Last French morning for me. (Leaving Ste Colombe for UK. Harvest here is over.) Clear sky again. Full moon that was in east over church last night lit the bedroom all night, now in west over St Emilion. Still pursued by little Jupiter.
First hint of grey, first chirrup, first cough and I must struggle out for the bread. Near collision by church. Wake up PROPERLY call. Drive down to the big valley still blanketed in white. To the bakery. So warm and … bread-y. Tired baker. Big black old stove cooling noisily.
Vast truck cuts me up. Says 'CHINA LINE' … that's today's wine world for you. Who's wine is he going to fetch?
Back at house pick up a faggot of vine cuttings from shed to revive the big fire in kitchen. Set table. Coffee on. Brew Tea. Across yard Tom pumping over the Presbytere vats. In the dark. Not happy. I have promised next year they can have electric light in the old place. The candle idea was romance gone too far. The young come down, grab croissants coffee and all hurtle off; Henry is already inside his big tank at Verniotte, down the road, shovelling marc and yelling for help.
Kaye comes up with baby Eleanor who now beams when she sees her Grandad … basically I'm now entrapped, aren't I? Besotted. Smile like that … never be able to deny this child anything.
Alfiedog comes also. Bouncing off the walls … adores the freedom here. When he gets back to England he'll be confined to the garden. Here … no walls or fences and loads of other dogs to wind up!
Hugh, Judy and I breakfast more sedately … discuss trying to get Decanter to do an article on Castillon region. Maybe starring our little dynamo Anne Marie Galinaud and her Comptoir 'Resto-Caveau' which has lit up this district so! What was a derelict barn is now the heaving social centre of a large chunk of the Right Bank. People come from all over the world. Yesterday there was a big table of bankers in for lunch with Alain Vauthier of Ausone. Wine world needs more Anne-Maries.
H and J drive away narrowly missing Henry on tractor towing wine press cage of marc. That boy never happier than on a tractor. Has decided he's too old to operate his little manual press anymore so he carts his lees up to LaClariere to press there. Hydraulically.
Pack, tidy a bit, say goodbyes, Majid takes me to Bergerac. Sun still hot. Not expecting same in UK. Goodbye, Douce Aquitaine. Another vintage is over.
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