The Fruits of our Labours

It seems ages since I last posted but in fact it's only a couple of days, and the only reason I didn't last night is because we were invited to some good friends for dinner which was delicious. They are the friends who have the magnolias which I took a photo of the other day.

Today Richard has been doing really well and getting a good start on the room above the barn attached to the house. He has now taken up all the old rotten floorboards ready for the delivery of the timber and we can lay a new floor. Once the floor is down it will make things so much easier and we will be able to get windows and walls in place. Oh it sounds so easy and straight forward when written down but in reality....... I can't wait for this room to be finished because at least we will have somewhere to put our guests, but the pressure is on and we can almost hear the pitter patter of our grandchildren's feet which of course is the reason we are doing this anyway.

While Richard was slaving away there I cut back the grape vines on the house. I am not used to doing this job but as I was brandishing my pruning gear and snipping and cutting I was remembering what people had said to me when I asked if it was time to do this. They said yes do it now because the sap is "up there". I had no idea what they meant by that until I snipped the first bit off. It was just as though the vine was crying.......water, sap or whatever it is, was dripping from the vine where I had cut and not just a bit either, a lot, I was getting quite wet. I hadn't seen this before but was assured that it was supposed to happen. I find it difficult to get my head around the fact that I have just cut them back to within an inch of their lives and yet in September, there will be all the fruit we can eat. We have a white grape on the left and a black on the right and they are delicious. I have taken a photo of how they look now I have had a go at them and I will try and find a photo of what they looked like last year with their fruit. There is quite a lot involved with the looking after of grape vines, and there seems to be an awful lot of snipping and cutting because in the summer when the vine has made a lot of leaves, you have to cut a lot of these away to let the sun get at the grapes, but leave enough so they have some shade as well. Like I say, quite incredible, because it looks dead now, yet somewhere lurking there is this life form forcing it's way out.

I tried to be a bit clever this evening, because we had been working quite hard, we decided to have a glass of wine sitting outside to catch the last of the sun again, it was about 5.30 and it was still very warm. Well I saw the sun going down through my wine glass and thought....what a lovely picture that would make. I tried and it didn't really work but you get the idea. I may have to another drink tomorrow night to see if I can manage it properly next time.........