Friday, October 26, 2012

Destressing in the vineyards

I'll do another blog on my studies that have started this month. All I'll say for now is that it increased my stress levels significantly...
This week I could breath a bit after 3 consecutive days of class in Paris last week.  Going through the notes and reading articles that were handed out in the class to read at home.  All in French of course.  To explain my dilemma: I have three different dictionnaries next to me while doing this, a normal one, one specialising in financial and economical terms and a french only dictionnary, describing the words in more detail.  Some words you'll find in the first dictionnary you'll look, some in the third, many not at all. Then you start searching on the internet, finding that the word is not in the online dictionnary either, but there's a whole debate as to what is the correct translation. Finally you start searching under wikipedia what the concept means and end up having to read an article just to understand one word.
So given this background, by Wednesday afternoon I needed a break.  Since Sunday we had lovely weather (so much so that I've said on Sunday I don't know when last did we have such lovely weather and a clear blue sky, terrible isn't it?).  The vineyards change colours rapidly and with us leaving in the dark and arriving in the dark, I've missed out on the changes during end of last week. 
I took a quick walk up the main road leading to Mailly and then a side street leading into the vineyards.  Then a steep walk up the hill towards the moulin.  The fresh air and beautiful sunshine being medicine to the soul (and the stress levels). 
Above: the road to Mailly taken from the moulin (for those who have been here)
Below: Verzenay and its phare (unfortunately it was a bit hazy)

The harvest time started very late this year, at the end of Sept, and lasted much longer than usual (two weeks compare to about 8 days). The reason being the miserable weather we had this year, so many grapes were not completely ripe and the harvesters took their time to select the best grapes and allowing some to mature a bit more.  (Despite the much lower volume that was harvested this year, in general the champagne growers are very happy with the quality of the grapes, against all expectations)
By the end of the harvest season many small grapes were left on the vineyards and since then, they have started to ripen (some not even completely yet).
I was picking pinot noir grapes as I walked through the vineyards. 

At the beginning I wiped the outside of the skin, as the farmers had to spray a lot of produce this year against diseases.  The small grapes were tasting good and the pips crunching under my teeth.  My fingers got more and more sticky until I finally gave up on wiping the grapes and just popped them into my mouth.  I could understand why they are attracking wild pigs from the forest. (we were so lucky to see some 'big' baby ones one evening coming from the station, busy feasting on the grapes)
Walking through the vineyards I was thinking how far this is from the rush in Paris, which is yet so close with the TGV only taking 45 min. And that I prefer to travel from here to Paris rather than living in that rat race.

By the time I got home my hand was a mess but I felt it was very good 'vinotherapy' and I can face the studies again.
Alas, the stress release didn't last long. JL phoned me at about 7.15pm (his train leaves Paris at 7.28pm).  There was a big mess at Gare de l'Est and no trains, neither the high speed trains, nor the suburban trains, were leaving.  The police had to control the huge number of people all stranded on the platforms.  I proposed he take the RER train to Disney, as it departs from another station and I'll fetch him there by car (as it is just more than 1 hour's drive from us).   The problem, he took the car the morning, so I need to get to the station.  Fortunately my friend, Céline, was so kind to take me, despite her having to get up at 3am the next morning to leave to the Pyrennees to market their champagne there. I had to quickly print his train ticket as proof for the car park payment in order not to pay a huge fine for having no parking ticket, search the extra car keys and then off to the station.  We got back home by 10.37pm, just more than 2 hours later than usual. But while parking the car the radio news were talking about the big mess and that trains are delayed for more than 5 hours, so I guess we were lucky.  The sad thing is that it is the second disruption in less than a month, which will force us to eventually move to Paris, having to say goodbye to this beautiful region.

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