A wine and some memories...

Wine of the Week:

2009 Pirathon by Kalleske - so a couple of weeks ago I went to my favourite bottle shop in the city, The Oak Barrel with the view to try something new, something different and something worth writing about. Had a chat to one of the team there who suggested a couple of wines. The Pirathon was one of these wines. 

It is a Shiraz made by Kalleske Wines from the Barossa Valley. It had a fruity and chocolately taste which mixed well with peppery nose that you would expect from a Shiraz; only not as strong as you would get from a Hunter Valley Shiraz...which isn't a bad thing. At less than $25, the recommendation was that it was a special with pizza; a recommendation that I can definitely pass on but try it with a pizza shop pizza. www.pirathon.com

Some of you may know that in May this year, my Aunt Valerie (who was known by all as Aunty Bobby) passed away. While it was a sad time for us as a family it also marked the end of her suffering as she had dementia and she had reached the final stages of the disease a lot quicker then anyone had expected. 

When she died, I didn't make any specific comment or do a specific post. I guess it was because it was all too raw, too recent and in a way it still is. However, last Wednesday (August 31st) was Aunty Bobby's birthday so it was a day to stop and remember and of course wish her happy birthday. She would have been 74. 

So, I would like to take this time to perhaps share with you some of what I shared at the time of her service. I do this not in a melancholic way but to share with you what my Aunty was like and someone who meant a lot to her friends and family. 

"Aunty Bobby loved to cook. Not only did Aunty Bobby love to cook but we ALL loved the fact that she loved to cook. That’s because she was very good at it.Friends and family alike enjoyed Aunty Bobby’s cooking. Friends that Lynne and I brought over to Bridge Street were often forced to eat themselves to a standstill as they were asked the question “surely, you haven’t had enough to eat?”  Ask anyone who went to Lynne or my twenty first birthday parties and they will always mention the food!

It wasn’t just at home either. For most of the time in Australia, Val worked as a cook at Belgrave Nursing Home and there she won many fans with her cooking.  At the annual fete,  she would have her corner stall where she would sell her curry rolls all day long; based on the minced curry that would keep family and friends alike happy – apart for me anyway, I always found her curry too hot!

There were her lamingtons; lamingtons that the famous Australian actress Queenie Ashton claimed were the best she ever tasted. The fact that Queenie lived until she was 96 tells me that she tasted a lot of lamingtons! And her potato salad for which she had a standing order from her friend Annette every Christmas.

Aunty Bobby also had the largest collection of Mills & Boon books that one had ever seen...She spent a lot of time reading and many a time Lynne or I would stumble into the house in the early hours of the morning to find the light on underneath her door as she was reading into the night…which invariably was followed the morning after by her telling us how much noise we were making while coming into the house. 

Aunty Bobby liked having an opinion and wasn’t shy of sharing it. A classic example of this would be when she picked me up from playing cricket on Saturdays and would ask me how many runs I scored.  Invariably, it wouldn’t be much and rather than her replying with a “better luck next time” or “there is always next game”, it was more along the lines of “well…that’s not much is it?”

You always knew what Aunty Bobby thought and she always honest with her opinions. It is a quality that many of her friends admired of her; friends that stayed with her for life and her with them. While it may have annoyed you sometimes, particularly growing up and thinking that you know it all, it showed strength of her character –a strength illustrated by her and her sisters raising two children, Lynne and I and buying a house by themselves in the mid seventies; that after moving to a new country in the middle of their lives.

The one thing that didn’t diminish because of her illness was the love she shared with all of her nieces and nephews. She was always there to help out where she could, always there to provide her advice (wanted or unwanted) and was always there to push and challenge us; which always meant we ended up doing our best.  This extended not only to the cousins in Australia but also those back in South Africa. And as we all started to find our own partners and build our own lives and families, she shared that love with them as well."

Happy birthday Aunty Bobby...miss you greatly.