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It's cold today. English weather. No wind to speak of, just heavy, dull, grey cold. Not a grand day to be pruning but we're panicking a bit now as to how we can finish in time, so needs must. Lizzie is trying out some power-assisted secateurs she bought last year. They're a bit scary, though nothing like as scary as the ones the pros use which slice through metal, vines and fingers willy-nilly. The great thing about them though is that they leave you a free hand so you can gather up the sarments (vine shoots) while you prune. With the two-handed pruners you have to pick up the pruned shoots from the ground which is horribly tough on the back. Meanwhile, I was topping off all the long, snaky stems and burning them in Hot Pegasus our jolly burner on pram wheels which we're also considering calling Stanley's Pram in honor of Stanley Spencer. Don't ask.. Or if you must, ask Lizzie.
It's fantastic to look down the lanes between the vines and see them free of wood and detritus. It's the first time we've been able to do that and Stanley's Pram is working a real treat. We know pruning and burning simultaneously will save us a lot of time in the long run, but right now it's taking twice as long. Perhaps when the weather warms up we'll find a willing pyromaniac to help. When we'd pruned the last of the syrah we retreated to the caravan for a cuppa leaving Flynn tied up outside mournfully watching a flock of tasty sheep on the far hill. Kit thundered into Olive and buried her head in Lizzie's lap. "What's up?" asked Lizzie. "Brrrrrgnarybrrrrr," said Kit. "Oh poppet, your ears are frozen," cried Lizzie, "lucky you didn't shake them, they'd have snapped right off." We warmed them up and found an old jacket of Lizzie's and slipped it on. I'm considering tailoring one for her, as this one obviously didn't impress her. I think she thought it was the wrong colour for a redhead.
Well, the vineyard survived the second onslaught of hail yesterday. The tender buds are still intact and the nascent grapes and apples get another chance at life. What a relief.
We met our lovely new friends, Deborah and Peter Core up at Chateau Malaudos today for a spot of lunch. They make beautiful biodynamic wine in Caux at their vineyard, Mas Gabriel . This year they made their first white and rose wines, both of which are absolute crackers - we can't recommend them highly enough. And you can buy them online if you like! We sat in full sunshine talking wine, and scoffed gorgeous cheese, pate and tomatoes washed down by a bottle of their spectacular pink.
On Wednesday the paysagiste Michel Reboul turned up with his team to dig up the vines at the top of the amphitheatre. This is the steepest part of our land and has always been a bit of a nightmare. The only time we took the quad up there Lizzie had to hang off the uphill side of it like a windsurfer to stop it toppling down the hill. (Please don't try this at home!) Many of the Cinsault vines there died when the vineyard was more or less abandoned and the rest have struggled ever since so it feels as if we've cleared out a dusty attic now they're gone.
After two days of rain the soil was pretty damp and in perfect condition for pulling up vines apparently. They were about 50 years old I guess and, like icebergs, most of the plant lives below the surface - some of the root systems went on for metres.
The lovely Christophe was the artist behind the digger-levers which he manipulated like a master puppeteer, and his even lovelier assistant was our very own Josh who worked like a Trojan all day long lugging heavy vines up and down the hill and building them into a souche wall.
We reckon there's enough firewood there to see us through next winter.
When they finished that they set to work filling in the road by the mazet parcelle, shoving a huge rock under Olive's foot and digging over the grassy bit near the reservoir which Lizzie wants to turn into a lawn. The two of them got through the most incredible amount of work that day, "happy work" Josh called it. He was pleased as punch to be working on his land and it was fantastic to see him in his professional role as apprentice landscape gardener.
The countryside is in full bloom right now, carpeted with irises, spring flowers and, here and there, tender shoots of wild asparagus. It's so fine it's quite difficult to spot but it's worth the effort, the succulent tips taste like the freshest peas straight from the pod. There are two sure-fire ways of finding it. One is to suck up to any old boy you see clutching a bulging carrier bag and the other is to dog the footsteps of Kit who has become the world's greatest living Asparagus-Hound. Quick as a flash she spots her quarry and before you can say "Ooh, wouldn't that be lovely roasted with some olive oil and rock salt" she's bitten off the tip, scoffed the lot and tuned her asparagus radar to a new bearing. We're wondering if she might transfer this skill to truffle-hunting though holding her back after she'd got a taste for the "black gold" is a daunting, and expensive, notion.
Meanwhile, here's a little something for Marianne. Yes, sweetheart your spuds are on the move and lookin' good. As you can see, everything in the garden is just lovely.
I got back from Australia last week where I've been visiting my family. If there's one thing that Lizzie is really good at (and there are many, many things she's ridiculously good at) it's organizing surprises. There were two big ones waiting when I got home. The first one was the bridge. For anyone who knows us, this bridge has been in the "it's just about to be started" phase of construction for the last 4 years. But finally, under Lizzie "the Mastermind" B-G's sweet supervision, Andy "The Welder-beast" Dixon and Teddy "Angle-grinder" Hutton pooled their resources and talents and came up with an airy, elegant curve of space-leaping, heart-swelling, simple steel that connects our old balcony at Le Couvent to the top garden. It is a beauty. Graceful, light as air and solid as a rock, the bridge soars way, way beyond my expectations. My biggest thanks to the mighty trio and to everyone who has pondered, planned and contributed to this project over the years.
Andy immediately found a name for it. Because it flies over the chicken run he called it le pont des poules. Which immediately turned into Pontypool. Ah well, I suppose you can't have everything. The name's going to stick, isn't it? I can feel it in my bones.
The second surprise involved a trip up to the vineyard. When we got to the chain at the bottom of the path I said (well, shrieked is probably more like it) to Lizzie, "What is that white thing? It looks like a caravan. You've bought a, you've bought a caravan, haven't you? Oh my God, you've bought a caravan." It's not that I've got anything against caravans. Actually, that's a lie. I've never liked the idea of caravans at all, they seem hot and airless and rather mean. Of course, I'd never actually been in one, so, obviously, I was speaking with an objective, if horribly bigoted, authority here. Anyway, yes, so there it was, a big box sitting, oh so whitely, against the rippling, not at all white, prettiness of the olive and pine trees. Lizzie turned the key and we climbed into a 70's beef stew and carrot interior. Brown, cream and orange tartan, synthetic-tweed furnishings with contrasting blue lampshades, curtains and cushions. And nets at the double-glazed windows. Oh joy.
It was instant head-over-heels love.
For those of you fellow-travellers who burn to know these things, she is a Messager Mascotte 385, in her prime at only 25 years old. We called her Olive and re-painted her the very next day in a new livery of olive green with a bauxite red stripe. She nearly fades into the background now and we spent two happy nights in her, cooking on the gas-hob that transforms into a work-top and sleeping on the bed that transforms into a dining table in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Lizzie assures me that somewhere or other here, there is a switch that transforms the entire caravan into a Porsche. I believe her. If only we could find that P-spot switch we might regain some street cred, or something. In the meantime we're hoping that our rather cool candelabra does the talking for us while, oddly, we fight off painters-astrophysicists-writers-geologists-teachers-administrators-broadcasters-bankers-farmers-lovers-lawyers and teenagers, all of whom have volunteered to caravan-sit Olive through her first probationary weeks, even months, alone in the vineyard. Are we missing a trick here, I wonder?
Meanwhile back at Le Couvent we're well into the week's retreat for the Black and Asian Writer's Group. Sponsored by Bloomberg and mentored by The Tricycle Theatre in London, this course is a treat for us too. The house thrums with the energy of big brain-power as first, second and seventeenth drafts get written off and ideas get tossed around. The chat is fabulous and it's a privilege to co-host such a fantastic and lovely group.
In other words, life's as awful as ever here. What can I say?
PS. Had you spotted that "I love" is actually an anagram of "Olive?" Not a very challenging anagram I admit, but kind of cool, don't you think?
Last Friday night we were having dinner with our old chums Pierre and Giovanna in their exquisite house on the beach at Agde. As we were leaving Pierre and Daniel looked up at the star-sequinned sky. "See how clear the sky is? It means it's going to be a perfect day tomorrow, just wait and see."
The next day France and Spain were hit by the biggest storm in decades. One and a half million people without electricity, winds blowing at 150km/hr and 11 dead in Spain. Our local boys' local knowledge was more or less on a par with Michael Fish and his non-hurricane. Even more surprising though was that the horizontal rain of Saturday was replaced by a bright and cloudless day on Sunday. Almost unbelievable that the weather could change quite so dramatically in 24 hours. Best of all though, we'd planned a big working afternoon and a bbq in the vineyard and against the odds it happened. So our huge thanks to Alex C, Alex Mac, Debbi, Jenny, Michelle, Josh, Poppy and Justin (better late than never) who pruned vines and olives, weeded, planted, chain-sawed wood and collected souches. It was a fantastic afternoon.
We'd decided to move the bbq to the Convent in case the weather turned on us again. It didn't but it was great to be back in the big kitchen tucking into a gigot of lamb, sausages, Lizzie's chilli roast potatoes and some fantastic salads. A special mention here for Michelle's excellent bakewell tart.
Alex C had brought his dogs up to the vineyard in the afternoon and the five of them were circling each other like fish in an aquarium when they weren't dashing around and getting up to no good. By pudding they were completely tuckered out. We blame Josh for inviting them onto the otherwise forbidden sofa.
For the last week we've been pruning up at Chateau Malaudos. After a week of colds, flu and frosty winds after New Year, our noses and the skies cleared on about the 5th of January and it turned beautiful. It's still quite chilly but when there's no wind and the sky is blue, it's T-shirt weather again. We've been cutting up dead fruit trees and filling up the trailer with peach wood for the wood-burner at home.
We decided this year that we'd take our time pruning the vines. Now that we know how long it takes and we're just that bit more experienced, we know we can get it done in time, so why not take a moment longer and do it that little bit better? Last year, knowing nothing but convinced that we'd definitely kill off these poor vines that had been struggling to survive without help or attention for three long years, we left lots of extra "just in case" buds. We now know that a vine is much harder to kill than we ever suspected, and letting 29 sarments (the new "branches" which bear the grape bunches) grow when there should only be a maximum of 8, is actually a really bad idea. So Lizzie and I and all our lovely chums - Alex, Erzsi, Nicola, Jenny, Debbi and the two Teds - who've been up to help are being resolute in our Less Is More campaign and pruning for quality and health. Sounds rather like eugenics, doesn't it?
So far all the muscat is pruned, all the grenache in the amphitheatre and Lizzie has pruned the syrah. The syrah vines are the ones on wires and demand a completely different type of pruning to the rest of the vines which are all the old-fashioned "gobelet" type ie. with one "arm" at each corner. The syrah vines sprout up from a horizontal branch and as they grow vertically are caught and held between wires. We decided that if Lizzie pruned all these herself then we'd know who to blame. Clever, eh?
The whole mazet parcelle is now pruned and about two-thirds of the big amphitheatre so we're thrilled. If the weather holds for another three weeks we'll be done. Then there'll just be everything else left . Yes! We've also been planting roses up at the mazet. Twenty seven have been coaxed into place, many of them in honour of mates this Christmas.
Most days we've taken a bit of lunch up to keep up our spirits and energy and taunt the dogs with. It occurred to me yesterday as I was wandering up to the van (chuck-wagon) with new pruning chum Debbi that we looked just like three old blokes (sorry, Debs) sitting outside their sheds with a packet of sandwiches and a Thermos of nice, hot tea. Debbi did point out that in fact we were eating quiche aux poireaux, tarte au thon and macaroons. She also spotted that the Thermos wasn't tartan, but you get the idea.
On Monday Lizzie and I finally plucked up the courage to take a sample of wine to the oenologue in Pezenas. An oenologue is the wine-expert who explains what's happening to your wine chemically. Oenologues are therefore very important and also rather daunting. We had no idea what would be demanded of us - a declaration from Customs perhaps, or documentation that we had a degree in wine-making, or maybe proof that we owned a vineyard. In France, the land of red tape, you come to expect the unlikely and the worst when it comes to paperwork. So we crept into the wine-lab and were greeted by a charming lady in specs. "No problem," she said with a dazzling smile when we asked her if she could test our sample to see if it had done it's malolactic fermentation, "but I'll test for volatile acids too. If they're bad then the fermentation is beside the point. I'll e-mail you shall I?" We love this charming woman who didn't make us feel small or stupid or paperworkingly challenged.
Now you could argue that when it comes to humans it's no bad thing to be a bit on the volatile side. Spice of life and all that and nothing's more boring, surely, than being unvolatile or, worse still, completely inert. When it comes to wine though, volatile is BAD. It means your wine is turning into the "v"-word (as in salt and v crisps) which like "The Scottish Play" and The Bad Wizard in Harry Potter is the name that cannot be spoken out loud. Anyway after 36 hours on tenterhooks, the report arrived. Our "malo" is 20% done, but best of all, our volatile acids are excellent and all our wine-making chums are thrilled and amazed. "How did you manage to keep it so low?" asked lovely Simon from Domaine des Trinites. Well, Lizzie scrubbed out the cuves by hand and Justin has kept the seal pumped up and ... well, we're thrilled.
Manon des Sources, Jean de Florette, C Y O'Connor - water stories often seem to have unhappy endings.
There have been times over the last few months as Lizzie and I lugged our five incredibly heavy 20litre bidons of water up to the potager when we've felt overwhelmed by the sheer struggle of it all. It's just so frustrating to know that a forage is there beneath your feet and that you've bought the right generator and the right new pump. All that's missing is the electrician who can make the connection. For 6 months now we've been chasing and waiting and lugging and leaving messages on electricians' phones and screaming and yelling and getting precisely nowhere apart from knackered. Until wonderful Ib, a fantastic Danish builder, took pity on us and stepped in with his brilliant German electrician Andreas.
After a few more weeks waiting for other parts, yesterday was the day of reckoning. It took a while for Andreas to connect the leg-bone to the knee-bone and the hip-bone to the brain.
Then they fired up the generator and waited. Nothing happened. For seconds and seconds nothing happened. Then the water arrived. Screams, howls, tears and smiles. Fan-bloody-tastic! It all felt distinctly biblical.
This is the team who brought water from the depths and will eventually turn it into wine. Lizzie and I are starting up an official Ib and Andreas fan club.
This is Lizzie and I cleaning and proofing the reservoir last week against the water we hoped would come one day. Fat squidgy brushes with thick white gloopy stuff for the bigger cracks, then a skin of thin gloopy stuff for the whole surface.
Within moments the water turned from cloudy to crystal.
M. Gineste told us that it comes from Mount Aigoual which is 70 kilometres away in the Cèvennes. Of course we couldn't resist tasting it. We didn't die so naturally it is now the most delicious water in the world. It's also icy cold and wonderful to stand and squeak under. We discovered that the water runs out after 20 minutes, but after 15 minutes' rest the forage fills up again. 300 litres each time - what utter heaven.
The bassin has a way to go yet before it's anything like full and yesterday we had to get home to our guests, but what a day, what a start, what a joy.
PS. I'm sorry to have neglected the Chateau Malaublog lately. I hope to make amends.
This evening we had dinner with the lovely Alex and fabulous it was too. Her Greek risotto is a thing of beauty. Just as we got to her door we were accosted by Alex's neighbour, Rèmy, who sports rather fantastic eyewear and breeds fantastic and noisy, exotic hens who all wear feathery trousers and bad hair and look as if they should be called Trace or Chardonnay. Rèmy, it turns out, was one of the five blokes smoking outside the agri-shop yesterday. Rèmy now knows everything about us, the vines, the mazet, our bale of straw and our agricultural-product customer profile and has thoughts and opinions on all these topics. So, the word is out, the tractorazzi have struck and it's all round the village now. Everywhere you look there is an angled hand carving a big sweep through the air and Queenie Quad is on the quite-fast-track to celebrity. (OK, so I'm exaggerating un petit peu.) One thing is for sure though - like it or not, we have become advice magnets.
Well, it's been a while. At least a month I guess. What with decorating, having the fabulous Black and Asian Writers' Group for a week at Le Couvent and going on holiday to Marrakech, I'm afraid my blog has been back-burnered. I shall try to make amends.
Lizzie and I have spent a bit of time up at the mazet but it's been mostly friend and dog-walking. Next week though we're hoping we might stay there for two or three days and get some serious work done before the b'n b season starts on the 1st May. Yesterday we picked up the deeds to the mazet from the notaire's office (yesss!) and armed with our 250 shares we popped into the Cave Co-operative. There was a woman in the shop wearing terrifying glasses who we rather hoped wasn't the ex-wife of M. Gineste Jnr.. Lizzie launched into an explanation of who we were. "Monday morning," said madame, "between 8 and midday. He'll be in the office then and he can answer your questions." "Terrific," we said, "should we make an appointment?" "Queues aren't usually a problem here," she smiled. Splendid, that's a relief.
All the vines have popped their leaves now and this is the moment to start spraying against disease, so, riding our wave, we headed for the agricultural products shop. Sitting outside it were two 4x4s, a tractor and five blokes smoking and talking. As we bobbled up in the Fearless van their jaws, as one, dropped. Lizzie had worked out a brilliant plan which aimed to plant the roots of a professional relationship with the agri-shop meanwhile establishing, we hoped, a mutual respect. It went like this: Us: "Hallo. We've just bought Marcel Gineste's vineyard." Agri-bloke: "The one on the road to Vailhan? The one with the big..?" his hands turned at an angle and carved a big sweep through the air. He smiled. Us: "Yup, that's the one. Now listen, we have no idea what we're doing." Agri-bloke stared. "But we want to learn. All the tractors are out spraying their vines at the moment. Can you tell us why and what they're spraying with? We need to buy some." Agri-bloke: "Will you be using a tractor?" We shook our heads, our hands automatically turning at an angle and carving a big sweep through the air. "Ah oui, d'accord," all three of us nodded gravely, in unison. A pause. "So?" Us: "By hand." Was that an incipient guffaw we could see playing at the corners of his mouth or was it the nascent twinges of mutual respect? Agri-bloke: "Right then. Yes, well. OK. Mildew and oïdium are the diseases. There are three products you can use to spray against them - one takes a long time and is the cheapest, one takes not so long and is less cheap, the third is by far the quickest and by far the most expensive. Let me explain." Us, using the quick and direct route guaranteed to plant the roots of a professional relationship: "Right then, mate, no worries. We'll take the expensive one, shall we?" He brightened, and introduced us to his dog, a young, pale Labrador who was very nervous but liked the smell of us a lot. It's a dog thing. He loaded a bale of straw, a plant-taping stapler and the liquid gold otherwise known as fungicide into the back of the van and we all shook hands, drank mint tea and negotiated seventeen camels as a dowry. Ooops. Sorry. Wrong week. Marrakech moment there. I'm lying about the mint tea.
Pierre, for indeed agri-bloke is he, is now our new best friend in a child-of-the-soil kind of a way. He is a poppet and deserves our deepest gratitude for telling us, sweetly, all sorts of fantastically useful and fascinating information while managing, tactfully, not to laugh out loud. We are hoping he will take us further under his wing in due course once he realises we are not completely bonkers. And he WAS rather impressed that we had a quad (we are the first in Roujan although he has a vigneron-friend in Caux who already has one) though I must confess we didn't tell him about the floral, anti-theft device. Step by step.
The bright yellow honey-scented gorse is ending just as the even brighter yellow genet arrives. The air is drowsily heavy with the scent, and the irises up at the mazet have burst into bloom and look spectacular. On the left-hand side of the drive they are the prettiest shade of lavender. The potager is filling up - Lizzie planted organic courgette and tomato plants the other day and we've been tasting the first strawberries. Divine. We ate a couple of the delicious curly lettuces last night in a spectacular dinner cooked by Lizzie which ended up with a couple of divine sorbets - one fresh strawberry and the other a devastatingly good lime and basil. If you want the recipe for it have a look at today's Le Couvent blog. Believe me, it's fabulous.
We lost. We didn't even make it to the second vote. The incumbent mayoral team in Roujan got at least 60% of the vote so there was no debate and certainly no second vote. We are not sure we see much of an eco-future given that the mayor's son (therefore the municipal architect) doesn't seem too keen on greenery in general. We are appalled.
Nicola (hip, hip, yessss!!) was fourth on the alternative list of thirteen; felicitations, notre biche!
Today, Saturday, felt like a Sunday. Do you know what I mean? It was grey, misty, Scottish, rather bleak. An all-the-shops are-shut-today day. They weren't of course. Lizzie woke up early and went off to Pezenas maket and bought blette (chard) and tomatoes to plant in the potager. She also went to the second-hand clothes stall and got some cracking linen tops and jeans before drifting off to buy heavenly olives, goats' cheese, a spit-roasted chicken and two slices of what Josh calls "lush" ham. If anyone reading this blog has ever been to Pezenas market and bought the chicken and ham there on a Saturday morning when the sun shines you'll know exactly how beyond divine our lunch and dinner was today. Today (Saturday which felt like Sunday) I caught up on lost time decorating. In the gloom with all the inside lights on I tried to distinguish MY white from old white which, these days, when no-one smokes in a bedroom, is still a pretty, pretty white. Fab I guess, but a bit frustrating.
And why was I was making up for lost time?
Well, yesterday, Friday which DID feel like a Friday, I woke up with a bit of a hangover (thankyou for a lovely dinner, Angela) dreading the notion of being up a ladder. I was catapaulted into the most divine other dimension by Lizzie saying, "God, what a gorgeous day, could you bear not to be up a ladder (Ali thinks: which I might fall off...) and be in the sunshine (Ali thinks: not turning into an albino mouse while everyone else starts getting a tan...) and come up to the mazet and do some spraying because there's no wind and the weekend looks if it might be a bit dodgy weather-wise?
I muttered, I demurred, I tossed up my options, and after a full ten seconds I gave in gracefully.
Have you ever had a Perfect Day? This Friday we had a Perfect Day. A bona fide Perfect Day. Thank you, thank you, whoever we should thank.
It was still, the sky was as blue as a sky can be. Spring was springing, the quince trees (and where did they come from I ask you?) had branches full of the most delicately-blossomed, pinkly-white flowers that had sprung from twigs that looked as dead as only dead wood can look and now are gracefully drooping with flowers that look like tiny lotuses. March is busting out all over and it all looks ridiculously healthy and raring to go. I somehow can't believe that Nature keeps forgiving us (ie. the human race) and says, OK, it's a new year and I'm going to do what I do, AGAIN. I'm not, actually, going to go on strike this year and keep being on strike for the next ten thousand years. But I could, you know? It's not as if you don't deserve it. So, I'm giving you another last chance, you tossheads. Any chance you might get your act together this year? You do know we're running out of time don't you?
Why is Nature so goddamn generous and prepared to give us another chance when we humans are so goddamn beastly and horrid and damaging and patently don't deserve another chance?
So, yes, well. Lizzie and I were up there to kill stuff. OK? Well, weedy stuff at the feet of the vines - with Roundup. That's our excuse. Maybe soon we'll be organic, but not this year. Sorry. (If you can hear the sound of air being sucked through teeth at this moment it is the sound of our consciences. We will get there, what can I say?) Our current problem is neglected vines plus the problem of carting around 16 litres at a time of weed-killer/vine treatment or whatever in liquid form on our shoulders as we walk up and down the rows of about eight acres of of vines. It amounts to many, many kilometres or miles or whichever translates into your preferred empirical religion. And that's why this Friday (which, yes, did indeed feel like a Perfect Friday) we set out on the Great Experiment. The G.E. involved one Queenie Quad, one quad driver (Lizzie), two masks, one Labradorable, one Husky, and one passenger (me) with spraying equipment.
Picture this - and you can picture us above - after 7 attempts on the camera self-timer, and we're sorry it's not a brilliant photo but, hey, life's too short. On Queenie we are moving at a snail's pace through a narrow line of vines. We are shadowed by dogs who are doing their best to move this slowly without stopping dead, falling over and dropping into a deep sleep. Our resolute chauffeuse, Lizzie, rarely out of first gear (forward or reverse), is trying to keep the red, mean Queenie machine in motion. Clamping Lizzie between her thighs is a tall, thin woman riding pillion. In her left hand is a long wand spraying a noxious substance through something that looks like a miniature cooker hood which often catches on twiggy jobs and flicks backwards. In her right hand she holds a lever attached to a large white plastic container. Ali (for it is indeed she) is leaning left towards the vines and simultaneously pumping up and down on the lever with her right hand like a person in a frenzy. She looks obsessed and slightly mad. "Are you actually spraying anything?" asks Lizzie the driver suspiciously. "Oh yes. Definitely. Look, you can see where they're all wet," says Ali, pumping away like some kind of agricultural sexual pervert. We are in such fits of giggles that Lizzie can barely steer the quad and I can barely aim my cooker hood. Queenie Quad bucks, tilts, grinds and boogies. We hang on, we lean to right or left against the slope like trapezing sailors in the America's Cup, we shout, we guffaw, we squirm, we snigger and we spray. We drive, and, above all, we pump. The dogs follow us up and down, left and right, along and beyond. We are a laughable and ridiculous team. People walk along the public road alongside the amphitheatre. They stop, they stare. They put their hands to their waists and push their elbows out. They double over in hysterics. They take a while to move on. They stop giggling, I can tell you, when the dogs rush off to give them what for.
Kit and Flynn are our CID squad - Chuckling Is Dangerous, they warn. But what happens? Disaster. Hackles rise, hackles drop, dogs roll over, ecstasy happens. Our public aren't fooled. They laugh even more.
"Gimme more, gimme more," sings Britney on the i-Pod. But yeah, babe, we're in the groove. We're here, we're rocking, we're spraying and we want more. What more? This more, ten times more, ten more litres. Ten times more Huskys, more Labradors, more grapes, more lines, more vines. The legendary Miss Kitty, the mucho-macho-maquillaged Mr Flynn.
Then.
No more please, you are going to have to remove me, cos I can't take no more and I ain't going nowhere.
We stop for lunch. Phew! Bakery pizza.
We did so much. It was the happiest, best, most glorious day. It was perfect. It couldn't have been better because it was heaven. And then it did get better. Excuse me? Our wonderful friends, Sally and Paul , who are on holiday in Spain said, "We'll leave our hot tub on. Come and use it while we're away." So we did. Lordy lord, what bliss. On behalf of all vignerons, thank you, you most lovely people. Poor us!
When I was at Channel 4 and the BBC, I worked sometimes with a lovely and talented man called Steve Kelynack. He made a video for the BBC which made me gasp when first I saw it. It still does. It was called "Perfect Day." I loved it not least because it was that most difficult thing, a corporate video for a most complicated corporation. I have no idea whether the Beeb thought he'd achieved his remit or not, but, for what it's worth, it worked for me.
We all know when we've had a perfect day, don't we?
We've hardly been up at the mazet this week because of stonkingly high winds. 130 km gusts tearing in from the mountains have sent the temperatures plummeting and field-workers running for cover. In fact, if I'm not hearing things, people are talking of a "tornado" tomorrow in Britain and Northern France. Can this be true?
On Friday we took the dogs up fearing the worst and discovered, to our surprise, that very little damage had been done. Half a mimosa tree had blown down, but it was the dead half we were going to have to cut down anyway - excellent. The vineyard is littered with the inevitable scraps of black plastic which seem to arrive from nowhere and get everywhere. It seems to me that shredded black plastic is the 21st century equivalent to soot in the last. But the plants in the potager have all, bar one small lettuce, survived, even if they're all rather dry. Yesterday we came up with a solution to the immediate problem of getting water up there for the potager. We bought 4 more 20 litre jerry-cans all of which we can fit on Queenie Quad at the same time AND, best of all, which we can carry one by one. (The problem with water is that it's so damned heavy.) 100 litres a day from here, plus re-filling the containers from the river, will go a long way towards spraying and watering until we get the forage kick-started into life. We also decided it was time to give the babe a face-lift and girlie her up a bit. Here she is with new decals (goodbye Desert Storm, hallo Queenie) and her new, anti-theft device, plastic flowers. Doesn't she look grand?
We're hoping a wind of change may gust through Roujan today as well. It's Municipal Elections day and Lizzie and I voted for the first time here in France with great pride. We've voted for "the list" opposing the mayor, not least because Nicola is on it but also because they're a bit less stick in the mud and the new would-be mayor actually lives here. Roujan is one of 4 village we know of where "foreigners" (all women coincidentally) have been invited to stand for election. Very interesting. Our doigts are croisséd. There are some pictures on the Le Couvent blog if you want to find out more.
When we initialled the last page, signed the last signature and Lizzie wrote the cheque this morning, tore it out and handed it over to be paper-clipped on top of many pages of legal words, we both sagged, "Merci. Finally. Phew. Oh, thank you!" We were relieved in different ways but, my oh my, the relief was huge. The commune of Roujan was never really going to want the mazet - known as a piece of land where a tractor wouldn't work, and the French State, therefore, wanted it even less. But when you've set your heart on something, and over the months the stiff, upper lip notion that "okay, well, even if we lose it now it's going to have been a great experience" starts wearing thin, the 0.01% that something or someone, somewhere in authority is GOING TO TAKE THIS AWAY FROM US starts to grow bigger and bigger in your brain. Can we be this lucky? Why doesn't anyone else want to be this lucky? It's just so beautiful and can we bear this not to happen now that we've all had it for all this time? You know how it is.
So, one way or another today has been a day and a half, and it's left us reeling.Yes, it really is ours. Chateau Malaudos has officially been stamped over to our care. We've been tamponed.
And we signed the papers, and M. Gineste looked sad but happy all at once and talked to us about a distant stream in distant hills that is the same underground stream running beneath our earth, and Maitre Bancal wants us to name our first vintage, Cuvée L'Ancien Couvent because wine and religion is above all the best heavenly combination. And lovely Michel Rouillé has talked to the Cave Cooperative who are expecting us to call, and yes, we can take our grapes there and ...... yes, we are ridiculously happy and enormously emotional all at the same time.
Whenever something big happens in a legal way here in France now Lizzie and I celebrate in the Grand Café here in Roujan. We splash out on a café crème and an Armagnac and clink glasses. (Believe me, this works in a way that Cristalle never has.) The rest of the bar, if they notice, smile and raise their glasses in the mirror. Today, the 3rd of March 2008, was no different and happiness is, as always, irresistible. Then we took off with the dogs to walk the perimeter of OUR LAND. We walked, we talked, we hummed, we wheezed and we thought about the future. Why is it different now? Why does it feel different? Why have our shoulders dropped and why are we bawling our eyes out? All day long. It's partly because the answer is so simple. On this truly exquisite piece of land we know we could always just park a caravan (or three), plant cabbages and radishes and potatoes, have hens and a goat or two and live like happy kings. (Though I have to cross my heart here and wonder if true happiness is truly possible if Broadband availability is not...!?)
It's also because there have been no obstacles raised against our buying of this land. For someone like me, born in Penang, whose British passport is entirely legitimate but somehow implausible and never expects to belong; and Lizzie, whose Suffolk family from way, way back comes from the land but who has never expected to look out over 10 pretty acres and know it all belongs to her, this day is remarkable. M. Gineste and Maitre Bancal have talked about Napoleon, their next-door neighbours and the Franco-Prussian wars in our last meetings. Today Mre. Bancal really wanted my previous job-description of "personnalité du radio" to be replaced, in our legal document, by the words "comèdienne de la voix." It was a phrase he had had tucked up his sleeve like a magician's white rabbit and I think he was thrilled when he could produce a better understanding of my old, odd British job. He also talked about the advantages, desires and importance of a united and politically powerful European Union. "Vous-êtes d'accord?" "Oui, vraiment." So, two English women are buying a piece of French soil from an 87-year old Frenchman born in 1920 in the same week as Lizzie's dad, on behalf of his son who now lives in Strasbourg. Every French person we have talked to so far, has not only been kind, they have been enthusiastic and warm and talked about the importance of terroir and land and earth and family and continuity. I may be naive, but to me it's been an education.
Josh, Lizzie's lovely nephew, can be relied on to cut to the quick. Yesterday, when he was digging over the potager he said to Lizzie, "You know, when all this is ours', what would be wonderful, would be to have a horse here. " Lizzie: "Where would it live?" Josh: "I don't know." Lizzie, after a moment or two: "It could live in the orchard with the peach trees and olives. Plenty of room there. Why a horse, Josh?" Josh: "We could ride along the road up there, above the capitelle, and then ride on even further. It would be lovely."
Wouldn't it just?
As you may have read we've been planting juvenile saplings at Chateau Malaudos. Today I heard that my sista Kate's mother died last week and that Sarah lost her father over a fortnight ago. With their permission, two young 'uns will be planted in honour of Pat Meynell and Peter Golding.
Just 12 and a half hours to wait until our appointment at the notaire's office. Maitre Bancal will read the entire legal document out loud and then we'll all, one by one, place our initials at the bottom of every page. It takes forever but it's rather comforting in an archaic sort of way. Fingers crossed that by lunchtime tomorrow the mazet officially will be ours.
We rose from our sick-beds today, loaded up the dogs, brunch makings and the lovely Josh and his rotivator. What a divine day. Blue, blue skies, temperature about 21 degrees, a slight breeze. Lizzie and I have agreed we won't overdo things and that we'll spend most of the time sitting on a sunbed watching Josh do the work.
We started off with a walk so that Josh could see what progress we'd made. As we got to the very top of the Top Walk we looked west and realised we could see the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees. So beautiful and such a thrill. While Lizzie lit a fire and started making full English brunch and Josh started rotivating the first of four potager beds, I took the camera back up the hill to try and get a shot of the peaks before they disappeared. No luck I'm afraid as they were just too faint to make out on the horizon. Another time. After fab food, Josh ploughed on unearthing huge worms in the gorgeous soil while Lizzie weeded, raked, fertilised and watered and I pruned a last line of path-bordering vines. The yellow, cottony buds on many of the vines are getting really fat now and are nearly, nearly ready to burst. This one is the first we think.
After perfect, growing weeks of sunshine or mild dampness, spring is really springing now. We have hedges of rosemary in full blueness, the almond blossom is weeks old and the peach blossom is now bursting in all its fabulous bubble-gum pinkness - what a colour. Bees are buzzing bizzily and the pine trees send off clouds of pollen dust whenever the wind blows. Daffs, narcissi and muscari are swaying their heads and all the vineyards are covered in clouds of white wildflowers. It is just gorgeous.
I did have a snooze on a sun-bed but of course Lizzie didn't. We probably ended up doing more than we should have but it was a treat to be out in the air. Josh was Herculean in his man-handling of the big, bad machine today which is a real brute to handle though he makes it look easy. Josh took this photograph of the finished potager beds while he was standing on the corner of the bassin. He loved all the long, evening shadows including his and Kit's.
Then Lizzie looked up, and took a picture of Josh with his biggest fan. He is our hero.
Just two days to go until we sign now, and the mazet has been horribly neglected over the past few days. Dogs have been walked there but only just in a slow, heavy, gasping plod around the inner perimeter. Lizzie's cold turned into a stinker and I, snottily, followed. Mine is a pale imitation but knackering too. We've been living in a World of Phlegm, sleeping like hibernating bears and reading like worms. So far I've got through Philip Sedaris "Me Talk Pretty One Day," Jim Crace's "The Pesthouse," David Leavitt's "The Indian Clerk" and had a few dips into "Je fait mon vin" which is short, simple, with pictures, but in French - which is probably more than my brain can cope with right now. Can thoroughly recommend all the books above which (in my order) I'd describe as 1) very funny. 2) parallel universe romantic lyricism. 3) Great War, claustrophobic Oxford shennanigans with beautiful maths. 4) perfect for the new (and panicking) vineyard owner. Today, for the first day, I began to get bored so I'm hoping that might signal a turn for the better.
With Kathy's help the other day we pruned the last remaining vines. Anything that's not pruned we intend to take out. Now, of course, we have to begin spraying for 1001 diseases and the general upkeep, but the Big Clear-Up is pretty well done. Unbelievable. Thank you, thank you, thank you all. Kathy used to be a hairdresser in Knightsbridge so, unsurprisingly, she's a dab hand with sharp tools. She came up with our neighbour Maria Picanço and her son Victor and his wife Rozelle. Maria is 81 but walked the walk as if she were 20 years younger, slapping away hands held out to help, far more sure-footed than the rest of us. "I'm used to the mountains" she says. Victor and Rozelle, we discovered to our amazement, used to live near here, quite close by up another stony path in a mobile home. For twenty years! They said they had the most fantastic life there, simple, not rich, but with everything they needed. Victor said that their caravan just got rather "bigger" over the years. They thought Chateau Malaudos was beautiful which we took as a great compliment.
Sad to say, we forgot to take the camera with us. But above is the lovely portrait of Maria taken by Poppy (Lizzie's 13 year old niece) as part of her recent photographic exhibition in our gallery here. (See Lizzie's blog.) The photo below is of Maria in the kitchen at Le Couvent where she comes regularly to solve problems for us. As you can see Maria and I, in our matching trousers, are peas in a pod.
Well, Queenie Quad has arrived and we're all very happy together. We think the future's bright. We think the future's red and we're going to wind her bumpers around with bright pink and red plastic flowers. Why? Well, whenever I used to go and stay with my friend Kate in Kensal Green a wonderful yellow Indian taxi used to be parked there covered in wonderful bright plastic daisies. Ready to be hired for weddings and suchlike I suppose, and it made me smile every time I saw it. We also think that the local youth is less likely to nick this girlie version of Desert Storm 250 ATV BoLLX grrruffstuff, if it's in lipstick red and not the original camouflage version we first saw our Q-girl sporting. Queenie is fab. She goes up steep hills and doesn't tip backwards. She traverses slopes and hasn't slipped-sliding away sideways yet or fallen over. We load her up with dead vine souches and she doesn't complain. Kit is in love and follows her wherever she goes, so sleeps like a top every night. Kit is Queenie's bitch, no doubt about it. We're hoping to buy her (Queenie not Kit) a trailer, tanks to carry and spray from, a mower to tow and, one day, a solar panel - and how cool would that be?
To our complete astonishment the vine-pruning chez Chateau Malaudos is very nearly finished. There are perhaps another 300 vines left and a week (when the current drizzle stops - predicted tomorrow) to finish it off. The end of February is, in theory, the end point, the finishing line, the calendar time when spring kicks in and growth and not snipping becomes the order of the day. We never, ever expected or dreamt when we started this winter that we'd ever say to our friends and volunteers who've given us their time so generously, "actually, we're there, we've pruned as much, and more, than we ever thought we could. We need to stop because, believe it or not, there's nothing left to prune." My, my, my. Last Sunday our friend Nicola arrived with two friends on holiday from England. Ed the Boat was crap at pruning but became Our Man in a White Suit and A Silly Hat when it came to locating and kicking out dead vine-souches. Thanks Ed. I have to say the star of the show though was Tung. She is not only the most fantastic chef at the Thai Boathouse in Stratford and cooked us (how could we be so unbelievably spoilt I ask you!!) the best Thai food I have ever eaten in my life, she is also the daughter of fruit farmers and knows her way around sprouting stuff. Her secateurs worked with a speed and sureness that was truly alarming if you were trying to strim ahead of her as I was. Merci, merci bien Tung. A bientot, nous esperons.
(I have to say I rather love the photo above mostly because Nicola looks as if she's just sprung from her pony in a Jill's Gymkhana sort of a way, plus (if you look really closely) her photograph is also on the page of the Chateau Malaudos book she's reading.)
We took the dogs walking today. It's stopped raining but the water is still pouring down the courses at, we reckon, a litre a minute. Soon, when it's really ours, we'll find a way to trap it. Still to wet to prune without risk to the vines but tomorrow we're hoping for sunshine again. The grape hyacinth are popping now and the peach blossom is pinking out. All Lizzie's newly-planted cabbages and kings survived the downpour in the potager and today we propped terracotta tiles below the wire fence in the strimmed gaps to try and make it rabbit-proof. Tomorrow our lovely neighbour Maria Picanço wants to bring her son and daughter-in-law up to have a look, and a new friend, Kathy, has offered us her help for the day. Dolly, Kathy's dog with a bandana, is coming too. Lizzie is having an early night with a hot toddy tonight trying to ward off the cold that she, till today, had managed to escape all winter long in doughty good health. She reckons her itchy throat and runny nose are down to contact with anyone who's been within recent spitting distance of London Transport. It's a change-of-season thing and, I have to say if you live in London right now, it is inevitable. Lizzie was overjoyed to abandon the noxious airs of South-East England's vile transport system 5 years ago however, and she is NOT happy.
On Monday 3rd March at 11 a.m. we will go to the notaire's office with our cheque-book and full hearts. When we leave we hope the mazet and land will be ours. So far the sale has gone unchallenged by Roujan and we're hoping the French State hasn't sent its spies to discover the improvements that have been made to our iris beds and thistle banks. Fingers crossed that Sarko and Carla Bruni don't know "how beautiful just," as my Mum would say, it has all become.
Ever since Mazet Sunday a fortnight ago we've been meaning to go the garden centre. When Teddy and Lionel attacked the old kiwi fruit frame below the mazet vineyard they found that only one vine was still alive. It looks strong and healthy but we don't know whether it's male or female. So the other day when the two Js were here we picked out one of each along with some salad and strawberry plants. The vines were immediately named Kylie and Kevin - they are Kiwis after all. Everything was meticulously planted and after three days of drizzle it all looks in great shape. So far the potager chicken-wire fence is intact and holding firm against bugs and bunnies - fingers crossed. The odd daffodil is already flowering, the mimosas are in full flower and the almond blossom looks outrageously bright against the sky. Just beautiful.
We can't prune in the rain of course so tools have been downed since Sunday. The meteo says we're back in business on Thursday but we feel we're losing time and March is getting a little too close for comfort. I walked the dogs today and it did look lovely. It was misty and soft and looked as though a watery wash of weak tea had been brushed all over the landscape. Like a warmer version of the Scottish countryside. These drizzly days don't happen too often here so it makes rather a nice change to see all our Mediterranean colours a bit muted.
One other bit of really good news. We haven't heard a single shot in the last few days. The hunting season is over. Hooray. The dogs are out of their silly bright orange collars and all creatures great and small are chirping and cheering with relief. Bloody marvellous. By a strange (or maybe not!!) coincidence no sooner had the hunters stopped shooting than the French Air Force took over by crashing through the sound barrier right above our heads. They're supposed to wait until they reach the coast, but four huge sonic booms in the last five days have had us all ducking for cover. Even the house feels as if it's bouncing. Honestly, boys and their toys, who needs 'em?
