Tuesday 15th July to Sunday 20th July
Author: Jack
I have decided to change the format of the diaries from now on. Two reasons really. First I am falling badly behind with writing them. Although I keep notes of what has happened I have not been spending the time writing the diaries up so day by day events are not always fresh in my mind. It is now Tuesday August 19th, so you can see how behind I am! Secondly I am happy to say that life is becoming a little less hectic and daily events are becoming much more mundane and less interesting, well at least sometimes.
We returned on Tuesday evening from our latest trip back to England having spent all day on the road. Am still not used to all this to-ing and fro-ing. Apparently while we had been away South West France had been one of the hottest places in the world with temperatures of forty degrees plus! As per usual we had packed loads in to our week back. The house was fine and again Anthony and Jane had done a great job of looking after the garden and pool, especially considering the extreme temperatures – so all that remained was to unpack. Once again I had loaded the car full of our personal treasures, which we unloaded into the ‘dining room’. This still has quite a bit in it from the removal delivery that we had had earlier and by the time I had finished unloading the car it looked just like a junk room. It was to stay there for some time even though I kept meaning to clear it out.
I spent the next couple of days recovering from the journey and just generally catching up on all those mundane jobs. On Wednesday the technician arrived to fix the lawn mower, which had refused to start when I had last tried to use it. Apart from the fact that there was a broken washer, which was causing the oil leak, the technician was sure that the reason it wouldn’t start was because I had got water in the engine! After a lengthy debate in which I tried to convince that this couldn’t possibly have happened he finally decided that the reason must therefore be because I was keeping the fuel in a plastic container and it was condensing, thus introducing water into the engine! He said I should keep the fuel in a small metal petrol can. I was not wholly convinced by this, especially since the shop that sold me the mower had given me a plastic petrol can! However at least the mower was working again.
Jose came over on Thursday to check on the state of the vineyard with me. We had had a very violent thunderstorm on the Tuesday evening and some vineyards had suffered quite badly from it. Fortunately we had not. Jose mended a few broken end wires but other than that everywhere seemed pretty neat and tidy. He seemed quite happy with everything. However he didn’t know what was about to happen the next day.
Beck went off to her holiday club on Thursday and Friday, which she thoroughly enjoyed, even though she didn’t seem to be able to remember what she had been doing on either day. I had been a little concerned though that she wasn’t getting very involved with everyone and that she spent a lot of time on her own. However when I asked how she was getting along I was instantly reassured. She did talk to the other children and always joined in everything. In fact they seemed surprised that I should be concerned at all. Thank goodness.
On Friday I thought it was about time I started working outside again. The vines were in pretty good shape (or so I thought!) so I decided it was time to mow the grass. As the summer has gone on the grass has been growing less and less and the job of mowing has become much easier. However it still takes me about two hours. I had just about finished and was thinking that I might relax for a couple of hours when Nelly and Joel arrived to give me news of my next job. It seemed that Joel was about to weed kill under the vines but before he could do so I would have to undertake another round of pamprage, check that no branches were on the ground and ensure that there weren’t any leaves hanging too low (so that the weed-killer wouldn’t get on the vine leaves). He quickly showed me what he meant in terms of height from the ground and left me indicating that he wanted to spray some time the following week. He seemed to think it would take me only a couple of days. When Jose and I had walked round yesterday checking neither of us had thought about this. Unfortunately as we are not in control of planning all the jobs it has meant that extra work has been created from time to time. This was one such occasion. Weed killing would have been no problem a couple of weeks ago but now because of the storm and renewed growth around the trunks in particular we had more work to do. Jose had not realised that Joel hadn’t sprayed. Apparently Joel had seen Jose in town several times and kept saying he was about to come and weed kill but never did. However we can’t complain – we are really lucky that he is doing it for us in the first place.
So… back out in the vineyard. Jen and Laurie were due to arrive on Monday for two weeks holiday and it looked like I was going to be working far more than I had expected (and in the event so would they be!). So out for three hours beginning the next round of pamprage and checking. The vines are very advanced this year and verasion (ripening) has already begun. This is two or three weeks earlier than normal and there is the prospect of an extremely early harvest.
Saturday was a busy day. I spent the day at La Vitaille – changeover day. Our first summer guests had left and we had to get the house ready for the next party. Sarah came to help me and Rebecca spent the day with Grace. Fortunately the house was in a pretty good state as there had only been four people there for the previous tow weeks so we finished in reasonable time. Equally there wasn’t too much laundry to take away with me either. Back to collect Beck, a quick lunch with Sarah and Paul and then off for Becks second riding lesson. I was expecting this to be a one to one lesson for her but not so. There were too many children for the lesson so they were split in to two groups. The second group had to wait half an hour for their turn, luckily Rebecca was in the first group. Three children, three ponies, three leaders and me. The ‘lesson’ consisted of each pony being led with its ‘rider’ out on to the road for a walk and back to the stable. Not one word was said to any of the children, even out of courtesy let alone education, and that was it. I was not impressed. Hardly a lesson, more of a fun-fair pony ride. We haven’t been back there since and I intend to find her another stable. Despite her bad experience there Rebecca is still very keen to learn to horse ride, which is pretty amazing really.
On Sunday I was up pretty early so that I could go straight out to work. I had to leave Beck in the house, as she remains firmly set against stepping foot in the vineyard. Since I was working on the patch of vines nearest the house I wasn’t too far away so it wasn’t a problem. I managed to get four hours work done and felt quite pleased with my efforts. At this point I wasn’t concerned about the amount of time this latest job would take, but I pretty soon was!
I then spent some time relaxing at last and enjoying swimming and playing in the pool with beck. And then on to the ironing – the linen from La Vitaille – that I wanted to finish before Jen and Laurie arrived. This I managed to do fortunately. And then to bed for one of the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while.
