My publisher was coming to lunch, and I was nervous. She wanted to see the property and meet CJ and me, but she wanted something else as well. She wanted to talk to CJ about changing his name.
What if it all went horribly wrong?
The man on my front deck looked like he had teleported through a time machine, straight out of the 1960s. He was wearing dark sunglasses with octagonal, gold wire frames. His sideburns were long.
“You must be Jared,” he said, shaking my hand. In his other hand, he held a camera.
Of course in New Zealand it’s summer at Christmas, and nobody would dream of putting on a big red suit that’s lined in fur.
Here’s my rendition of the famous poem, Kiwi Olive Grove style…
A while back, ‘Moon Travel Guides’ approached me and asked if they could interview me for the new edition of their book, ‘Living Abroad in New Zealand’.
Well, with a name like ‘Moon Travel Guides,’ how could I say no? Read the interview here.
“He canceled,” I said, hanging up the phone.
CJ looked nervous. “What do you mean? We have to harvest.”
“It’s taking him longer than expected in another olive grove. He says he’ll come here tomorrow, but he won’t commit to a time.”
CJ called me at work on Thursday morning in a panic. “It’s going to rain all day Saturday!” he said. “We need to cancel Thanksgiving!”
Some might think canceling Thanksgiving due to a little rain is a bit extreme. Those people have never been to one of our Thanksgiving parties.
The Wairarapa Times-Age ran an article on ‘Moon over Martinborough’ last week. They asked me to pose sitting awkwardly on our fence, pretending to do a blog post with the olive grove behind me and a bottle of our oil beside me. I always write blog posts this way.
Moon over Martinborough has been named “New Zealand Site of the Month” in the October 2009 issue of NetGuide Magazine.
Read the review after the jump.
The first of the city friends arrived on Friday night, driving over the Rimutaka Hill Road after work in the dark, ready to settle in for a three-day weekend full of food, friends, olives, and a lot of hard work. There were big hello hugs all around and bags deposited in guest rooms.
