Christmas and a few other things.

We've had a very lovely quiet Christmas with L and enjoyed various days doing things other than vineyard work. We went to Chateau Montpazilliac which was beautiful and I saw several things that I'd like to do here. Although P is muttering about not having to make a curious Teepee made of latts.

We also went to St Emillion as it was the first time for Lorna, I do love it there although it is a wee bit Stepford.

We cooked the boxing day ham over the fire in the sitting room using A and S's giant pot, it was delicious and I do love using our own wood to cook with.

We ate the "Festive Lemon" which I've been saving for the occasion from the lemon tree that B gave me several years ago.  B it tasted delicious!

It was pretty frosty over Christmas and it looked so beautiful in the mornings.

The last couple of days we have been concentrating on arraching the parcelle out the front from us. Today saw the cutting down of the vines and the stacking of them elsewhere. I have plans for the ones out the back that involve a sort of barbeque area but alot of strimming needs to happen first.

Today has been pretty traumatic with the return of the cats cystitus, or at least that's what the vet thinks it is. Poor girl has been in a lot of pain, and was clearly not loving the vet, which she demonstrated by wee-ing everywhere! She's now on a really expensive diet and some more antibiotics and is feeling a little bit sorry for herself. Poor love.

Lets hope tomorrow is less dramatic but equally as productive!

Best wishes for a fabulous 2012 to you all, where ever you are.

Happy Christmas

Well, this will be our first Christmas here and I'm looking forward to it immensely! L is here and helping us pull out the last of the piquets before P starts making flapjacks and then the festive over-eating begins.

Christmas always slightly induces a need to eat lettuce leaves in me!

We're off to midnight mass tonight at a local 12th century church, which worryingly starts at 10.30... hmm just how long is this going to go on for. Must put the thermals on!

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you are all having Bergerac wine with your festive meals! Or at the very least, French wine.

Thank you all for reading (and commenting on) my blog and have a fabulous time one and all.

xxx

December flowers...

On exhaustion...

I am exhausted, I think piquets wrestling must be the single most tiring job on the vineyard. It's astonishing how quickly one runs out of steam when waggling a 6ft post in the mud.

I managed about 80% of the posts in the 18 rows out the front that we're pulling out and Pete came and did the rest (considerably faster!). Now only the end posts need doing and the 10 (massive) rows out the back.

The vines all  look a little sad without their supports and I do feel for them, they have, after all, been there for the best past of 70 odd years and then we come add replace them with a younger looking model. I'll be taking the strimmer to them at the end of the week, that's if I have any strength left in my arm muscles.

P has wrestled 2 of the 4 lovely new barn doors up with W's assistance this afternoon and is justifiably proud of them... he's gone to get some bolts to bolt them in place before they fall over.

Because the original sliding doors are still there, we do look like we are preparing for invasion of some sort.

Right, as A and S left us half a bottle of bubble bath, amongst other goodies, I'm off to have a bath before doing my homework.

Wire winding 2 ways...

Today, after a very nice lunch and a successfull visit to the insurance people, we commenced the wire winding-in which last year was a job that resulted in a lot of muttering and hand feeding wire in pairs, known affectionately as "The Maguire method", I'd say it took about 15 mins per wire and the resulting loop of wire was a mishappen bundle of birdsnest-ness. (No offence ladies!)

This year the very lovely Robin lent us his winding in piece of kit (which we learnt about the existence of last year just after we'd completed the last row!).

Ah what bliss, 2 hrs and 8 rows done which is, count them ladies and gents, 32 wires! Better still it is now possible to do it single handedly. Tomorrow we'll have them all done and we can go off for the second of this weeks lunches feeling smug.

I do love it when we accomplish things.

And then there are those moments in life when the outcome is inevitable...

Pruning again.

I've started the pruning for the vines we are going to arrache this year. It basically just involves a brutal haircut and is quite therapeutic. I love being outside with the leaves and the silence... or a nice audio book on the ipod (at the moment it's Jamaica Inn, for the second time).

However it has decided me that I will be starting the pruning proper, earlier, this year. Last year we started in Feb and it was a rush with 8 hrs of pruning a day and sore, wrists and hands and leaking vines. This year I want to plod along without panic and do maybe 4 hrs a day and not feeling obliged to go out in a torrential downpour.

The only thing that is concerning me slightly, is that it's still pretty warm and I've found a couple of vines trying to put out new growth already... maybe pruning will give them the hint to put their heads down again till spring.

Meanwhile I guess the fact it's still pretty warm hasn't reached the cat yet...

New Words for this week....

This week has been one of those weeks where my french is tested to it's not particularly large limits. I went to:

The Tresor Publique: Tax and Credit d'impots stuff.
Agri Mer: Grants for pulling up and replanting vines
The vets: The cat has worms
Phoned... arghh, Yannick the Mechanique: The starter motor is playing up.

So my vocab has grown to include intestinal worms and starter motor.... I sincerely hope that neither will become a regular part of my daily discussions.

AgriMer involved a lot of sighing, on both sides and a gathering of three employees trying to count rows of vines from a very sunny satellite photo. I could quite clearly see what was vine and what was shadow, but hey I'm not to be believed.

The vets cost money but she's now a worm-free-zone.

And the verdict from the mechanique, out tractor is "un peu fatigue"...... arn't we all.