KEY POINTS:
I'm sitting at the breakfast table on Sunday morning at Queenstown's plush Azur luxury lodge overlooking Lake Wakatipu. I'm nursing a sore head. Two nights of drinking cocktails the colour of children's parties will do that. About the only thing I can manage with any degree of certainty is ordering breakfast. Something big, hearty and fatty, like Parekura Horomia but appetising. And coffee. Lots of coffee. Strong.
Just as I'm contemplating the merits of this job (luxury lodge, Queenstown, Winter Fest) and the faults (late nights, booze-fuelled, partying with familiar and unfamiliar faces) in bounces TV star Miriama Smith - long hair glossy, not a scrap of make-up, country casual attire sitting snug in all the right places.
"Morning Rachel," she says chirpily, striding up to the breakfast buffet with purpose.
"Ooh, what have you got there," Smith says eyeing up my plate that screams coronary heart attack. "That looks yum," she says, unconvincingly, as she reaches for a bowl of bran and low-fat yoghurt, and ordering green tea and soy milk.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at Miriama or beautiful, fit, young women who choose to eat healthy meals. God knows I could too if I had the willpower and the inclination - and taste buds that craved the flavour of cardboard. What I have trouble rationalising is the feeling of guilt. The guilt non-sinners evoke in me when they parade perfectly around in my sea of my shortcomings. Now, I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm not. I just don't like living in a cheesy Disney World. Show me colour and controversy. And that's where this story gets interesting.
Smith sits down at the communal dining table and enquires about my morning. Having only just risen, I don't have much to share - as in zilch. Smith, on the other hand, has jogged partially round the lake, climbed the hill our resort sits atop of, and washed and changed for breakfast. I was exhausted just listening to her.
But then the gorgeous, perfect creature piped up something about a celebrity ice-cream eating competition she would be partaking in later that day. "I've totally psyched out Hayley Holt," she laughs menacingly. My ears prick up. "How so?" thinking perfect creature wouldn't have one mean-spirited competitive bone in her perfect size-8 body.
"Well, Hayley hates ice-cream, right [first I've heard about it but moving on], so I told her we had to eat four ice-creams! I'm pretty sure it's only one ice-cream for each of us four [celebs], but Hayley will be totally panicking," Smith says quite proud of herself.
As I'm scoffing my blueberry pancakes and sipping my second long black, I look at gorgeous perfect creature across the table and realise Disney movies only exist in the perfect world we want to create for ourselves - with wine, cheese and colourful characters, but that's just me.
Here's some photos from the opening weekend of the American Express Queenstown Winter Festival. For more piccies and a complete gossip run-down (including who won the ice-cream competition) check out Spy in the Herald on Sunday.
Rachel Glucina
