Feed the vine right and tasty fruit will follow
According to the Times, it is not just the flavours of black truffle, ripe blueberry and milk chocolate that set the award-winning 2013 Bishop's Vineyard cabernet sauvignon apart. Unlike its rivals at the Monterey International Wine Competition, where it won a silver medal, the $36.99-a-bottle red is made from grapes grown in a suburban San Francisco cemetery. "This reminds me of the richest, plumpest blackberries we picked at our summer caravan site in Wales," writes Len. "The blackberry vines were growing over the outlet of the toilet block."
Stopped in your tracks ...
1. "When I was a kid, I was at my mother's office, and there was a man waiting to see her. All I really knew was that my mum was a doctor. So 4-year-old me decides to chat up the old guy. I see that something's up with his leg, so I ask him, 'Why is part of your leg metal?'. He replies with, 'I had to get it cut off'. 'Why?' I ask. And this is the line that gets me: 'I didn't eat my vegetables' ... "
2. "I grew up in same town as a girl with the same name as me. When I was 15 I went to the doctor with my mum, when the doctor said, 'So you are 28 weeks gone'. And I replied 'Gone where?', while my mum went pale. He then demanded to know if I had once suffered from gout. So that's how I was first to find out my younger namesake was expecting."
AT sends out a welcoming alert
PSA from Auckland Transport via Twitter: "AT does not clamp vehicles on the road. If your vehicle is clamped and someone says they're from AT, call the police. This is a scam."
Coffee and Bun's lonely vigil
"Fifty years ago in Hamilton, there was an elderly lady recluse," writes Christine Breen. "Everyone I knew referred to her as 'Coffee and Bun'. Every day she walked to the Frankton Railway Station, bought a coffee and a bun, watched a few trains come in, then walked home the considerable distance in all weathers. The reason for her pilgrimage? She never gave up hope that her only son would come back from World War II to her on the train, as he had left. As a youngster then, and to today, I remember her well, always with sadness."
Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz