on the Sunday as far as alcohol intake was concerned.  That doesn’t mean to say we cut back on the places we visited or the enjoyment we got … we sure as heck made the most of the day, and couldn’t have crammed any more into it if we tried!

Our first port of call was into the nearby factory showroom of the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company, where we sampled different fudges and chocolate – and we all came out with little packages of fudge for a treat when we got back home.  We’d been told there was a chocolate fountain there, where you could dip in strawberries and marshmallows, but alas we’d been wrongly advised.  We did find out, however, that they had another shop at one of the vineyards, so we added that to our “must do” list for later 🙂

Then we continued on to Adina Wines, as Lisa wanted to try some Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio wines, and none of the vineyards we visited on the Saturday has this varietal.  Adina was on the way to our next official destination, so we called in for a spot of wine-tasting for Lisa.  It worked too, as she happily came away with some spoils from there, as well as learning the differences between the Gris and Grigio names (one is from the Italian region, and the other French) – good to know they’re essentially the same thing!

After Adina, we continued to our first destination, which was Drayton’s Family Wines (you may remember the name as the one in the news a couple of years ago when there was an explosion in the vineyard where the one of the vintners was killed and someone seriously injured/burned) – I totally fell in love with a Chocolate Port that I’d bought from Flaschengeist in Melbourne, but haven’t been able to find who actually makes it … anyway we heard that Drayton’s do a Chocolate Port so that was our first official port of call.  Unfortunately the port was nothing like the one I loved, so it didn’t come home with us … however after sampling the “Christmas pudding in a glass” I fell in love with their Muscat, so that was my treat for the morning.

Our next stop was a few metres up the road, back to Robyn Drayton’s where we’d bought the white port from the previous day.  Our plan here was to have a Devonshire Tea – and it was as scrummy as we’d hoped for 😀

After our Devonshire Tea, we drove back to Pokolbin Village Shops where we spent a fair bit of time in the Smelly Cheese Shop sampling cheeses and stocking up on some to bring home.  We also bought a few more gourmet delights as well, finishing off with a Gelati.

After the shops we visited another winery – this time Brokenwood Wines.  I tried their Sangiovese wine, while the girls tried a few of their whites.  I don’t think we bought anything from there (shock, horror!), as you can generally buy their wines from bottle shops at a much lower price.  Most of the other vineyards we’d bought from only sell from the cellar door.

Our final wine stop for the day was to Peterson’s Champagne House, where Hunter Valley Chocolate Company had a lovely shop set up … along with their chocolate fountain, woohoo!!  It was a compulsory purchase of strawberries on a stick covered in warm chocolate from the chocolate fountain … sheer bliss!  We then popped really quickly to the next door building to check out the sparkling wines (Katie’s favourite) where both of the girls came out with a bottle of Blush each 🙂

We finished the day off with a spot of girlie pampering at the local Reflections Day Spa where Lisa and I both had a 1/2 hour relaxation massage, and I had my eyebrows shaped and eyelashes tinted … what an awesome end to an awesome weekend!  (I’d really hoped for a remedial massage, as I’ve been suffering quite badly with neck pain and stiffness over the last couple of weeks, but the guy who does them wasn’t there that day – a relaxation massage was a good alternative, though).  After our relaxation we drove home singing along to Christmas carols … life just doesn’t get better than that!! 😀

It’s only the second ‘real’ girlie weekend I’ve had (the first one was having a weekend away at Toowoon Bay in October), and I hope it won’t be the last … it was awesome!!!

Since we’ve been home I’ve done one whole row of about 20 smyrna crosses for my current stitching projec, and that’s about it!  My stitching has been non-existent, so I hope to get a couple of hours in this morning to make up for it.  Then the rest of the day will be spent doing housework and getting the place ready to have the Christmas decorations put up, so not much stitching to be had this week, me thinks.  Next weekend is a write-off as well, as we have our Christmas party on Friday night, followed by a stitching GTG at Karen’s on Saturday (really looking forward to that), followed by a holiday back home – so you’re unlikely to see much posting from me between now and Christmas … with any luck, thought, I might get a tiny bit of stitching done in NZ! 😀