20 days and counting..well, smiling anyway

Hi

Thought that I'd update you on progress which has been pretty much according to the book; in other words, quite unpredictable. Some days I'm hungry and tired, other days I'm hungry and not tired. The latter has caused a few sleepless nights, but Mummy and Daddy are still smiling (most of the time, anyway). I'm putting on weight - now 3.7kg - and have been smiling occasionally which is pretty neat at my age, I think.

I met my cousin Alexis last Sunday who was supposed to be two weeks younger than me but turns out is a week older. Seems a nice chap, with a full head of black hair(unlike mine which is similar in quantity to GP's). I expect we'll be great mates. Also met Auntie Christelle and Uncle Nicolas who live in delightful Annecy which I look forward to seeing and peddalo-ing on the lake there.

As to my inheritance, the vines are also growing- Daddy had to spray again last week as the rain had washed off his previous application. He put 1.5 litres of Yarrow soup, made by Mummy, into the mix which is apparently for water management of the vines. GP isn't entirely convinced yet about the organic (biologique)/bio-dynamic methods, calculating, fairly roughly admittedly, that that means about a molecule per vine leaf, but time will tell, and if there are less noxious chemicals being used, so much the better. It does mean extra spraying for Daddy as the applications aren't systemic like the non-organic vintners'. Thank heavens for Daddy's tractor, which he hasn't modified this week, although he gave a couple of vines a bit of a headache.

The good news is that the dreaded blue string has been deployed, mainly thanks to Granny and Papi who seem naturally gifted in the unwinding of string, unlike GP who will be walking down the row and then suddenly disappears, pole-axed as he finds himself lassooed around the ankles. Now all the vines in Mesnay (6000'ish) need to have clips inserted at every post to draw the left and right strings together and then the shoots brought up in between them. Then all 20,000 vines need trimming manually to reduce leafage, the weeds attacked (manually of course, being biologique), spraying every 2/3 weeks depending on rainfall, and Robert's the brother of your mother. Picking volunteers still sought for the last 3 weekends in September............. patrice@hughesbeguet.com

The bad news is that Daddy slipped in his new shower this week and aggravated his tennis elbow which will make his shearing of the vines even more painful. Along with a raging toothache and my reluctance to sleep last night, he wasn't a particularly bouncy bunny this morning, but he has picked up during the day as the antibiotics have taken effect.

Granny and Grandpa are back to Blighty on Monday- seemingly they have had a good time seeing me; Granny is back in 3 weeks with Auntie Vickie (who is seeing Neil Young and The Pretenders tonight, and Bruce Springstein tomorrow, in Hyde Park- it's a hard life!) GP may not be back until harvesting- I expect that I will have changed by then. He'll be putting up some photos when he returns. They do like this area- the people are charming, Bonjouring all the time. A couple of young lads were ruuning by the side of the local stream the other day about to jump in and yet they stopped to Bonjour us all, depite being complete strangers. The Post Office assistants even bonjour everyone when they merely walk in the door. Doesn't happen at Tesco!

Oh by the way, I like my baths. In fact I am really a jolly good little fellow, all things considered. I'm off to my first wedding in July-looking forward to it. Daddy's at the stag night now, very sorry that he's on antibiotics, and orange juice!

Love from Bastian