The Bells Have Made Me Deaf

I thought to hold off on my deliveries until tomorrow. I had one more job to do to complete an order and there was nothing to pick up. I get a phone call from my Dad this morning saying it would be better to bring what I have today so they have time to get the stuff delivered. I didn’t see that going tomorrow would make a big difference but I didn’t argue. He had also told me that he wouldn’t be there this afternoon but if I came in the morning we’d get the battery changed. Well by the time I got the charger on and enough boost to start the engine it was already lunch time. I got there around 1.30 and Dad was still there working. I had to get some piping cord from the shop and chatted a while to Karen thinking Dad would soon be finished.

Still no sign of him coming out. So I go walk the dog. The place is in the middle of an industrial estate but just up the road is a little bit of what must have been a grand house and grounds. It’s easy to tell from the planting that it has been landscaped and not a natural happening. A little lake in the middle, now a harbour for empty beer cans and the bench that once overlooked it, fuel for the drunkards bonfire. I wandered around for a while looking for the remains of an old family memorial supposed to be in there that was dedicated to their sons, lost at the Somme. I was told, all that’s left is the hooves of a great horse but I couldn’t even find that. I suppose I didn’t want to get muck on my shoes to tread it back into the shop. I’ll take hiking boots next time.

I put the dog in the van again and went back in to see what the score was. All are busy scurrying around as if in avoidance. So I say that I’m going to head home, thinking he’ll make mention of the battery then. Nope… hehe! Looks like I’ll be using the charger for another few days. Oh well. No big deal. It would have been nice to have returned the charger to it’s rightful owner but I don’t suppose another week without it will kill him.

Need to remember to pay my rent before they decide to evict me for late payment.

In 1981 I spent around 4 weeks in the south of France in a little village called Siran in the Herault/Languedoc region employed by a French farmer in the annual grape harvest, otherwise known as the Vendage. I had originally gone to France for a couple of weeks hitch hiking and exploring. Starting in Belfast on a cheap Ulsterbus ticket to London and then onward by bus or train (dont remember which) to catch the ferry to France.

The tent we had was akin to a Wendy house and not much use if the weather had been anything less than idyllic. This was France in September. A sheet over a pole was sufficient for the sake of modesty and to keep off the dew but not really necessary. The journey south is for the most part forgotten other than a recollection of wandering around Bordeaux looking for the British Embassy although I can’t remember for what reason, and finishing that day being dropped off by a family of 5 with big dog (who had insisted on squeezing us in complete with rucksacks). The end of their benevolence came in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere surrounded in forest but they pointed down the road indicating the general direction of civilisation.

It was late in the day and wasn’t far to walk before a sign for camping appeared at the roadside and another for a town ahead. The town seemed to be calling with the hope of a cheap room in a hostel and something to eat. Another mile or so along the road was Pissos. Not so much a town as a crossroads with a small hotel and a peppering of houses. In the toss up between the camp site and the hotel, the hotel won regardless of the toss. It was an old family run place with the sort of ancient character in the mortar that makes it a more desirable place to stay than any 5 star luxury block of concrete. The bedroom had a huge mural of autumn trees on one wall with the evening sun shining in on it from an open window that overlooked the hotel front. Dinner was a simple but tasty potatoes, brocolli and beef and what seemed to be an endless carafe of house wine. Just one night there but I remember it while other more recent places have long since escaped me.

I seem to remember catching a train next day to Narbonne. From there by chance to a camp site in Lezignan Corbiere to pitch the Wendy house and consume the local beverages in slow drafts until the sun disappeared. It was here, that a very hoity toity Englishman called Johnathan persuaded us to join a team of workers harvesting grapes.

Next day we went with him to meet up with some of his friends who were working for other farmers in the same village. The venue they chose to meet in was Cafe Planner in Olonzac. It was owned by two old dears who took eons to serve drinks forgetting almost mid pour what they were supposed to be doing. They reminded me of Hinge and Bracket. The cafe hadn’t been changed in years. It was full of old photos and bits and pieces of stuff sitting around that people had left behind. I bought a radio and left the box on a shelf - sure enough it was still there when I revisited the following year! I doubt if the cafe is still there. It was a nicely spent afternoon and felt good to give some trade to the underdog while bypassing the new flashing neon cafe around the corner. We very happily staggered the 3 miles or so from Olonzac to Siran to become grape pickers!

With a free gite to stay in for the duration and a pay packet at the end of each week. It seemed too good to be true. Also thrown in for good measure was a daily allowance of 2 litres of wine per person. If I didn’t want the wine I would get paid for whatever I didn’t take at a meagre rate barely worth quibbling over. It wasn’t good wine… too new and while the rest of my household dutifully drank their 2 litre quota. I took the meagre sum and spent it in the village cafe on Ricard.

The gite was up an old narrow street. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen, a locked dining room with all the better furniture stored inside, a cellar strewn with old vines for the fire and a small enclosed courtyard accessible through the dining room and so inaccessible to us unless by climbing through the bathroom window. My bedroom had a view over the courtyard and terraces of roof tiles. Sharing this small house was the out of place Englishman, myself, my companion and two Australians one of who’s idea of putting on a clean shirt was to turn the one worn the day before inside out. As a team we worked well so long as nobody had had too much to drink the night before.

Harvesting was done with secateurs setting the bunches of grapes into a bucket while one of the team would circulate with a huge hopper on their back to collect the grapes from the buckets and empty them into a tractor trailer. Lanky Johnathan was the hopper man. It was probably easier on him than stooping over vines all day. The work was back breaking because of the height of the fruit. Some of the surrounding vineyards had brought in machines to harvest but had to remove every other row of vines to facilitate. Monsieur Rancoule was not about to do the same. He was in his mid to late 50’s and a jolly character to work for. I was a little sad to find that by the following June when I returned to Siran for a few days, he had suffered a stroke and couldn’t remember ever having seen us before.

My time working in those vineyards and visiting the area made Margaret Loxton’s set of 4 prints of ‘Burgundy Vineyards’ irresistible 10 years on. Her portrayal of burly agricultural characters reminded me of M. Rancoule and the opportunity he provided for me to experience working the vendage and earn enough money to not go home, but onward to Greece.

Otherwise known here as wee buns. I decided to bake myself a batch of plain bite sized nibbles to tide me over the weekend munchie attacks. It’s a good reason to put the oven on and the extra heat in the kitchen is rather nice since the heating doesn’t come on until 6pm and I’m reluctant to give in to the bitter nip that has dominated the daylight hours. Tonight will likely be the same but I’ll have my buns as small comfort. The kitchen really needed to be warm so my bread proves as it should. I ran out of bought bread yesterday and it was too much trouble to get the charger connected to the battery to get the van started just to go to town for a loaf. I prefer home baked anyhow. I’m just too lazy generally to make any. Naan tonight. Too bad I had the curry last night.

I still haven’t bought the ingredients to try Alison’s Chocolate Cake. Sounds deliciously rich but it could have disastrous results in a house with only one weak willed person to eat it. Maybe I’ll save that one for the January visitors! Bring your own Rennies and we’ll do a Missus Balmer. She was an old woman that lived around the corner from my grandmother and always divided the cake by how ever many visitors were present… so it there were only three… ie. herself, my grandmother and me (me then being a very small child) she cut the cake in three. Waste not want not I suppose!

I’ve spent almost 3 hours of the last 24 on the phone trying to talk my Dad through his broadband installation. The broadband install wasn’t so bad as trying to talk him through installing AVG anti virus and shoot the messenger as well. I think part of the problem was that he was watching tv at the same time. So today he says he’s going to buy me a new battery for my birthday…. Yay!! I’m really over the moon about it. No really! What more could a girl want than a huge brand new battery with enough umph to start a diesel rust bucket first time every time. It’ll mean no more fiddling around with a charger an hour in advance of having to drive anywhere although I’ve been doing it for so long now it’s almost routine.

Tonight I moved my whole enterprise to a table in front of this peat blaze. I was amused at the name ‘dauntless’ inscribed on the fire brick and amazed to find that the manufacturer is listed as Canadian. I thought that, that sort of thing would be made locally since it’s fairly brittle and I should think, easily broken. Of course this is a house full of strange quirks and I shouldn’t be so surprised to find that the notional gentile would order sidebricks from Canada since they have ample funding for such an extravagance. Maybe I’m showing my ignorance (wouldn’t be the first time!) and the stuff is manufactured locally on contract… in which case I blame google!!

That aside…. so far this fire is certainly dauntless. It lights first time every time and the little boiler at the back is plumping in no time at all. It’s a shame it isn’t connected to the radiators too. I have more hot water than I know what to do with and you can only bare so many baths in one day….