© irene waters 2014

When Ed prompted  “So, whats your poison? If you don’t drink that’s fine, this challenge can be any beverage that includes alcohol be it beer,wine or hard liquor. You can also do advertisements or establishments or how about vineyards or breweries or even distileries….” I thought of the regional wines we drank in Germany, Switzerland and France. There, our relatives had allegiances with their local vineyard and they had no thought other than to buy their wine from them. The bottles we looked at in the shops ranged from the hugely expensive such as these two bottles to the cheap wine in Spain which they sold in huge plastic containers.

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

Back home we too patronised our local winery which a Hungarian viticulturist owned. We had discovered on a visit (they were always very generous with their tastings) that they also did a Hungarian goulash lunch with wine for a very reasonable price for a minimum of ten people. How could we resist. We organised a group and had a wonderful day sitting among the vines imbibing. We discovered that his wife, who cooked the meal, had escaped Hungary, gone to Canada and trained as a rocket scientist. She found as a woman she could not get work in either Canada or the US so moved to Australia. Here she met her husband and I guess the rocket science went out the window. That’s why I love finding out people’s history  as you don’t expect to find a woman with a pHD cooking the luncheon goulash.

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

Christmas time is always a time when a bit of Christmas cheer goes a long way. Champagne, wine and beer seem to be present in great quantities throughout the period. For me, I’m the driver. They don’t have to designate me as I gave up alcohol over two years ago now. I only gave up for a couple of months but found I felt so great I have never had the urge to drink again so my poison is

© irene waters 2014

the long black coffee. Yum