Peekaboo

Peekaboo
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

Yes, it's that time of year again. The period when my day begins with a 6am alarm and I cover my head with a pillow to muffle the noises of Frog disappearing out of the flat. He usually reappears at about 8pm and manages a couple of sentences before collapsing comatose for the rest of the night.

I've popped backwards and forwards to the family house over the last couple of days. My freelance work has piled up over the last week, so I've needed focus on that. Although it's nice to be at the house during what is an exciting time, after a couple of hours I start to feel the family tensions and am happy to escape again!

There are over fifty workers (tenfold the usual employee number) that descend for the vendanges. A good fifteen of whom are housed in spare rooms. This year we have a couple of Polish families who have driven over to work . Only one of them speaks (excellent) French and I amuse myself by overhearing the other French and Poles attempt to communicate in broken English. A lot of the French guys seem to be motivated to practice their English by a rather stunning 6ft blonde Polish girl!

I joined everyone last night for dinner, during which we toasted the wedding anniversary of one of the Polish couples and were taught a Polish drinking/celebration song. Needing no excuses, the French began to reply with their own songs. Yes, I am enjoying the ability to drink champagne again!

So far the quality of the grapes is very good, with several of the larger vines producing high natural sugar contents. I'm told that we may be looking at a vintage.

I'll spend time in the next couple of days taking some photos to record Harvest 2006. In the meantime, 2005's images can be found here.