Monday 8th September to Sunday September 14th
Author: Jack
Monday morning was spent looking for shelving and trailers. At the moment there isn’t a single shelf in the garage for storage. Everything is on the floor. Unfortunately our search wasn’t very successful, although we can back with a few ideas. As to trailers, we found the best shop to buy one from but I felt that Iain should check them out as well. I didn’t want to buy the wrong thing! We spent the afternoon trying to count more vines in between the showers, which in the end beat us. Jose called round early evening to catch up on business and to begin planning next years work.
Tuesday morning the quad bike arrived. It’s fantastic and I am sure that as well as being a great workhorse for us it will also be great fun. I know Iain is going to love it. Janet (granddad’s ladyfriend) and her son Ian arrive today for a week’s visit. En route to Bergerac airport to collect them we call in at the insurance company in Eymet to get the attestation for third party liability for Rebecca and to get the quad bike insured.
After settling Janet and Ian I then get them roped straight in to jobs! First job, La Vitaille, to collect the washing machine as the rental season is now over and to check that everywhere is clean and tidy. Granddad and Ian are left to manhandle the washing machine whilst Janet and I change all the bedding and do some tidying up. Back home I start the grand wash. I do hope this will be the last time. Surely we will have sold the house by next summer! Beck has her French lesson with Françoise straight after school. She is beginning to enjoy these more now as she has got to know Françoise and her five-year-old son Julian, who is also becoming less shy. And for supper Granddad treats us all to a meal at our favourite haunt, Allemans.
Throughout Wednesday and Thursday the washing pile gradually reduces and the ironing pile increases! Janet very kindly starts to tackle the ironing pile for me. Beck has Fleur over to play on Wednesday. This is the first time for ages and Beck is delighted to have her over. The others go off to Leclerc to do a weekly shop for us all and I spend my time with paperwork (again!). On Thursday Granddad drives Janet and Ian to St. Emilion for the day leaving me at home to finally fill in our UK tax returns. They’ve been lying around for ages but I never seem to do anything until it becomes urgent! Towards the end of the day Joel arrives to start the Merlot harvest.
Mushrooms are sprouting up everywhere now as the mornings have become damper and we have finally had a little rain. Granddad goes off early Friday morning to collect a basket of mushrooms and also to collect the Cabernet Franc ‘échantillons’ that need to be delivered this morning for analysis. Joel arrives to complete the Merlot harvest. We have just over 3 hectares of Merlot, some of it only 3 years old and the oldest parcel in the vineyard, nearly a hectare, planted in 1967. Despite the wide variation in age the four trailer loads of Merlot each had the potential alcohol level, 13.4. In all we harvested 17,845 kilos. Amazing. We watched the harvesting for a while and then went off to Monsegur market, a good place to buy veg for the weekend. And for lunch we were treated to mushroom omelettes, made by Granddad with the mushrooms he had picked that morning. As if the day hasn’t been busy enough already I am expecting someone to arrive this afternoon to empty the septic tank! This is not something I have been looking forward too, unsurprisingly, and neither have the others. They decided they have a more pressing engagement in St. Foy to search for some Blonde Aquitaine for Iain who is arriving tomorrow, leaving me to the delights of the septic tank. I make sure that every window is securely shut! And whilst I am waiting for them to arrive to empty it I start making some grape jelly. In amongst a patch of Merlot there are several vines with table grapes, both black and white. So I have decided to use some of these. We even have huge quantities of these from just six vines and I know I’m going to hard pressed to make good use of them. But I’ll give it a go!
The tanker arrives to empty the tank. Oh joy. He asks me where the tank is, I indicate, he starts digging, only to find it’s the grease trap (which doesn’t look too pleasant but at least it isn’t smelly!). He digs around a bit further and hits something else. This must be it! No – it’s the filter for the septic tank! I am beginning to worry that we won’t find it but after a bit more digging he finally finds it. With all the earth scraped off he can now open the lid. Whilst I really don’t want to be there I feel I should at least find out what is going on! To my amazement it doesn’t smell. It doesn’t look too pleasant, but it actually doesn’t smell. Thank goodness. I leave him to his job and go back in doors to carry on the jam making (WI look out!). Meantime someone else is here putting in an additional TV point in the back room. It’s all go today! It takes about an hour to empty the tank. I’m told we need to replace the filters. These are much like barbeque briquettes and can be bought at local builders merchants. This means we will have to empty the filter first. Although it doesn’t smell I really don’t fancy the job!
As soon as Granddad is back, having successfully the septic tank emptying, I send him out on his next mission, to collect the Cabernet Sauvignon ‘échantillons’ which we then take to the cooperative, collecting the Cabernet Franc results whilst we are there. And finally it’s time to relax and enjoy a barbeque. Well almost. We had bought some fresh Sardines from them market. To my horror I discovered that I didn’t much like them! I eat fish so rarely these days and it is years since I had anything like barbecued Sardines that I just couldn’t eat them. Mind you no one else minded; more for them!
Prior to going to Bordeaux to collect Iain I decided to do a bit more ironing. Despite Janet’s efforts and mine the pile remains huge! But every little helps. As we were able to leave behind Iain and I decided to go to St Emilion for a wander round and have some lunch. It made such a change for the two of us to be out on our own. And then I dragged him off the remorque (trailer) shop, ‘Remorques R Us’, for his opinion. Didn’t take him long to decided which one would be ours. All I needed to do was buy it and drive it back home! I don’t fancy doing this much but guess I’ll have to. Iain was actually quite keen to get home; I’d forgotten about the quad bike and he was dying to have a go. Granddad gave him a demonstration of how it worked along with teasing him by riding off on it (children!), but eventually it was Iain’s turn and he was off! He came back pretty elated by it. Seems it’s a pretty fast machine!
Sunday morning we all went off to play tennis and then back for more quad biking. Iain got a little carried away with himself, taking a corner a little too quickly and sharply, and fell off, the bike managing to run over his leg! Amazingly he wasn’t really hurt although he had a nasty bruise on his leg and his arm. He played it all down but I have to say it didn’t sound too good (Iain: wasn’t too bad at all, just a little scrape!!). However it didn’t put him off and he got right back on and whizzed off! I finally managed to finish the grape jelly I had started on Friday! I had to do this because the kitchen was being handed over to Granddad who cooked us one of his specialities, roast! This actually proved to be quite a challenge as our oven is falling apart. Apart from the fact that the glass on the front of the door has fallen off, the door only drops down half way making it extremely dangerous when trying to get anything in and out of the oven, and there are only three rings working on the hob! Plus we are very short of all sorts of kitchen items; most are still in Offham. However, with only a few complaints he managed to produce a fantastic meal for us. Delicious.
