Wow, it's been a momentous week. My lovely brother Justin (known in the family as Freddie) had his 50th birthday.
His kind wife, Michelle, organised a secret party for 60-odd people (important hyphen). It was nearly a well-kept secret until Joel the local carpenter asked him what time it started just two days before the event.
I gave him one of those super-duper self-published books you can do so easily on a Mac & Ali gave him a day learning how to taste and blend wine. We all went off to Domaine Bourdic and had a fantastic time creating our own blend. By the end of the morning we all had blue tongues from tasting so much 'raw' wine.
But the real panic came during the afternoon when we had to blend, record quantities, taste, adjust, blend again and eventually come up with our very own assemblage which was bottled and given a label with our name on.
It was a truly fantastic and memorable day. Hans & Christa are gifted teachers and each one of us said we'd learnt more about wine in one day than could be imagined. We'll keep you posted about the next chance to do the same assemblage day.
Yesterday we had a real Jean de Florette kind of a morning. For some time we've been lugging 120 litres of water up to our vegetable garden in the vineyards as there's been no water there. But it all changed yesterday thanks to Ebay (where I found the perfect pump), Ib and Andreas. More about it on Ali's blog about our vineyard .
Meanwhile the guests have just been hanging about in hammocks.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Family on
Tuesday 05 February, 2008
Please excuse my absence. I've been in England with my brother, Justin, helping my Mum and her husband, John, clear out their loft, shed and garage. John starts chemotherapy tomorrow and the junk in the roof was one burden Justin and I could lift from their shoulders. It was something of a revelation. You may have noticed that supermarkets have stopped dishing out plastic carrier bags. Like me you might have thought it was a 'green' move, but you'd be wrong. It is so that my Mum can't collect any more. She had what seemed like several thousand in her roof, just in case. They were there with the ancient carpet off-cuts, dozens of sets of non-working Christmas lights and at least eleven suitcases. I am so glad no-one's clearing out our loft here at Le Couvent; it's much, much worse.
Good luck for tomorrow John - we'll be thinking of you.
On the other hand one family member had the most superb good luck today. On the pretext of needing help with shifting a large and heavy box one of our friends (with Ali & I and as pre-warned accomplices) invited my nephew Josh to her house. Once we were there he and I lugged the box outside to reveal a sheet-covered scooter just behind it. Josh has been saving for a scooter for a while, but didn't expect our wonderful friend to offer him a brand new, 3kms-on-the-clock, Peugeot VivaCity. Who would? Josh is a sweet boy and yesterday he got to meet a fairy godmother. Life gives and life takes. Naturally he was speechless and breathless with shock and gratitude. Lucky, lucky boy. Thank you St Faith.
