Sun Sun & more Sun

It is always strange driving through the vineyards at harvest time before the sun has risen, dotted all over the countryside you see the white lights of the harvesting machines as they try to get an early start, the lights almost looking like diamond glinting in the light of the moon, and making it very difficult to work out if there is on coming traffic on the road ahead or harvesting machines in the vineyard next to the road.

We had another great weekend with teriffic weather, we keep saying this must be the last 30 degree weekend of the summer and then another one comes along.

We took Fleur to the zoo on Sunday and she thoroughly enjoyed herself, although even she was tired of looking at monkeys, there were so many different kinds. We went to Palmyre Zoo which is to the north of Royan, and very close to the sea. The zoo is one of the best I have seen, though I am still not sure it is the best place for all types of animals, even if you are trying to conserve them, having said this, they have made a big effort to make the animals comfortable, and easy for the visitor as well. We could get up really close to the giraffes which was fun, but they do have a strange addiction to popcorn! and playing with the goats was good fun too. Most of the animals appeared to be enjoying the last of the summer sun they were just lazing about in the sunniest parts of their enclosures. After the zoo we did our own lazing about on the beach for an hour or so before heading home.

Saturday was a work day, Fleur and I took 2 car loads of rubbish to the decheterie (the tip) and then we cleaned both cars on the inside, which was well over due, we'll get round to the outsides next weekend. I then made a start on cutting down our huge laurel (bay leaf) tree which is in the way of our garage/summer kitchen/swimming pool plans. The tree smells really wonderful and I must remember to keep some leaves for cooking. The tree will be replaced, but not sure if it will be another laurel or something else, I quite fancy a peach tree and a pear tree.

At the end of the day we went to another celebration of the vendange, if we had got there early enough we could have helped with the harvesting, however we contented ourselves with watching the harvesters and taking photos.

We were on organic vineyards and there was also a small organic farmers market, so we bought everything for our evening meal from the market, and may be the meat for our Christmas meal, if we can keep it that long.

And so it is back to Bordeaux airport for another week of work, but it was a great weekend!