Le Couvent Diary

By popular request we've offered an alternative date in February 2009 to come to help at Le Couvent, Roujan. If you're up for some fun and hard work in the vineyards and here in the old house, do take a look at this page . We've had volunteers apply from several other countries, so the talk should be good and the jokes multi-lingual/cultural.

Don't hold back - this will be an extraordinarily interesting week/fortnight. You'll learn loads and get fitter into the bargain.

There's nothing like a bit of teamwork for getting things done.

 

 

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Today's my birthday and my brother's bought me a special rake for whacking the grapes down into the juice. Sometimes the best present is the thing you need right now. The vat of grapes is singing. The yeast is bubbling away and it sounds like a massive bowl of Rice Crispies.

Ten of us went to Meze for a lunch of heaps of shellfish. We had to wait long enough for the restaurant to go fishing before we eventually ate, but it was good, and thankfully no-one was in a hurry.

All in all it's been one of those times when our friends have absolutely come up trumps. Thank you so much Teddy, Nicola, Erzsi, Kathy, Richard, Clare, Rachel, Alex M, Alex C, Greg, Kate, Jenny, Jackie, Josh, Freddie, Michelle, Henny, Simon, Hans and Christa. You are complete stars. And to all the other people who were lined up to help with the harvest, can we please book you for next year?

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As soon as we saw the damage and realised we had just a few grapes we could rescue if we did it immediately, we started ringing round our team. Within one hour of seeing the damage we had thirteen pals and all the equipment in the vineyard. What fantastic friends. We hit the remaining grapes like demons possessed in that thundery heat that threatens another storm. To the chorus of endless yells of 'BUCKET' meaning 'this ones full and I need another' - a signal for the porters to hurry over bringing empty buckets and lugging off the full ones, we cleared the surviving grapes in less than three hours.

 

 

As you can see, the grapes are not pretty. The hail has smashed them open, but they might just be usable if we're quick.

There's so little that we have decided to use them to make some wine for ourselves, so we take them to our new cuves at my brother, Justin's, house.

The grapes come up to the 750 litre mark on the cuve, but that includes stalks and skins so we'll have precious little when all that gets taken off eventually.

As if the day hasn't already been difficult enough, the cuve containing the grapes decides to lurch into a jaunty angle thanks to a rather-too-soft floor. There's only one thing for it, we have to move all of the grapes into the second tank. And there's only one way to do it - by getting into the tank with the grapes.

Here's Michelle, my sister-in-law, getting down and dirty with the grapes.

 

Now, you have to understand that we are wine-making virgins and all this has come upon us with a rush. So a hurried phone call to the charming and helpful winemaker, Simon Coulshaw , gave us these instructions.

And those led to a rather inexpert approach to measuring out the stabiliser and yeast.

After the addition of the stabiliser and yeast we got our mate Kate to say a few fine words to encourage the mass to turn to ruby nectar.

Now it's up to Bacchus and a fair wind.

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Former guest Vonda had this on her blog and I thought it would be fun to do.

Here is what you do:

1. As a comment on this blog, leave one memory that you had here at Le Couvent. It doesn't matter if you were here a day, an hour , or a month, anything you remember.
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's fun to see the responses. If you leave a memory about Le Couvent, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

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With just over a fortnight to go I'm beginning to panic about our grape harvest (le vendange). Ali says it will just happen. I, as a Virgo, tend to think we need to plan it a bit. So our unsuspecting pals are about to be coerced into spending a few days bent double over our vines. I fear many of them will feign memory loss when we contact them. " Who are you? Never heard of you. Sorry. Bye"

Our wine cuves are still in northern France despite days on the phone and visiting transporters to beg them to bring them to us in time for the vendange - or indeed ever. We're having no luck with it at all. Looks like all our grapes will have to go to the cave co-operative in Roujan. We'd been very much looking forward to having a go at turning some of our Syrah into stuff that turns our tongues blue. But hey ho.

Meanwhile we are having a charmed summer on the guest front. Not only has it been our best season ever bookings-wise, we have had a stream of utter charmers. Everyone's been a complete delight. Ali and I feel very unstressed thanks to having such lovely, kind, thoughtful and easy people to stay. Thank you, each of you. We've loved having you here - and doesn't the old house smile when it's full of happy people?

We have just five weeks to go before then end of our season and as I sit here in lightweight summer clothes in brilliant sunshine it's hard to bring myself to phone the log man to ask for a delivery of 12 cubic metres of logs for the winter. But if I leave it until we actually need it he won't have any - or it'll be sopping wet and impossible to heave into neat stacks. Both Ali and I look forward to winters here. I can't say I felt the same when I lived in England. I love the crisp chill that puts a spring in your step, the bright sunny days that mean you can work outside, even if you have to wear a thick jumper. I'm looking forward to days cool enough to tidy up the garden, giving everything a haircut that will last the winter. Everything smells different as September rolls past. The air fills with the scent of smoke from wood-burners stuffed with fruit woods and oak.

But before then the air will be infused with the sharp smells of grape juice running through the streets. Small tractors will hurry along towing great trailers heaped with grapes, small blackboards on the back marked with the variety of grape. They'll deposit a trail of juice which will leave us in no doubt about how this region earns its keep. As one drives along towards Pezenas great draughts of wine-perfume blast out from the Cave Cooperative and Domaine Bourdic and the Chartreuse de Mougeres and Domaine de Montpeyrat and Chateau Fondouce - and all the other thousands of wine producers here in the Languedoc.

And the great thing is, it just happens.

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If you're free in February 2009 and you fancy a heap of hard work in exchange for free bed and board, we're running two Volunteer Weeks . We haven't done this before, but we have had some wildly successful volunteer weekends and now that we're in danger of using up the goodwill of our friends we're hoping to spread the net a little wider. Our friends tell us they have loved the weekends, so we hope you would too.  If you're interested follow the Volunteer link on the menu at the top of this page, or click here .

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Whoops - I've kept you waiting. Sorry. Glad you're back though. So four days ago the Tour de France chose to gallop through Roujan again after a 50 year break. And what fun we had.

Two of our poor guests had to leave early on the day of the tour to avoid closed roads and traffic jams. This was particularly rotten luck since one of them had broken her foot whilst here and had the 24 hour journey back to Western Australia to do encased in plaster. Hope you got home safely John & Julia - sorry you missed Le Tour. Maybe the whole of Roujan should be protected thus:

The fun starts some two hours before the actual cyclists show up, when a cavalcade of advertising vehicles rattle past lobbing freebies at leaping spectators. Grown adults diving like Grobelaar to rob tiny children of the fourth peaked cap or a triangle of cheese. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, like this one on top of a car.

Some aren't quite what they claim to be - for instance - what's eco about driving the whole of France in a big square box on wheels?

 

This poor women spent her entire time trying to avoid being decapitated by overhanging trees.

Whilst this chap looked none too enamoured to be spending half of July sitting in a cup of coffee. A career in PR anyone?

Mme Mas came out onto her balcony to wave, sporting a very appropriate and fetching Nike cap.

 Ali made sure we got our own bit of marketing in.

Our lovely French neighbour brought us out a plate of delicious stuff to stave off hunger (we were none too successful at catching the cheese triangles).

 Nicola & Ali bought silly hats.

And eventually the cyclists came in a sweep and a whoosh. All very exciting. We shouted for them to thow us drugs, but they seemed to have kept them all for themselves. Hey ho, you can only ask.

  

 So we all had a silly, noisy, friendly and lovely time. Wish you'd been here.

 Thanks Tour de France - see you in 2058.

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Ali's gone shopping thank God. That means I don't have to. Winding the windows down is the nearest we get to air-con in our ancient Freelander. It's around 36 today so inside or by the pool's the only place to be. So our guests decided to cycle around the countryside early this morning - how wise.

I'm on a diet so I spend hours trawling through recipe books for luscious things to cook for supper. Tonight we're on spiced chickpea cakes with red onion and coriander salad. If it's good I'll put it in the recipe book here. The diet's going well thanks to my mentor Rachel . Thanks hon!

The only fly in the ointment at the mo is the spider/bee in the potager that stung /bit me the other day. As a result I have a fat hand that is causing me some consternation as it's now three days later and it's still swollen. At least I have Jan the homeopath on the case & it is a little better today in that I'm not tempted to just cut it off to relieve the itching.

 

 

Since I last talked about the new restaurant up the hill at Vailhan, Le Presbytere , lots of guests and friends have been and all declare the food very good. Ali & I went again the other day too. The co-proprietaire Sylvia is a bit cool so the food and the view have to make up for the lack of dynamism, but they do it brilliantly. The view is unbeatable and the food tastes wonderful and looks like this:

 

 

Tempted? Go on a balmy night and sit out on the terrace.

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What's stoolball? It's an old English game, the fore-runner of cricket, originally played by milkmaids. You probably haven't heard of it because it's only played in Kent, East Sussex and now, Roujan. If you'd like to know more about the game you can check it out here .

Last year Ali & I made some wickets, painted them jolly colours and hauled together a team of friends and family & called ourselves the Languedoc Crocks. We were mentioned on a website and as a result the lovely Clare, captain of Causeway Stoolball Club in Kent, got in touch with us. Despite the fact that our team had played just twice Causeway was insistent on coming to play against us. It was a howling success as witnessed here .

Within moments of going home they booked to come for a long weekend again this year. So we did it all again. We had supper at Le Couvent, we went to Pezenas market, we played on the cricket pitch at St Pons de Mauchiens.

 

We laughed, we lost, we were 31 for dinner at Les Goutailles , we played again. Ali & Nicola got silly.

 

We were 36 for dinner in the vines at Chateau Mal Au Dos and then they squeezed themselves and all their bags into two people carriers and grinned their way back home to Kent. All between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. And then Clare wrote to book for next year. Hooray! What can we conjure up as a surprise then I wonder?

Thanks to all our friends and family who worked their socks off cooking and lugging stuff and providing wine, not to mention actually playing. And thanks so much to all our friends from Causeway Stoolball Club. It was fantastic. And we're going to beat you next year. 

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Last week I received this e-mail from the niece of a friend of mine.

Hello friends

As many of you will know, I am a professional busker, earning my living singing opera and playing the cello in Covent Garden. I love my job! But I might not have it for much longer as the owners of Covent Garden are a multi-national corporation who want to rid the place of its unique charm and turn it into a shopping mall. What the hell will I do then? Be a waitress?? Practice voodoo???Sniff Glue????

Please take 2 seconds to follow the below link and sign our petition. And if you've still got any energy, please forward this link to all the people you know who would also like to keep music and street performance alive. Thank you very much in advance.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/cov2008/petition.html

Evie x

God knows if petitions have any effect, but if you could bear it, sign up to this one - who knows, it might just make the developers think twice.

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We've had our lovely Cambridge friends Sarah & Dawn visiting for the past three days. No-one gets to stay while Le Couvent is closed during the winter unless they put in a bit of work, so they pruned olives, bushwhacked thistles and planted salad & strawberries.

 

Their reward for all this work this was taking us out to lunch in Meze where we had stunning shellfish looking out over the sparkling sea. The Picpoul de Pinet was almost a finely chilled as the sea. Ali & I passed on the latter. Our sweet guests got soaked, but reckoned it most refreshing.

Hope you got home safely - come back soon eh? Happy birthday Sarah!

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It wasn't as warm today but we pruned hundreds of vines, and now I can barely type, so painful are my hands.

Ali woman-handled the bush-whacker. Here's the proof.

 

 

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Well, that might be stretching it a bit, but today was truly glorious. After a couple of hours bushwhacking in the vines at Chateau Mal Au Dos we went off to Grau d'Agde for lunch.

Short sleeves and ice-creams were de rigueur.

This dog was having the best time ever..

...as were these riders.

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Adopt twelve vines for a year in a romantic French vineyard and watch your grapes grow and ripen into twelve bottles of wine labelled with your sweetheart's name.

 

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For the past five years Ali and I have been part of a group of Roujanaises who meet to help local French, Swiss and Dutch women speak a bit more English. It is always huge fun.

 

 

Each time we meet in a different house - there're around a dozen of us. Today, after having spent an achy afternoon pruning vines, we met at lovely Sally & Paul's house. Sal was the headteacher in a primary school. As a result she always plans loads of fun things to do. Tonight was no exception. We spent an hour listening to, then watching a TV chef prepare a luscious-sounding orange and chocolate cheesecake.

 

 

A long list of new words and much concentration later, the group had the hang of the recipe and method. Just as we thought the lesson was over Sally, with a flourish, whipped out 'one she'd prepared earlier'.

 

 

And truly delicious it was. Now why wasn't school like that?

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It's 5.30pm. The skies are clear blue and bright pink, but the light is fading fast on 2007. Tonight we're off to see in 2008 in Alignan du Vent and although neither of us particularly needs another seasonal party we'll have a good time, no doubt. We hope you have a good time, celebrating however you do in your corner of the world. We send you our love and hope you have a happy and healthy 2008. Perhaps we'll see you in Roujan sometime soon.

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A happy time was had by all, great evening at Erzsi's on Christmas Eve, two geese and Bourdic wines on Christmas Day, before setting off camping at the mazet on Boxing Day.

Ali bought me a fab sleeping bag for Christmas, so what was I to do but agree to sleeping in a 9 square metre hut in the middle of the vineyards in December? After all, seven bedrooms all with their own bathrooms can make one forget the essential things like - will we be warm enough?

So off we trundled with the dogs, soup, breakfast and good books. (Actually the car was filled to the gunwales, but mostly dog-stuff - oh yeah?)

It was magical. I was never less than sweltering thanks to a roaring fire and zillion-tog sleeping bag. The books were excellent and it was wonderful to be away from the phones. But the real corker was waking at 2am when Kit the labrador decided on a comfort break outside. The moon was so bright you could have read outside. Looking back towards the lights of Roujan, Caux and Neffies just made me grin. It's hard to feel anything other than enormous gratitude when you look up at a billion stars.

Next day voices drifting up the hill announced the arrival of Erszi, Heather and Alex who'd come for a walk, some lunch and a bit of pruning. The views were beyond divine.

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The great thing about dogs is their enthusiasm. Never having met before, Kit, Flynn, Biba, Jasper and Alfie rendezvous'd near the mazet with Ali & I and six friends. The dogs did a few manic turns around each other then scampered off for a fantastic walk together. They didn't stop for one second of our hour's walk. It was just a joy to see.

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We've been busy for a while, so no blog entries. First of all Ali and I took a short week in England to attend our friend Ingrid Thomas' book launch. She's written the most gorgeous, definitive book about shells called, for some obscure reason, The Shell. The perfect Christmas present for someone who loves beautiful books.

While we were in London we did a huge shop for silly things the English here miss, like curry spices and horseradish, and also for English Breakfast tea which is requested daily all through the summer by our B&B guests. A very happy day was spent ambling along the South Bank and around the Tate Modern. Another night we were on our pal's alpaca farm - a haven in the middle of Oxfordshire.

But the prize for the most comfortable bed goes to Nick Kent, who oh-so-sweetly lent us his divine house in Maida Vale. Yes, we are very lucky people. Thanks Nick.

But the really big news (to us that is) is that we have paid the deposit on 10.5 acres of vineyards and forest just ten minutes from Le Couvent. We've signed the papers and would cough up right now, but we have to wait a couple of months for the agricultural organisation S.A.F.E.R. to decide they don't need the land more than us. After that it's ours. Meanwhile, the current owner, the sparkly-eyed 87 year old M. Gineste, has given us permission to start work on the land. As a result Ali and I, along with my family comprising Justin (aka Freddie), Michelle, Poppy & Josh plus Teddy and Nicola, have been working our socks off.

The vines have not been tended for nearly three years, so are pretty overgrown but, according to our expert pals who've been tending vines all their lives, they're rescuable. We're only going to look after the best of them, many will be grubbed up to make way for a new forest. (Freddie and I were, after all, children of the New Forest in Hampshire) Our purchase includes shares in the Cave Cooperative in Roujan, so with luck we'll be able to take our grapes there.

A couple of things make this land extra special. The views are absolutely superb - on almost any day you can see all the way to the sea at Sete. Secondly, there is the most delightful small building (known as a mazet) which has been used over the years as the centre of fun for the whole Gineste family. Oh, and I forgot the huge reservoir that doubles as a swimming pool.

Here we are with M Gineste and Christiane & Michel Rouille, plus Freddie & Poppy.

For the want of a decent-sized tractor, or any tractor at all, Josh had to clear the first vineyard using a domestic lawn-mower. He's young, it only took all day, and there're just 9.75 acres to go, so what's the problem?
Apart from producing some grapes to go off to the co-op, we intend making some oil from our olive grove and using the mazet as a place where we can bring guests to play during the summer. The walks are superb - a walk in the wild herbs is better than aromatherapy, the pomegranates, pears, figs, kiwi, table grapes and cherries are all divine and will appear on the Le Couvent breakfast table during their seasons. As Michelle said yesterday - I can't wait.

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