Manual Labour

Frog Hand
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

One of the hits that's been blaring in France this summer is Bougez Bougez. I guess roughly translated that would be Move it Move it. Which is what I spent over two weeks in the Var assiduously trying not to do. And I think I managed it quite successfully. Stack of books was read, pool was lounged by, sea paddled in and long, lazy lunches partaken of.

However, when the first cloudy day came on the seventeenth day we felt that was a nudge for us to pack up the car and drive back up to the north-east to set to work on the flat. Inevitably, with that came a trip to Ikea. The trip filled up a transit van and we headed home with purchases worth three days of assembly. Frog really put his all into getting the work done and the marks can be seen on his hands, even three days later.

Even though it's still mid-August there's a real feel of 'back to school' around here. Today was my first day back working and Frog has been running around looking for a printer that's open in August to complete the personalised labels for a champagne order for a wedding. Additionally, Father Frog is soon to head into hospital just before the crucial harvest period and will be out of action for its duration. Which means everyone is running around now to prepare as much early as possible and Frog will be jumping in at the deep end on his first 'official' harvest, working alongside his brother to manage and execute. The panic really set in when Frog realised he still needed to work out all the locations of the family vines in the region.

Over dinner last night, Frog proudly showed off his new Ikea calloused hands, at which Frog father looked vaguely amused. So it shouldn't have been a huge surprise this morning when Frog was told that since the couple of employees are still on holiday for August, his mission tomorrow was to go out into the vineyards and work on cutting back the overgrowth.

It's a far cry from the finance department and the excel spreadsheets that he left behind!