Should we stay or should we go?

HUSBAND: I’m easy. I could go either way.

ME: I can’t intuit what you want to do.

HUSBAND: It’s up to you.

ME: I want to stay AND go.

Five bargain NZ rieslings

Riesling is a misunderstood varietal. It has a reputation for being too sweet and too full of alcohol.

I prefer the traditional German style. Think light, floral rieslings with intense lemon and lime flavours. The New Zealand terroir, particularly around Waipara, is well suited to this kind of riesling.

Here are some very affordable rieslings that you might try with seafood or Asian food, or just as an aperatif:

• Matua Valley Shingle Peak Marlborough Riesling 2007 ($13 at Pak'n Save). Lemony, easy drinking.

• Mud House Waipara Riesling 2008 ($12 at Woolworth’s).

• Montana Reserve Waipara Riesling 2006 ($13 at Pak'n Save). Not great depth, but still very good.

• Stoneleigh Marlborough Riesling 2007 ($17 at Pak'n Save). Yummy!

• Vidal Marlborough Riesling 2008 ($10 at Pak'n Save). Crisp. Tight. Youthful.

Lost and found

Yesterday we took the Playcentre kids for a ride on the train. We went south two stops to a little track by a gully. It was delightful.

On the return, I was watching the child and his mate play-scuffle with his backpack. Then in the scurry of getting off the train, we forgot the child’s backpack.

Another mum suggested that the backpack would be with lost items up the line. We couldn’t find a number in the phone book, so we drove up the line to enquire. The clerk said, no, they don’t keep lost items, they go back down the line to Wellington. And she said that we needed to call Toll NZ, but she couldn’t give us the phone number. It’s in the book, she said.

We returned the library books, bought petrol, and then we returned home to ring Toll NZ. Toll NZ said, you need to talk to metlink. But she gave us the wrong phone number.

We went to the internet, and behold, the exact number that we needed.

We rang and we spoke with a lovely Scottish gentleman. He told us, through a thick brogue, that he had heard about the backpack, and even though it isn’t the usual policy, the backpack should be waiting for us at our home station.

And it was. With all of its contents.

New Zealand. Often layers of bureaucracy to wade through. But many happy endings.