P365 Day 3 - Paws at Puddleduck (3/1/2011)

Premble: This is a previously unpublished post from Day 3. I was waiting for the recipient of the book to receive it, because of the very very slim chance that she might stumble upon the project and find out about it before the surprise. Now it's all done, I can post in safety.

When my lil sis saw my Wine Dogs book with Bazil (the wine dog from Puddleduck vineyard) Brown’s signature, she thought it would be a great idea to get her sister-in-law's book signed as well.

But she didn’t want her sis-in-law to know about it, so bro-in-law (henceforth known as Mr Tall) undertook a covert mission to obtain the book from her house. Due to some transport (or relative) mix up, he didn’t make it back home in time for the book to be sent back with Mum, who was visiting at the time, so Lil Sis had to send it later.

So now we have the book, we went to Puddleduck today to get the books signed - oh and to taste some wines, did I forget to mention that - and had arranged to meet some friends. 

Bazil is getting on a bit now. He’s 15 years old, and not moving very well.  But he's still up for a book signing. He signed the book, after a little encouragement and some doggie treats, and I filmed the whole thing. 

The idea was to make a video of it for sis-in-law to go with the signed book (and I may have gone a bit overboard with it in the end; it’s now a four-minute feature titled Paws at Puddleduck to the soundtrack of Tommy Emmanuel’s Jacaranda, including the signing, both wine dogs, the puppies and, of course, the ducks. But no wine - something's missing there, I fear.)

Polly, the younger dog, who features with Bazil in Wine Dogs 2, had puppies a few weeks ago and they’re growing up and almost ready to go to their new homes. So that was another reason for us to go there as soon as possible, so we could see the pups before they go. They’re so cute, and juniordwarf and the other kids visiting there just loved them.

And we had a lovely time tasting some very fine Puddleduck wines.

Postscript: I was very sad to learn that Millie, who was the only one of Polly's pups to stay at Puddleduck, passed away today. My thoughts are with Jackie and Darren, their family and Polly.