On fending off shepherds and the kindness of neighbours.

Our lovely neighbour, David, who is largely incomprehensible to me 90 % of the time, turned up on the doorstep this morning, asking (I think) if we had given permission to the shepherd currently erecting his fencing on our field.

I stumbled through several poorly constructed sentences (he has that effect on me, I can't understand him and therefore I can't understand myself) the result of which was David striding towards them and suggesting, at full volume, that they leave now.

All good except that the shepherd then came towards me wanting to know if I really meant it. I managed better with him, explaining that because of the vines and also that, whilst I didn't know if it was him, the last time we had sheep on the field no-one had asked and it was a little impolite. I did also say that I knew it was difficult to find places for them to put their sheep but I was sorry... and I may even have shrugged!

What he probably understood though was a lot of random words, not put together in any kind of sentence, and that is why I'm especially grateful for David's torrent of abuse which meant he had the general meaning before he got anywhere near me... and why also the sheep are back under next-doors trees, which frankly is probably, where they'd rather be given the current inclement weather conditions.

Rain.

It's been raining now for about 3 weeks non-stop. After a while you start, or rather that's a bit presumptive, I, start to feel like I'm stuck in the end of the world and I'm going crazy.

Our gardening barn has flooded, but not from anywhere obvious or easily reachable but from under the concrete at the back of it. The drive and front garden is under about 1-2 inchs of water. Everything is wet. Even the chickens are morose.

I look at the weather forecast daily and start to feel like I'm loosing my mind.... there is no end in sight and it's showing 95% chance of rain for the next 10 days.

Then again I've just seen on the TV somewhere in northern India where it rains over 2m a year ! They also mentioned a period where it rained there non-stop for 2 years.... so maybe I need to stop complaining and get a bit of perspective.

Right then I'm off to bed and maybe, just maybe, it won't be raining in the morning.

Frost damage and other things.

About a week ago we had a frost overnight and now our vines are either sulking or dead! As an non-agricultural person it's hard to comprehend just how reliant on the weather and therefore, things definitely beyond my control, we are.

The vines that had leaves out and are in the parcel next to the house got hit really hard and all the other parcels except the smallest (hmm I'm not feeling got at) have patches of it.

Having talked to some other vignerons in the area because a lot of the buds were not out, its still possible it'll be ok. Also because I was a little over generous when pruning, we have a few to spare. It'll probably push the harvest back, but on the plus side, our bunches might be bigger!

Everyone needs to keep all their lucky digits crossed for us.

The weather here keeps remorselessly plodding on being dreary and wet. Yesterday for the first day since my aunt, uncle and cousins were here (sorry guys) it held off raining (at least in a torrential fashion) for most of the day, which meant that I now have the stakes in for the tomatoes, bean poles up (although for how long, they're more than a bit wafty) and I've started the war on mystery yellow plants. I have no idea what these things are but they have roots that could invade most of Europe from here.

Today, it being Monday, is admin day. Sigh. I need to speak to Cyril the wood man  and then, I'm off to Bergerac for fun with the TVA form, Orange (take a deep breath now) and the Dr's for form filling. I'll either come back feeling like I've accomplished things or I'll be wound up and fractious, at this point it could go either way.

I have my lucky socks on.

Tractors

Well we have been busy. P had been banging in the posts by hand and then he ordered a post driver from amazon and started with that. Then Robin and his tractor came to the rescue!

We've also had the lovely L and J here this week which was particularly useful as Laurent came and ploughed with his monster tractor and we all spent two days clambering about in the mud!

We worked like stink and tidied the vineyard at the same time, J was mad enough to go in the lake (nutter) and we consumed a fair bit of wine.

The ploughing was all going well until 3 rows from the end before M had a small problem with the tractor... he laughed when I asked if it was the first time and counted off the times on his fingers. Laurent's second tractor came and rescued him and we all decided we could do without the last 2 foot!