Chateau Malaudos

 

 

With hands still shaking from 2 hours on the bushwhacker this morning, I can hardly write this blog!

It was an early start as we were only doing a half day today as most of the team were a bit shattered from the day before. Dark clouds and rain met us as we came down to breakfast and there was some discussion whether it was a good idea to go up to the vineyard . Lizzie suggested we all took the  whole day off, this was met with a resounding "no fear". What a brave, hardworking team!

The rain took a break as we made our way up and we got just over two hours hard work packed in before it started again. Linda did an excellent job of 'styling' the small garden in front of the mazet while Andrew started digging up little trees and repositioning them on the bank above the amphitheatre. More strimming and burning, more digging and hoeing.

Rain stopped play at noon and lunch was taken in the nice warm and dry kitchen at Le Couvent. It was a bit quiet as I think we've all hit the 'mid week wall' zzzzzzzz.

The lucky ones got to have a kip this afternoon, those of us with other errands had to dash off in the rain again!  The grounds are all really beginning to come together as a result of our efforts.

Before our house is passed on to its new owners at the end of April, Sue and I have decided to dig up two lemon trees that are currently in our garden at Maison Vanille that my mum bought for us when she was in France in 2006 - our last holiday together before she died in the following December. We are going to christen them "Cissy's lemons" and plant them up at the mazet.  They'll always be a reminder of my lovely Mum in a lovely place. I know that she'd really like that.

Sarah and Andrew are busily preparing tonight's meal as I write. Boeuf Bourguinon. Hooray!

Its still raining though. Chucking it down in fact!

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The temperatures at Chateau Malaudos are stifling at the moment. The vines aren't at their best either, having taken the most awful battering during last September's hail-filled tornado. I think they look weakened and they really have very little fruit hanging. We've also suffered a bit from oidium thanks to hot and wet weather during the Spring. So we're sort of cutting our losses this year. It's likely we'll have precious few grapes to take to the Cave Co-operative; we'll just keep the best and make our own wine.

 

As for last year's meagre drop of wine, it's still trying to complete its malolactic fermentation. The wine is pretty high alcohol and the cave also hadn't been used for wine-making for years, so the necessary bacteria just aren't there. We're waiting to see our proper wine-making friends tonight to ask them what to do next.

 

 

Meanwhile the mazet looks pretty much like the building in this lovely painting by Julian Merrow-Smith . The postcard sized artwork is currently up for auction. Have a llok back through his archives - there's some wonderful work.

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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. 

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.  

 

 

 

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 Wednesday 11th February is our rest day after two days working with a great team of people at Chateau Mal Au Dos, the soon to become world famous vineyards of the South of France.

Monday started with many journeys to the local tip to clear the piles of garden waste gathered by the team over the weekend. Next it was up to the Chateau Mal Au Dos for the first time this visit, armed with an assortment of gardening equipment ready for any task that was assigned. Our first task was to strim area between the vines clearing the way for a group to prune behind us. This was followed by lunch, a fantastic vegetable soup prepared by Debbie.

After lunch we were taken to a sloped area between two terraces where the idea was to construct some steps from one level to the other. With the help of Sharon we started to clear the area before making plans on how we could set the stairway, then to our surprise we found a very large stones, then another and another which continued until we go half way between the two levels.

 

 

So what seemed like a daunting task was a lovely job renovating someone's hard work from the past. After this it was back to Le Couvent to relax for the evening and enjoy the delightful supper prepaired by Jane & Marianne.

Following that first fun packed day we were ready to take on the next, however our day was nearly brought to a premature end by our friends at EDF Energy who had decided to start excavating across the main access to Chateau Mal Au Dos. Not to be thwarted by this, some quick thinking by advance party, Ali had found an alternative route in, so we were able to get our small convoy of equipment to a very eager team already assembled and waiting to galvanise into action. Which is what everyone did without hesitation.

There were teams armed with strimmer, chain saws, clippers, choppers, saws & a whole manner of implements dotted around the vineyard taking on all & any rough vegetation. Again, as Monday,  lunch was provided by Debbie - a wonderful blue cheese & broccolli soup. Following lunch we had a short spell of Southern France's liquid sunshine before getting back to work.

 

As we walked back to the area where we had been working, looking around you could see the whole place looking fresher and somehow more vibrant, this gave us a real sense of purpose and the drive to achieve even more through our stay. So back to the prickly bushes, brambles & overgrown vegetation for more outdoor entertainment.

 

 

As the afternoon drew to a close Lizzie called the team together. Once assembled Lizzie & Ali took us all on a tour of the vineyard. As we went around you could see the dramatic changes that everyone had contributed to, vines had been pruned, access between the vines had been manicured, walkways clear, drive ways made wider, hidden featrures revealed and areas covered in weed exposed ready for replanting.

 

After this it was time to make our way back to Le Couvent so we packed the equipment and headed of, only to find EDF had not completed their work resulting in one of the cars being stranded to wrong side of their excavations. No problem, we had a plan, advance party Ali would lead on the quad followed by Lizzie in the van, then 5 of us in the 4x4 with the stranded car bringing up the rear and we would go out the same way as we came in. The order in which we were travellling was important because the route out was not exactly straightforward  and involved negotiating a number of large hills and a mountain track (for want of a better description), which only the 4x4 & quad were designed for. Anyway just as we started our journey the skies opened and it lashed down more liquid sunshine, making the track a little challanging to say the least. Despite this we continued until we reached our first steep incline (loose mud, shale & one or two large rocks), three of the vehicles got past this ok the 4th, however, as not so lucky due to a very slippery surface. However, it only took support, encouragement and a bit of a push from the team in the other vehicles to get the 4th vehicle through as well. We plodded on and eventually got back on to a proper road surface, with all credit to the driver of that 4th vehicle, the all terraine Nissan Micra (We have excluded the names to protect their identity should anyone from Hertz read this blog).

Supper Tuesday evening was again delightful, this time prepared by Chris & Sue, which was followed by an evening in the TV room watching a  of Mama Mia, the karaoki version no less, which I  (Doug) confess was good fun but made even better by those there.  

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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. 

 

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I ache from head to toe. All thanks to a good five hours at Chateau Mal Au Dos sorting out the problem with the well. But finally, after much puffing, blowing, wrenching, standing in Cauvy & Fils wishing I'd actually measured the pipes before going shopping for plumbing parts, it all fitted. Now we have water to the reservoir, and at both ends of the vegetable garden. And it's only taken 10 months.

After that I stopped briefly for a sweet pomegranate from the tree then got a fit of energy and dug the potager like a demon possessed under blisteringly hot sun. So last night passed with me groaning with aches, pains & crampy legs. Stupid old fool.

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After the devastation of the vines and olives Ali & I have found ourselves more and more depressed each time we have visited Chateau Mal Au Dos to walk the dogs. After such beauty and plenty it is soul-destroying to see the blank vines and arid featureless soil. So, only one thing for it - we set to work. Each time we say we're off to the vineyards to do a bit of work wonderful friends and guests say they'd like to come too. So yesterday we had Chris & Sue & Sharon & Paula & Doug & Caroline along with us. And what stars they were. Thank you. Volunteer's week anyone ?

 

 

 Doug didn't seem at all embarrassed by driving Queenie the Quad decked out in flowers.

 

 

Paula & I set to clearing up and digging over the potager in preparation for plants from Clermont market.

 

 

Chris & Sue cleared the top road so we can get the van & trailer up there to collect dead vines.

 

 

Doug & Caroline fertilised the bottom syrah.

 

 

Sharon womanfullywrestled the yellow grass chomper round the orchard ready for apple tree planting.

 

 

Lunch for hungry workers

 

 

 The extra wine has been added to the first run stuff & now we have this:

 

 

  Just enough to bottle for Le Couvent. We hope.

 

 

 

 

 

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We're looking for volunteers. Not just any old volunteers, but people who love working hard, eating well and living in a beautiful old house during February.

The jobs we need doing are pruning vines (we have 6000 of them and each is pruned by hand), painting around the house, gardening at Le Couvent, tree pruning at Chateau Mal Au Dos , olive pruning (there are only 30 odd) and putting rooves on various spaces both at Le Couvent and in the vineyards. And other jobs are bound to come to mind nearer the time.

You'll be asked to work your socks off for five hours a day and in exchange we offer you free bed and board at Le Couvent, Roujan, a great deal of fun and laughter, the chance to meet interesting people from all over the world, an introduction to viticulture and an unforgettable experience. Sadly we can't pay for your travel here, nor can we pay you.

We need people who enjoy the satisfaction of a day's real exertion, including someone who'd like to cook for at least fifteen people every day, at least three strong-uns with a bit of building know how and five others who can turn their hands to anything. You need to be pretty fit, but we'd rather have inventive minds than a team of hopeless brawn. You need to be over 20, but age is not an issue - we're just looking for a varied and balanced team.

You can apply to do a week or the whole fortnight, but not a day or two here and there.

We will be running the volunteer weeks from 1-7 February 2009 and/or 8-14 February 2009 and/or 15-21 February 2009. In fact we'll only be doing two weeks, but will decide which according to the most popular with applicants.

We have this accommodation available during those weeks and may be able to find more if we are a little over-subscribed:

3 x twin rooms, two double rooms and one single room. All the rooms have their own bathrooms.

If this tickles your fancy please apply using this form .

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Just a quickie on Women's Day here in France.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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