gnikrow t'nsi sihT

Okay, firstly my computer is doing some thing REALLY weird just now. I've been trying to write this and it keeps putting everything I'm typing - get this - BACKWARDS. No idea why. I'm having to write this on another programme and cut and paste it over in order for the letters to be in the right order. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Secondly, I have lots to tell you, I really do, mostly good and one little thing bad. But as, once again, we're rushing our internet time, it'll have to wait a little bit longer (The other day I uploaded pictures to Isaac's facebook and it took over 2 hours because it kept failing and cost us SIXTEEN DOLLARS in internet time. This bloody backwards country!) In the meantime I thought I'd just post a link to this, written by the ever-brilliant Clive James, because it amused me so greatly.

Apples vs. Grapes: The Showdown

As soon as we quit the apple picking, I texted my friend Debbie to let her know and to tell her we weren't sure what our plan B was. We talked about just starting our South Island tour a month or two ahead of schedule, putting it on the credit cards and arriving early in Wanaka and getting jobs ahead of the ski season to pay it back. Wasn't ideal but we had to think fast. However, the following day Debbie texted me to say that her mother had been talking to a friend of hers, Margaret, who wondered if she knew of anyone who wanted a few weeks work on a vineyard? We got in touch with Margaret and arranged to start work on the Monday, in two days time. Sorted!

We had no idea what we'd be doing on the vineyard, but we knew we'd be getting $13 per hour, so we'd be earning a heck of a lot more than we were getting at the orchard. We hoped the work wouldn't be as back breaking, or as depressing, as the apples but thought we'd give it a go anyway and if we could stick it out for 4 weeks, we'd at least have some money to travel with. When we arrived bright and early at 7.30am on the Monday we were set to work: leaf plucking. This involves pulling leaves off the vine around the grapes so the thinning and harvesting is easier. You have to work quickly, so no time for thoroughness, just grab handfuls of leaves, pull down, drop them and carry on moving. We literally laughed - we couldn't believe we were being paid more to do this than the nightmare that is apple picking! It was literally the easiest work I've ever done - boring, yes, but we chatted or listened to our iPods which made the day pass quickly. Come 10am it was down tools (well, not that we had tools,, save our hands) for morning tea and 12.30pm signalled lunch. No afternoon break so we finished at 3.45pm. On Thursday we turned up only to see Debbie arriving - she was doing a couple of weeks work with us while she waited for the hospital to get their act together and get her job sorted! It was nice to work with her and have a good natter. Finally on Friday we finished the leaf plucking (across two vineyards) and were handed our big boys toys: our snippers. We had been upgraded to thinning and we actually really enjoyed the going through and finding rotten or unripe grapes which we dropped on the floor. It involved your brain a bit (a BIT), so it was more fun than the leaf plucking and we chatted to all of the older ladies who did this year in year out while we went along. In order to remember the things we were looking for to chop off I kept chanting them to myself: bot; second set; pinky wings. Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of them too. Bot is a mould that grows on the grape due to dampness. Second set is the second growth of grapes that will never ripen in time. Pinky wings are little wings of second set grapes that spring off the main grape stem. Aha! Now you know, in case you ever decide to go into winemaking.

Come Monday, after a very relaxing weekend at our favourite freecamping spot at the Aniseed Valley (where we had the place almost completely to ourselves the whole weekend so we lay in to our hearts content - lovely) we went to yet another vineyard* to do some harvesting of Chardonnay grapes, plus some Pinot Noir to combine with the Chardonnay to make a rose. Our tractor driver (and, I think, manager) was called Atilla, which is quite the coolest name ever, and was a thorougly lovely guy. Originally from Austria but has lived here for 52 years now - still has an Austrian accent! Anyway, the work has been reasonably enjoyable, the people lovely, the money far better and the thought that we never have to pick apples again has made us very happy campers indeed. The early morning starts are a bit of a bugger it's true, and we don't have accommodation so we're doing a combination of freecamping and paying for campsites as our need for showers and laundry facilities dictate.

*the people we're working for are contractors so we move around a bit

Can you hear the sound of apples being shoved up arses?

Quick news flash: we quit the apple picking yesterday. We got our paychecks in the morning and, despite having worked really really hard the past week, we made a measly $282 each. That's £108 in case you're interested. And that's for 40 hours work. So that's £2.70 per hour. For the hardest work I've ever done. Bugger that. They even had the cheek to take $45 off us for 'picker damage', despite having told us every single day our bins were perfect. I got very cross. Then very upset. I talked to the bosses and decided we could do without that kind of crap in our lives so told them - as nicely as I could - to shove it.

We'll let you know what we decide to do next!

People of the World: Stop Eating Apples

After the relative luxury of the WWOOFing, where we did work hard but for only 4 hours a day, had dinner cooked for us and lived in our own cabin with bathroom, we always knew that the apple picking would be an adjustment. We're back to living in the van, which is lovely actually, but sharing cooking and bathroom facilities again which is a bit of pain (2 loos, 2 showers, 1 sink, 22 people). No internet of course. And then there's the actual picking.

Picking apples is hard. HARD. You have a bag strapped to your front into which you have to place each apple you pick - place, not drop, because otherwise they bruise. When they are full they weigh between 15 and 20kg, which means that your back and shoulders ache like hell by the end of the day. A full bag contains around 100 apples, which takes around 5-15 mins to fill, depending on how fast you go and how easy the apples are to reach and pick. It takes around 20 bags to fill a bin, and we get paid $30 per bin we fill. Every bin you pick has 25 apples taken from it at random, which are examined for 'picker damage', bruising, stem breaks, stem punctures, fingernail marks. A dollar is taken off your bin for every apple found to be damaged. Many of the apples you pick have insects living in and around them - spiders, earwigs, wasps - so you often find an unwelcome passenger as you put the apples in your bag. I find it's best not to look too hard. Each new variety* requires a different technique - e.g. twisting to remove or looping up and over the branch - and takes some getting used to before you're back up to speed. The trees are tall, so you need a ladder to reach the top half and you often find yourself teetering on tippy toes up at the very top of the ladder, holding on to a branch (hoping it doesn't break) and straining to reach all the apples you can. If you don't reach them all, you get bollocked - I got told 'You pick them ALL' by the tractor driver the other day, who threw my ladder against the tree and dismissed my protests that I couldn't reach them. 'Well I can reach them' he said, 'Oh great,' I replied 'well can you get them down for me then? It's just I'm not 6ft 3...' He then threw the apples at Isaac and myself stroppily. My arms are covered in scratches from reaching into the trees. The first bag I was given had a had plastic case which was a little too big for me, so it pressed on my thighs and made walking and climbing ladders both difficult and painful. I have a colourful array of bruises** to show for it, not including those I get whenever I accidentally kick or slip down the ladder. Fortunately, the bosses heard my complaints about how bruised I was and they bought me a new bag, brand new, which has a soft surround and is smaller, and therefore shorter, so it no longer hurts my legs. Now it just puts more strain on my shoulders instead. Hurray! Isaac and I did the maths on our first week's picking. If it takes 100 apples to fill a bag, and 20 bags to fill a bin, that's 2000 apples per bin. We picked 4 bins the first day, 5 bins the next two days and 6 bins per day for the last two. This means we picked 52,000 apples in our first week. It bloody feels like it too. My only hope now is to try to persuade the people of the world to stop eating apples, so demand will go down and we can get laid off with severance pay. Please tell all your friends.

But I guess it's not all bad. We get to be outside in the open air, now the fierce heat of summer has dissipated into a more pleasant warmth, and because we're working a fairly physical job it's even quite nice when it rains (lightly at least). We finish at 4.30pm, which gives us the rest of the afternoon and evening to relax, something we sorely need by then. We've made friends with some of the other pickers, most particularly with a Kiwi couple called Stu and Holly, who have done a fair bit of fruit picking in their time and know all the tips and tricks. They come over to our aisle at break time in the morning with a flask of coffee, and we sit on the grass and drink it feeling, for all of 10 minutes, like kings, and in the evening we often hang out with them in their cabin and chat. The bugs aren't too bad here. We get weekends off to lie in and explore the area - this weekend we went to a car show in Nelson where we watched people drive round in circles until their tyres blew up (I'm told by Isaac that this is what they're supposed to do, and that it's very cool, though I think it's a bit of a waste myself). And anytime in the rest of my life if someone tells me "You've never done a hard day's work in your whole life, have you?" I'll sure as hell have my answer ready for them...

*we've done Cox's Orange Pippins and Royal Gala so far - moving onto pears next week which is totally different and much harder, or so I'm led to believe by the people who know these things
** par for the course for me of course. Poor Isaac. He's never even SEEN me without being covered in bruises from skiing, climbing trees, carrying logs etc. He must think purple is the normal skin colour for English people.