Winter Stroll

Champagne
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

I've been a little bit neglectful (again) of the blog. But I have no apologies to offer. I've taken a step back from everything in the last month and just tried to 'go with the flow' (cue much guffawing from anyone who knows me and my controlling tendencies).

You might be forgiven for thinking the photo above is from our holidays in the south-eastern Var but we haven't left yet. The photo is from our three hour walk around the village yesterday. It was incredibly mild weather with a bright sun and blue sky. I saw catkins, rosehips and blossoms during our stroll. Which doesn't seem right for the beginning of February. You can see the set of photos here.

Since I last posted we have zipped from Reims to London, back to Reims, onto Brussels and across to Amsterdam for different wine fairs. I seem to have collected a nice little culture of germs across the continent and am still fighting a lingering cough and cold. It wasn't all hard work since London and Amsterdam gave us the chance to catch up with friends and let our hair down a bit during the evenings.

However, the fairs are tiring and it's hard to stay patient at the end of the day when a noisy minority of the 'tasters' (who have actually been swallowing for a while) swarm to your stand for drunken badgering and an intent to finish off your champagne. The professionals are actually far worse than the general public. Upon one Belgian restauranteur's acclamation that 'the English obviously have no taste' his French friends joined in in agreement. As he continued to demand more champagne, I gently warned with a smiling, 'You should be careful what you say, as I'm English'. He, of course, continued and I could only point out that we might then agree on one thing, "I might have bad taste as an Englishwoman, since I had indeed married a Frenchman".

Luckily the Frog has a sense of humour.

So, Frog is back at work following up with his sales leads and we just have to get through the next 48 hours and we'll be on our hols. They'll be the first we've had together since August, tied as we are now to the production and sales cycle of the house. The only plan we have is to drive down to the family house in Cavalaire with a stack of books. Everything else will be played by ear.