The last thing Mum said as we departed for the festival was “We’ll meet you at the mussel fritter stand at 12.30”

Mussel fritters were clearly on my mind when we arrived at the Tairua wine and food festival on the dot of 11am. We made our way through the hoards of people and joined the queue at the mussel fritter stand. Unfortunately the mussels were somewhat weak and the fritter contained more batter than anything else. It was nowhere near as good as the one I had at the Thames races the day before.

We did a lap of the stalls. There were the usual festival items for sale. We found the infomercial men we met at the pub the night before selling their wondercloths and magic potato peelers. There was the German lady selling NZ photos stuck to a hunk of MDF board (every year Mike and I proclaim we can do that, and then never get around to it). There were the usual hippy creams made from essential oil of ragwort or some other new age product. There were aeroplanes made out of beer cans (My Dad could make them). We chose not to buy any of these treasures.

The wine tasting was the highlight of the day. We tried a local sauvignon from Cooks beach, which was a tad sharp and fruity. We tried one from Nelson, which was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that we had a few while we listened to the bands.

A little tipsy, we started the stagger home when my phone rang. It was Mum. “Where are you? I stood by the mussel fritter stand for 40 minutes waiting for you”.

In all the excitement of the day I completely forgot about meeting Mum. I am such a bad daughter.

Here is a slideshow of some photos from the festival:

Tairua Wine and Food Festival