Gimme coffee

I have a problem. I need Internet access and get edgy if I can't get online whenever I want. We are in James' flat in Brighton at the mo and my laptop picks up an unencrypted wifi router somewhere close by. Now I realise that I'm stealing a bit of bandwidth, but not much, and I doubt that I'm disrupting the kind soul who has not encrypted his router. Thank you kind sir, you don't know it, but you're very kind. In the meantime, I'll say three Hail Marys.

***

I’ve never really understood the anti-globalisation thing. Everyone seems to knock Starbucks and companies like it because they're huge organisations with shops all over the world. Who cares how big they are? Good luck to them. No one is forced to go in. Me, I don’t like Starbucks because I don’t like what they sell. I don’t care how big they are, I just want them to sell something that tastes like coffee. Now that's something to protest about.

Another day of meeting family, and in particular Jan's lovely sister Valerie. Dinner at Murasaki Cafe finished the evening. Excellent.

We got mildew

I got mum to the surgery first thing this morning and, having seen the effort we had made to get details from the UK, the doctor kindly obliged and wrote a prescription for mum's missing medicine. One job completed satisfactorily.

***

Later this morning Vincent and Francoise called round to establish what was wrong with my two vines. Grief, this couple farm 30 hectares of vines so a problem with my two piddly things should not be a problem. It took them all of 5 seconds to identify that they have a bad attack of mildew, not that I could identify it and, come to think of it, they had mildew last year as well. Bum, bum, and thrice bum. Each year I learn a little more about growing grapes but unfortunately I don't learn enough each year, so I estimate that by 2020 I'll be an expert, but dead.

***

Despite still not feeling too good after a last night's big (in every sense of the word) BBQ, we all popped over to Sommieres for the Fete de la Musique, and dinner at Elie's. I can't say that either was brilliant. Elie needs to change his menu and the music was just OK.

Beer goggles

I didn't really know what 'beer goggles' meant until now. Some clever soul has come up with a formula that shows how 'beer goggles' affects a drinkers vision in a research project sponsored by Bausch and Lomb. My contact lenses are made by B&L and frankly I would have preferred it if they had considered reducing their prices rather than wasting money on this stupidity. Still, it gave me a laugh.

***

Out of the blue, Vincent C came round last night to say that he was starting work tomorrow in the garden to finish some levelling work. It was raining this morning, so he arrived and picked up his mini pel, never to be seen again.

***

The news from England this morning was all about snow. Shock horror, they had up to 10 cms of snow in places. Four whole inches. The country was in near paralysis with schools shut down, airports closed and accidents all over the place. What is going on? When I was a kid nothing, absolutely nothing, stopped me from going to school. Six days a week I travelled over 25 kilometres from the outskirts of Harrogate to my school in Leeds. Ahhhh, those were the days.
On the subject of travel it looks like BA are about to commit commercial suicide. What are they thinking of?

No more information, please!

It's 4.06 am on Monday morning and I can't sleep. I'm nowhere near a computer and so I'm handwriting this. On top of that, I have a huge thirst and have resorted to drinking chlorinated tap water. I once read that London tap water has previously been through several people, so the drinks only partially quenched my thirst and the thought made me feel sick.
Anyway, yesterday's journey went well. That is until Vincent realised that that the cost of the return rail journey from Luton to London was costing more than the journey from Nimes to Luton, and for the rest of the stay he was noticing the cost of different airport/London transfers. We finished the day with a very nice meal at PJ's, 52 Fulham Road, 020 7581 0025. I had a delicious rib eye steak and we shared a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. Good gear, and as long as you have deepish pockets, recommended.
We chatted long and hard on the flight and over dinner, as I tried to cram a tiny fraction of his 20+ years of wine knowledge into an even tinier brain. Bear in mind that he is speaking French and the strain of keeping up makes it very tiring. In order to get a better handle on how I could be of practical assistance, I asked him what would make him happy as a result of this little trip. He told me how many bottles he would like to sell, so now he's talking my language and gives me a clear objective.
I've no idea how we got onto the subject, but at one point over dinner I mentioned old farmhouses and windows and that older properties could be quite dark and gloomy inside. He said that in ancient France there used to be a window tax so if you had 10 windows you paid ten times the tax. In one fell swoop we covered building construction, its place in the economy and tax matters. It was no wonder I had a headache when I got to bed and why I'm pissed off sitting here wide awake.

Be careful, it's tough out there

It's getting tougher. Yesterday there was only Milton and me playing tennis (ok, I know it should be Milton and I) and he was leading throughout the set until I managed to scrape back to 6 - 6. We are fairly evenly matched, but whilst I've been playing again for the last couple of years, he has only just started playing again after a 15 years lay off. God knows what he'll be like when he gets his eye in. Just gotta keep upping the game! Just for the record I beat him 7 - 2, in the tie-break. You knew I wouldn't let you down?

***

So we're in Sommieres this morning, helping Elie dispose of his huge stocks of red wine, when Peter has a go at me about not writing much recently. Bloody hell, he gets all this garbage for free and then complains that he doesn't get enough garbage. I have to admit however that the muse has escaped me for the last few days (that, and nothing much has happened anyway) but I know it will come back soon. Tomorrow I leave for the UK, with Vincent C, for his wine fair at Vinopolis in London. That's bound to get my creative juices flowing. It could be that I won't get to a computer until I return on Tuesday, so don't go away!

Work and play

The gardener arrived again yesterday morning, wow, 2 days on the trot. He says that he will be ready to plant on Thursday, so the work looks like it could be finished soon. We shall see!

***

More work with Vincent C yesterday afternoon and this morning, on his mailing to UK wine buyers. He had got his internet back and could therefore start the background work so that I could make some calls on his behalf. A few hours yesterday and today and I'd finished the job. Very satisfying. What was interesting was that with everyone of the phone calls that I made, I received a polite and positive reception to my questions. I'd expected a lot more resitance to a cold phone call and was proved wrong. We were invited to send out lots more invitations to Vinopolis, so Vincent was very pleased.

***

Jan painted all afternoon with Gill and then both Gill and Bryan had dinner with us. The girls painted the view from the main terrace (above). Which was nice! The next day I suffered from a surfeit of something, which was not nice.

Barcelona

At the weekend, we intend to pop down to Barcelona. Their most gifted player Ronaldinho is pictured above, (with all the wonderful things that Barcelona has to offer is that all you can think of, a football player? - Ed.) Because of the trip, we went to check out the new kennels this morning. We were quite impressed and the lady seems genuinely interested in dogs and their welfare. We booked them in for a few days and will see how the dogs fare.

***

The gardener revisited again this afternoon (after saying that he would return last Wednesday) and continued to prepare the ground for planting. It's rock hard in places so he is having to use an industrial cultivator. So far so good.

***

Vincent C also turned up this afternoon because he had an Internet connection problem and needed help with some bounced mailings. As a result of the letter that I composed for him he has had 4 wine buyers from the UK promising to visit his stand at Vinopolis on 22nd. For a 'cold' mailing one could reasonably expect a half percent response. He has achieved 2.6% so, even if I say so myself, the letter must have been bloody good! Well, either that, or, there are a few people looking for a day out, wine included.

Jan de Cannes

After we had an aborted trip to the dentist (his chair had broken down) in Quissac, Vincent Coste of Domaine Costeplane popped round this morning to ask for help with the English translation on an email he is about to send out. It transpired that he has quite a few names and addresses for wine importers in the UK and he wants to mail them with an invitation to Vinopolis on 22nd January 2007. Vincent exports wine to several countries in the EU and wants to break into the tough UK market. As a little business challenge for myself I'm trying to see if I can help him.

***

Jan's art class held a vernissage at Mas de Roux tonight and several hundred people turned up. The cynic in me says that the free drinks and canapes helped but so what. As we walked into the room I heard a group of people commenting on a rather nice painting of tomatoes on the vine. Because we had only taken it the day before it wasn't included in the catalogue but the anonimity had created a little excitement. I proudly pointed to Jan as the artist. Well done 'Jan de Cannes' (her new artistic name). By the way, I'm now her manager and agent.

Ceps and award winning rosé

This village never fails to surprise, with pleasant little encounters. Whilst we were visiting Alain yesterday in his studio, drinking an unusual Lambrusco, Vincent Ducros turned up with a basket of ceps that he had gathered that morning on Mont Aigoual. The artist in me (yes, piss artist - Ed.) just had to take a picture.

***

A little later, I took Toby and Alison up to Domaine Costeplane because Vincent Coste had very kindly offered to give them a behind the scenes tour and explanation of his wine making facility. He makes our favourite rosé which he was proud to tell us had just been awarded two stars in next years Hachette Guide. It's good to know were not drinking rubbish!

***

Tonight, we managed to get into our favourite local restaurant, Le Fourneau de Clelia. The last few times that we had tried to book they were full, so this was also a pleasant surprise.

Domaine Costeplane

What a joke. Doesn't anyone get embarrassed?

***

Up early to finish clearing the last bits from our petite maison. It was renovated with much thought and loving care and Jan particularly is sorry to see it go. Ah well, I suppose that we could always renovate another.

***

Maisie is a delightful, chatty 3 year old and Elsie cries a lot. Never having been a real 'baby person', I know which I prefer. If at first you don't succeed, give them back to their parents!

***

I nipped over to Domaine Costeplane this afternoon to buy some more rosé. Vincent took me behind the scenes to let me try the juice which he has just pressed. He told me that he will make a slightly more sophisticated Chardonnay this year with more buttery overtones. To that end he has part picked the Chardonnay grapes and will pick the rest which will have 'more honey' in about a week. The juice that I tried looked and tasted not unlike an unfiltered sweet apple juice. In the same vein he is going to change the composition of his special rosé. Normally it is a Syrah, Grenache blend but, into the next wine he will add a little Merlot and it's the Merlot juice that we tried. This, like the Chardonnay was very sweet and it's amazing to think that it will eventually turn into wine. Power to his elbow!
The other interesting bit of information is that he will attend some kind of wine fair at Lords Cricket Ground, in London, in either January or February next year and I offered to accompany him. He seemed genuinely pleased. He deserves all the help he can get and that's something to look forward to next year. It's a tough job but someone has got to do it.

Farts can kill!

And you definitely can't light one!

***

Roxanne and Owen arrived today, for a couple of days. Roxanne is a blog reader from Oregon so I can only say nice things about them. At least that what she thinks!

By way of a little local wine tasting we headed off to the Cave Cooperative at Carnas who have a got a really nice Viognier (5.90) on offer and an even nicer very special red at (13.50). The red is the most expensive wine I have ever seen there but boy is it nice. Highly recommended. After that we visited Francoise and Vincent Coste at Domaine Costeplane to taste some of their delicious organic wine and for me to top up on their rosé. F&V were leaving first thing the following morning to attend a wine fare in Alsace. When I mentioned that it was a long way to go for a wine fare Vincent said, "Not really, we already have orders for 20,000 bottles." I'm not surprised.

That's so kind

After collecting the dogs, the day was spent mostly sorting things out. We had a nice surprise at 19.00 when Vincent Coste popped round to give us some of his just bottled wine as a thank you for helping with his brochure. Wasn't that kind?

Lost in translation

After returning from an airport run yesterday, we had a surprise visit from Vincent Coste of Domaine Costeplane. Françoise and Vincent are such nice people and, time permitting, have always allowed our guests to visit their cave and see winemaking in progress. They are in the process of preparing a new brochure and want a French to English translation, so the rest of the afternoon and part of this morning was spent translating. It was an interesting exercise because quite often you knew exactly what was said in the French but had to avoid a direct translation because of the clumsy English that it would produce. (A bit like wot you write - Ed.) With a bit of imagination and some artistic licence, we managed to produce some readable English that stayed loyal to the spirit of the French. We had to scratch our heads a few times, particularly when trying to translate a technical term like argilo-calcaire marbre but Vincent seemed very pleased with the end result and we had a bit of fun. As an aside, their delicious, medal winning 2004 rosé was our pink of choice last year and their Plan de Savoulous is one of our favourite reds.

***

It's Max's second birthday today so Jan gave him extra cuddles and treats. Both being males, Max and I celebrated with male type greetings so that he didn't get embarrassed and I didn't get branded a paedophile. You've gotta be careful nowadays!

***

I popped in to see William this afternoon because I'd heard that he wasn't well, that he'd put his car in a ditch and had to get someone to pull him out. I thought that I'd tease him about French drunk drivers but it turns out it was nothing worse than getting stuck in deep mud next to some roadworks. I'll get him one day!

Weight transfer mystery

Off to see the optician this morning. Because I have diabetes, regular eye checks are important. Dr C is very thorough and puts me through the ropes. Part of the test involves dilating my pupils which makes driving in strong sunlight intolerable. The lovely Jan had agreed to accompany me and drove us back home. Yet another favour I owe her!

***

In tennis terms, weight transfer generally refers to shifting one's weight from the back foot to the front foot. What I'm talking about is something much more mysterious. Like how come my watch, which I wear on my left wrist, is getting looser but my pants are getting tighter? How is the fat from my left wrist transferring to my stomach? One of life's little mysteries.

***

Floyd leaves this afternoon, so guess what, I get another trip to the airport at Montpellier. Yippee! However, the upside is that on the way back I pass Domaine des Hospitaliers and buy a couple of boxes of their delicious oak aged merlot. Very reasonable at 5 euros a bottle. Next I pop into Domaine Costeplane because we have run out of rosé. Vincent is, as ever, very hospitable and lets me try his chardonnay which has been in the cuve for just 9 days. It was very sweet, almost like a cloudy pressed apple drink, and I would have been happy to drink it like that. Françoise, meanwhile, is preparing sanglier, wild boar, and very smelly it all was. The smell in the kitchen was almost overpowering. She described the taste as more like beef than pork, and a very strong beef taste at that. What was even more interesting was that Vincent had opened bottles of his 1993 and 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon which he was going to put into the pot with the sanglier. When I looked surprised, he said that the sanglier would need a good wine to bring out the flavour. One of the benefits of making your own wine, I suppose.

It's Chardonnay time, but what about the watermelons

The vendage was due to start at 3.00 am this morning at Domain Costeplane. Vincent mentioned this as Kevin, Rose, Jan and I went for a quick tasting yesterday. He said that he had been due to start gathering the Chardonnay on Saturday, but he had worked until late damping down the fire on Friday night. When pressed about such an early start he said that he needed to work when the temperature was below 20 C or fermentation would begin, hence the early morning. He would stop before the daytime temperature reached 20 C. I hope it tastes as good as this year's unoaked chardonnay.

***

Our watermelons are relatively small but something inside me says that they are ripe. How to find out? A google search gives us some pointers. Anyway, I bring one in and Jan cuts it open and - it's absolutely delicious; he said, taking a bow. Jan's comment was: "That's one of the best we've had this year, it's so juicy." I'm modestly blushing as I write this because, as you know, I'm not one to sing my own praises - much.

***

This afternoon we threw a barbecue so that Kevin could meet up with his longtime friends Chris Ward and Bob Walder (above, left to right, Chris, Kevin and Bob). Chris brings Delphine, and Bob and Lynne bring Harry. It's nice to have everyone together and even Max will be delighted. Jan slaved over a cold stove all day and produced her famous salads (and spare ribs). I slaved over a hot barbecue for 15 minutes and produced, lamb steaks and sausages all cooked to perfection.

A breakfast fit for a rock star

Because the dates coincide, Jan usually nips to England for Maisie's birthday when my mother visits us here in France. She leaves me in the capable hands of mater, who normally lives alone, and who is usually in urgent need of someone to spoil. Max and I vie for her attention but needless to say, Max generally wins. This morning however, it was my turn. My mother's idea of eating well, is to eat mountains of good for you foods, but when I say mountains, I mean enough to negate the low fat/calorie content of such fare. Part of my breakfast this morning consists of at least two grapefruits, peeled and segmented and with the skin taken off the segments, no less. There was so much, I had to send half of it back to the kitchens! For a brief moment, I felt like some poxy, spoilt little rock star, and was tempted to ask her to feed me by hand - just don't ask! Being an only child does have its benefits and having now visited the realms of fantasy, albeit briefly, Jan will have to get herself sorted out when she gets back. I will demand much higher standards in future.
(Have you ever stopped to think why she really went to England? - Ed.)

***

We have run out of my favourite everyday white and rose, so I nip across the village to see Vincent Coste who makes delicious organic wines. The white, a Vermentino, is just right for glugging with a fish sauce pasta and his special rose is right at any time. Thank you, Francoise and Vincent.

My mother likes to spend money. She sees French supermarkets as Aladdin's Caves, full of all the things that she knows and loves from her own Mediterranean background. On Tuesday she needed to 'stock up', so that I wouldn't go hungry whilst Jan was away. Not being exactly shy myself when it comes to 'goodies', we buy enough scallops, clams, tuna, and swordfish to feed an army. Tonight, to start, we feast on scallops lightly fried in butter, followed by 'pasta al vongole', spaghetti with clam sauce to you and me. I groan just to think of the quantities, but we made it - just. Wonderful.

Loads a culture

Today we have a three car convoy to the Pont du Gard.

Culture over, we head back for a lunch of quiche and salad. The rest of the afternoon is spent by the pool before we head off for a look around Domaine Costeplane, ( http:// www.costeplane.com ). Francoise and Vincent Coste make delicious organic wine and there is nothing nicer than sitting in the sun sampling their wares after a personally conducted tour, by Vincent, and an explanation of their wine making techniques.

Dinner tonight is at Mas de Roux, so Jan gets a well deserved night off. Thank you darling for all you do.