Roots

As the thermometer climbs, the only thing to do is shut shutters, doors, windows, blinds, while it is still cool in the morning, then either stay in like a mole, or find a pool or river to dip into.
Our collapsible pool awaits erection for the family visit next week, so I'm lurking here, having got too warm just by doing a bit of desultory dusting, bored with waiting for Agents to bring more house-viewers, weary of calculating what we might lose through the French house-price collapse and whether it could possibly balance out so long as the Euro holds up higher than it was in 2004...

The Dog days are difficult, too hot, too long, no dance class, no randonneurs, invites and excursions always involving too much food, too much rosé, so that my Grumpy Old Man mode is ON contemplating no joyous Olympians to watch (nor joyous spectators; how wonderful it was to see British people happy and positive, how I hope that THAT is the Legacy,) deary me, what is the matter with me. Too 'ot, that's what.

Yet after the freeze of February, how glad everyone was to see the sun. Within days of the thaw, several of us were over at Chater's Domaine 'pulling out' the winter prunings from the vines' support wires, in t-shirts. We ate on Jacky Chater's  patio and were given the first bottle drawn from the new barrel (1000s of litres full - barrel not bottle) of Sauvignon Blanc. Returning Cranes, that must have been waiting out the sudden snow and ice on the other side of the Pyrénées, circled with their 'grue grue' cries and we knew Spring had arrived.
 Three weeks later we were back in the vines, as the sap was rising, the wood was suddenly springy and flexible enough to be tied in to the tying- in wire, to guide the one shoot left after pruning. All woven in one direction, it makes a startling pattern in bright new sunshine. Dark gnarled sticks lurching roughly on the same plane but at different angles, thin twigs, light tan, persuaded to lie all pointing to the right along wires that caught the sun with a steel blue shine. Dotted up and down the rows were silhouetted shapes in sun hats chatting to each other and talking persuasively to recalcitrant shoots, hoping none would snap.

These vines are old, some of them, the Merlot, over fifty years from planting. Hardly ever watered they have deep roots, some will have grown a foot a year to the aquifer. When finally grubbed up, the roots stay there. Many vineyards have gone, the poor varieties not needed since the EU stopped subsidising the wine lake.  Sometimes you see twisted heaps of ancient stumps in the corner of fields. Good for barbeques but rarely sold by their canny owners. But Chaters hang on, determined to improve the quality and maintain their organic status. So many jobs have to be done by hand, therefore. Weeding, then pamprage, rubbing out the shoots that emerge low down, then more weeding. This year there isn't enough labour and by the time we are back for the final prune before all the growth is lifted up and away by the lifting wires, leaving the bunches to hang clear in drying air away from fungus lurking on leaves, the growth has gone berserk. February, a stick, by June a mass of lush green, those roots go deep. I struggle to find the head of the stock to trim away all but the most fruitful shoots. Sorting out the non productive shoots, feet long now, from the grape-bearers, is like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in a bag. Others are quicker than I, but Roy Chater showed me how to do it and he is more meticulous than some so I am too. We work on methodically and looking back down a row, it is very satisfying to see very clearly where you've been. But we don't get it all done in time.

Just as the Spring was turning to Summer here,we packed the car with too much stuff and the twin essentials of fishing gear and wine and headed for Ireland, Wales and Somerset. (If you ever get a chance to do the ferry trip from Rosscoff to Rosslare with Irish Ferries I can recommend it.) It poured, of course, but there were some days we will remember and feel privileged to have shared. In Ireland we stayed with friends near Durrow. We had never heard of this charming elegant town on the river Erkina (nope, me neither..) but the sun shone and we were treated to a walk above their house through pastures farmed by the family for at least 2 generations. He had gone back to his roots, allowed by Irish planning law to build on his family's land as was his brother, having previously worked and lived 'all over'. Although the children are still in the UK he says he won't move. From the top of the hill we looked across hay scented meadows to mountains, Slieve Bloom, further Silvermines, the chosen house below in its spotless garden, what a treat to be given a window on their beautiful world.
Then another visit to friends in the Brecons. Another haven, beside the River Usk, the roots this time those of her parents. Altering the old parental home had been an interesting labour, documented with illustrations in Christmas missives. It was super to visit, like being able to go somewhere you had read about in a book and finding it just as you expected only more so. Again we were treated to walks; beside the Usk then up in the hills to an ancient earthwork, again with heart-aching views, of Langorse lake and Pen Y Fan and the sweep of the Usk valley. This time, rain threatened us, so it was stride back down again and off on those horrendous M-roads that swept us over the Severn and on to Somerset and family.
There is something about those blue-green spaces, seen from up high so the air seems to sing and men's fussy scurryings seem not to exist, so satisfying yet drawing out such yearning - that's when I know my soul is British!

Yes, we have put down roots here. Of course. 8 years. A foot a year is deep. Good friends, familiar landscapes, a language no longer so incomprehensible (even though it still is, in my mouth!), routines and occasions we enjoy. But now we have decided to leave and taken action to do so I am impatient to be gone.