Well, firstly many apologies for the delay in this post and secondly a belated Bonne Année to my reader(s?). This collaboration has become a bit one-sided with GP needing a good Expletives deleted-Ed. Anyway here we are in 2011 and everything is going swimmingly.
Since I last wrote the 2010 wine is maturing nicely in the various vats and barrels chez nous and Daddy is very optimistic. It's been pretty cold in the Jura but is likely to get worse before it gets better. The pruning was delayed because of snow but D is catching up and Mummy has been doing some tying. Still some way to go what with trying to sell the stuff as well, a problem that didn't exist last year when we had no bottles.
Well, I've now sailed past my 18 months mark and am becoming quite the little man by all accounts. I have discovered technology and have learnt that if I press various buttons on the PC or extract various plugs from sockets, I can make Mummy and Daddy very quickly sit up and take notice. My vocabulary has improved dramatically as a result, albeit I suspect that not all those words will be welcome at Nursery when I get there.
You might remember that I had become pretty good at impressions before Christmas and I have now extended my repertoire somewhat to repeating words (well, they're pretty nearly words), and am apparently bi-lingual in the couple of dozen I have now mastered. I have absolutely no idea what bi-lingual is, of course, but have begun to realise that Closing curtains and Fermer-ing les rideaux are pretty much the same thing. Seems a bit unnecessary all this duplication, but it seems as though it's what they want and so I try to please. Anyway I shut the rideaux or ferme les curtains to order. Another achievement is my Larry Adler impression on Daddy's harmonica, which always has to end in a burst of applause that I usually have to initiate. Carnegie Hall may have to wait a couple of years, but I think that I have definitely got it- absolument!
Visited Blighty over Christmas only to find it even colder than over here. Good to see all the rellies and to get my first taste of turkey and Christmas pudding (not together, you understand). Wasn't allowed brandy butter, but it's on my list for the future given the way everyone else wolfed it down. Granny and GP were very pleased to see us all and I tried not to keep everyone awake at night, largely successfully. Everyone was worried about my hands getting cold playing on the swings and slides in the village, but as I keep trying to tell them, gloves are for wimps.
Brief visit to hospital immediately on my return, for 5 days, which was a surprise and having recovered I then caught chickenpox. Am firmly on the mend, I hope! Rather interrupted the Percée which is allegedly the largest wine gathering in the world, ridiculously held in February, when the new Vin Jaune is released on an unsuspecting public. The crust is ceremoniously pierced and a good deal of wine is consumed. Daddy will have some in 2015 or thereabouts - hope it's worth the wait. This year the festivities (and the arrival of 30,000 people from around the world) occurred in Arbois (previous occasion 1998) and Mummy and Daddy sold a fair amount of wine whilst dishing out nearly 100 bottles to the multitudes. Even got their photo on a blog www.leblogdolif.com/ and a pic, shown at the top.
Snow here at present which is preventing tying after some very spring-like weather which even I knew wasn't going to last. Roll-on summer.
Well that's all folks, as various cartoon characters used to say. I'll try to catch up with you again shortly. Now back to all this speaking malarkey so that I can have a proper say in this column. Merci and bye-bye -trip off the tongue.
Bisous from Basti xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment