It only seems like yesterday that Lilas broke up from school and started the Summer holidays at the beginning of July.
And then before I knew it, we’d been on the Naked tour, my family had come and gone, the Olympics and Paralympics ended with a bang, the Fetes de Villages had packed up for the year, our Summer friends had all been and gone…
…and suddenly the grapes got ripe for the picking! (‘Les Vendanges’):
– and the new school year (‘La Rentree’) 2012-2013 started.
Come September, a different kind of ambience sets in around here. The tourists (or most of them!) have left en masse, the weather softens and jumpers come out for nights on the terrace, the markets no longer have ‘bouchons’ (traffic jams):
…the local pools have shut their gates:
– and tanned bodies (just not ours) post ‘les vacances’:
…get ready for some WORK!
Les Vendanges is one of the most important events on our local calendar (most people in our village own or have some family connection/ investment in grape vines) – and each year, come September, there is the most wonderful buzz in the air. The village hums with expectation and excitement over the ‘recolte’ (harvest) – it’s time to pick the ‘fruits’ of a long year’s labour.
And harvest always coincides with the kiddies going back to school after two months’ of holidays. I still can’t quite get my head around this school ‘year’ here. In Australia our school ‘year’ begins around the beginning of the calendar year, in February – after Xmas and at the end of Summer. Here, each school year ends in what I would call the middle of the year, July, and then recommences in September. And because of this schoolbooks, labels etc name the school ‘year’ as ‘2000-2001’ etc. This year for example, is ‘2012-2013’. I know I’m rambling. Maybe it’s because I’m from ‘down there’ that I’m confused.
Anyway, back to the grapes. The reds are just getting under way, but Benji has been picking for a couple weeks’ now as the whites here ripened earlier. As for how this year’s harvest will be? It’s looking good so far – relief! The weather has been almost perfect for the grapes these last few weeks – a lot of sun and no rain – and so it all needs to come in NOW!
It will be the biggest week yet – 4am starts, working through until 6pm, 7/7. Another couple of weeks of this, then it’s finished for the pickers and machine harvesters in the vines, but full-steam ahead in the wine cellar – managing the tanks and their juice. Benji will maintain this crazy routine for a few more weeks yet – until the end of October. And then it will be time to think about HIS holiday!…
Time for your attention and a little update on something Benji and I enjoyed this Summer! (but sorry, you won’t find us in the fleshy mix above).
We hit the road and joined the Naked Wines Tasting Tour of the UK!
There were many special moments, but here’s a glimpse of the wonderful people we met and re-met and chinked glasses with, from all corners of the winemaking world, as we travelled the countryside in a tour bus driven by the lovely Bob, in late June, to show our wares.
Norwich, Cambridge, London, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham – nearly each stop on the 2012 tour (Benji and I could only make half of it) was sold-out and each tasting event held in a beautiful venue of each town. It’s an impressive sight seeing the doors open to hundreds of wine enthusiasts ready, with ther glasses poised, to try over 140 wines.
France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Germany, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand, the U.S. and bien sur, Australia! – these are the countries that the winemakers selling their wines with Naked Wines hail from and what a great bunch of people they are!
It was brilliant to finally meet people behind the names I’d seen and admired from the Naked website – and get to try their wines. We got to chat on the bus, over the breakfast table, behind a tasting table, over a take-away pizza, watching the Australian cricket warming-up in the nets at Lord’s, on a walk trying to find the nearest public loo, disco dancing on a dancefloor until the early hours… You know, quality times like that. It’s not often I get out of my hamlet and hang with people from around the world in such a short time. We had so much fun.
And then of course, there were the tasters! A thriving mass of curious, enthusiastic, incredibly friendly people who came out to our tastings and worked their way through the hundreds of bottles. Benji and I loved the atmosphere of each tasting and picked up good feedback, first-hand, on his wines. It was hard not to soak up the fun – obligatory tasting required for quality checks ; ) And then there were all those wines from everyone else that we hadn’t even tried yet….
All in all a wonderful tour. I kinda like being the Vigneron’s helper.
And after every good wine tasting, there comes a delicious all five food groups breakfast…
And they all (well, apart from the couple we saw having a tiff under the tree in Cardiff) went home happy.
They came, they saw, we drank – woohooey!
It was meant to have been a BIG surprise, but in the end we knew. But that didn’t change ANYTHING in the way of how excited I was to have my parents – for the first time in 12 years!!- come and visit us.
My lovely brother had tried as hard as he could to keep it a surprise until the very last but, with all sorts of things popping up on his end and ours, had to tell us that he was heading our way with two of his kids and da da da daaaa… Ma and Pop in tow!
Since we moved here 14 years ago I’ve been enormously lucky to have had so many friends and family stay – and each time is so special as you get to enjoy each person on their own and usually over an extended time (hey, this is no quick side trip on the itinerary – if you’re going to travel from one side of the world to the other you’d better make it a decent trip!). I adore going back to see everyone in Oz, but it can get hectic trying desparately to catch up with everyone at once. This way, when people come to stay on our turf, I can relish every minute of their company and not have to juggle with a social diary.
So this was Jan and Pete’s – and Mark, Ruby and James’s turn to finally drop their bags and hang out (in the home that my parents hadn’t seen until now!)
I took them to all the places they’d rememebered vividly from twelve years ago, dined in a few lovely bistrots, cooked my favourite meals for them, introduced them to our mates and even snuck in a few drinking sessions, bien sur, with Benji’s wines (yes I’ll make it clear you don’t drink the stuff Mum).
I can’t tell you how good it was to have everyone here at last. I’m still smiling. Thanks big bro Mark for making it happen!
ps – a word of warning! there’s a few pics down below, sorry – but hell, this trip was twelve years in the making!
And now for a little ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!!!!!
Leaving the vino and the vineyards aside for a moment, the wannabe groupie in me enjoyed a night of bliss this Summer, standing 15 metres away from this man and hearing him sing!…
Yes, I’m in love.
It was euphoric listening to Robert Plant do his thing and yes I want to yell about it out loud!!
I have two big brothers who introduced me to all sorts of music when I was little – The Rolling Stones, Kate Bush, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, Simon and Garfunkel, and one of the big ones for me, Led Zeppelin. I’ll never forget the first time one of them played me ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the tape recorder and made me listen to it the whole way through… My brother wanted me to fully appreciate the beauty of this track, talking me through it, wanting me to understand that a heavy rock group could play such gentle, melodic music. I think I was about seven? But the look of despair on the ballet teacher’s face when I asked her to hit play and ‘Stairway’ accompanied my choreographed piece for the annual ballet concert. I don’t think she appreciated Led Zeppelin’s melody and I had her scurrying to hit pause as the track started cranking up. Mmm, not quite the family with mountains of classical recordings to choose from really. The ballet didn’t last long either.
Anyway, even if it wasn’t Led Zeppelin playing, this was pretty damn cool!
Robert Plant may be in his mid-sixties, and he might not strutt his stuff (in those incredibly, impossibly tight jeans) with the same force, but the hair flick was there, the clapping of silver-jewelled hands along with his musicians was there… elegant, humble and generous. I always thought that he sang and moved in perfect unsion with his musicians – like he himself was a fine instrument – and yes, he still ROCKS! Daggy I know, but tears were streaming down my face as – quelle bonne surprise! – he sang a few of my favourite Led Zep songs (‘Ramble On’ would you believe it, Soir!). Heaven. The deranged music fan in me had me struggling to get up the front, elbowing blokes 4foot taller than me, so I could be as close to Him as possible… So I could imagine he was singing only for me, would let me get up there and bang on a tambourine for him (I would be so cool and discreet) and invite me back later for a beer… Dream on. In fact I was stuck behind a painful dude in a baseball cap who refused to budge, so that he could film the entire event on his puny mobile phone (so that pathetic fans like me can then look up our favourite concert moments on YouTube).
The evening was gloriously warm and the setting for the concert was perfect. It was held in the ancient ‘Les Arenes de Nimes’ – one of the best-preserved Roman ampitheatres in the world, dating from the 1st century A.D. – smack-bang in the middle of Nimes, a beautiful town one hour’s drive north-east of Montpellier. It felt surreal taking in all the old stone forms circling us, while watching Robert Plant and the Band of Joy in action – the figures of the security guards walking along the very top perimeter of the arena looked like guards patrolling a gladiator scene.
But like all your favourite concerts, it was over in an instant and I screamed like I was 18 again with my hands in the air, begging for more (and my last chance for that beer).
No chance. I was going home with Benji and our friends afterall, but there was still cause for a celebration! The beers went down swimmingly well and the next morning another couple of old friends joined me at the table outside the hotel.
Before we left Nimes, we wanted to take in just a little bit more Kulture (we’re deprived out here in the sticks!) and headed to the ‘Carre d’Art’, the contemporary art gallery whose building was conceived by Norman Foster. It’s well worth a look – for its small collections as well as its architectural form.
I fell in love with these two paintings (funnily enough, both painted in 1961):
The gallery is a brilliant visual contrast to the ‘Maison Carree’ across the road – an incredibly beautiful Roman temple, thought to be the only temple in the world so well-preserved (sorry for the lack of good images! – my camera had gone on the blink and I was using the phone!??!!).
Amidst all the culture, Nimes still had a little rock n’roll left in it.
…at least some people are still wearing the tight pants.
And I can’t help it, here’s a reminder of the rockstar version:
The Vigneron's Wife 