Southern Times

FUR AND FEATHERS

Patricia — 2004-03-01T10:55:23Z

I do have a kind of sympathy with the rebellious creatures of Animal Farm. Four legs good, yes. Two legs bad? Well, not always. Six legs - or more? Lemme outta here!

I was prepared for spiders, of course, when we moved into our Midi home. But nobody told me about scorpions. Scorpions are things you get in Africa, aren't they? Great black things a foot long with a sting that can stun an elephant. Surely not in the friendly south of France?

Until the day, or should I say the night, when I woke up and just knew I wasn't going to go back to sleep. It was a hot, hot summer night so I was wearing, er, not a lot. And when you switch on the light and there on the white wall is the biggest, blackest, evillest creepy crawly you ever imagined, and you haven't even the protection of a pair of socks, well you feel a tad vulnerable.

I wakened Himself by the time-honoured method: "Are you awake?" I hissed. And then, in the way of wives immemorial since time began, I sweetly suggested "Well, deal with THAT!"

I've got a lot more laid-back since then. Today I can take scorpions in my stride, and prefer to capture them in a glass and put them outside, rather than send them prematurely to meet their Maker. But one creature I cannot, will not come to terms with is that long, hairy, multi-legged, evil-sting-equipped thing, the local centipede. I'm even too afraid to squash them, let alone get near enough to trap them in a glass. Those, I'm afraid, take their chances in the next world - once I have summoned up enough courage to scream for help.

On the other hand, Sid is always welcome. Sid is the generic name we have given to the lizards - all of them - with whom we are privileged to share our terrace during the summer months.

Over the years we have come to know quite a bit about Sid. For example, his addiction to soft fruit. We have got into the habit of leaving a piece of peach, strawberry or grape on the wall where Sid is accustomed to sun himself. It's quite amazing: one minute no lizards in sight, a grape later and there are half a dozen circling the offering, snarling at each other (as we suppose from their body language) and making little darts at the fruit.

These are tiny lizards - the oldest and biggest no more than six or eight centimetres long - and we thought they were very cute indeed. Until the day I was experimenting with a video camera and took a close-up shot. Suddenly these enormous jaws came into view and clamped with vicious intent on a piece of peach. Tyrannosaurus Rex in miniature.

Since we came to live in the village we've had a fair few encounters with local fauna, most of them a lot more endearing than our six-plus legged friends.

For example, there was that summer night when we sat in the kitchen, the coolest place we could find, all doors and windows open. As we lingered over our meal Himself suddenly remarked "There's a cat in our living room" "Yes, dear," I replied soothingly, wondering if that last glass of rosÃ© had been an altogether good idea.

Himself knows that tone of voice. "But there is," he insisted, "there is a large grey cat in our living room." Now it's not often a girl has to admit this about her bloke, but I have to say he was right. There was a large grey cat in our living room.

We didn't know it then, but Pouchkine had come to stay. Cat-like, he had noted a soft billet and simply moved himself in. In those days we were only spending a couple of summer months in France, and cat passports were unheard-of, so adopting him full time was out of the question. In any case, he had perfectly good owners of his own but, being French, they didn't pay him quite the homage he felt was his due. A soppy English couple fitted the bill nicely.

So during the day Pouchkine had the run of our house - and, naturally, the fridge - but when we were out, and at night, he was firmly shown the door.

Suddenly the early mornings took on a whole new flavour. It went something like this:
6 a.m. Waaow?

(Silence)

6:30 a.m. Waaow? Waaow?

(Silence)

7:00 a.m. Waaow? Waaow? WAA-ow?

(Silence)

7:30 a.m. WAAOW! WAAOW! WAAOW! (I can keep this up forever) WAAA-OW! WAAA-OW! WAAAAA-OW! WAAA...

(wearily, the door opens).

ZZZZZZZ-TT! (A grey furry streak shoots into the kitchen) Where's my milk then?

Lap. Lap-lap. Lap-lap. Lap-lap-lap-lap-lap-lap-lap-lap.

PRP! OK, time for cuddles! Prr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrrrrrrrrrrr...

As will happen, the holiday drew to a close and it was time to head back to England. I have to admit I worried about Pouchkine. Who would cuddle him? Who would feed him milk? I needn't have fretted. A few weeks later there was an excited phone call from one of my French neighbours. "Guess who I saw, sitting in Madame Untel's window today?" It wasn't too hard to guess.

A year or so after Pouchkine, Gulliver came along. We have the good fortune to play host to a large variety of birds in our village. Some are here year-round, others only pay a summer visit. But every year there is the usual sad quota of small fledglings which have launched themselves from high places with more hope than experience, and come crashing to ground.

Gulliver was one such.

We weren't exactly sure what he was, although we knew that his parents probably belonged to the summer visitor group. We often debated their species: swifts? swallows? house martins? What use are bird books and details of markings when all we see of them are fast-moving silhouettes against a dazzling or darkening sky?

Then we found the answer. Swifts, according to the bird book, have "â€¦ vigorous, dashing flight, wheeling, winnowing and gliding; excited parties chase each other squealing around the houses in small towns and villagesâ€¦" Yesss!! That's just how our summer birds behaved.

Gulliver didn't look remotely like the picture - an all-black bird with a long, graceful forked tail. His tail was stubby and he had a fawn band on his back and fawn underbelly. But he was a baby, so perhaps he would grow into the bird-book image. And anyway, we had named him Gulliver, hadn't we? And Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, didn't he? The case, in our minds, was proven.

We had Gulliver for a week. We kept him in a cardboard box on the window sill at night, and during the day encouraged him to explore and try out his wings. We taught him to drink water. We fed him, to the huge and mocking delight of our friends, on charcuterie. The one time I managed to catch an insect he turned up his beak at it.

Then one afternoon I was on the terrace sunbathing, Himself upstairs having a siesta. Suddenly Gulliver began to climb up the house wall. Sensing something was afoot, I called urgently up to Himself. "You'd better get down here fast, I think Baby is leaving home."

Himself arrived at a gallop. Gulliver climbed on steadily till he reached the guttering on the roof. Then he turned and looked at us. I could almost hear him say "Watch me, Mum, watch me, Dad." Then he launched himself into space. We held our breath. He tumbled through the air and we tensed for a rescue mission. Then he began to climb again, airborne this time. And as he rounded the church another bird swooped down and flew beside him. We felt proud and tearful - we had reared our first chick.

Now there is Purdey, and she's here to stay.

She entered our lives, much to our surprise, last summer. Himself and she adopted each other in the village. We duly reported her at the Mairie and took her to the vet, who said she wasn't tattooed or microchipped but she would surely be claimed as she was a fine specimen - spaniel cross, obviously used for hunting.

Sure enough, two days later her owner turned up. I took one look at Himself's stricken face and asked said owner if he wanted to sell her. He said (in French) "If my wife agrees I'll let you have her - I've got two others and she's a rubbish hunting dog."

Now Purdey is officially ours. We originally named her Perdi, short for Perdita, for obvious reasons. But then Himself pointed out that Purdey is a make of shotgun used in hunting, which seemed appropriate. (Actually I think it's because Himself is wildly in love with Joanna Lumley, who played Purdey in the Avengers).

She's absolutely adorable, house trained, intelligent, willing and affectionate. Even, occasionally, obedient. She loves people and other dogs. A friend came to visit, took one look at her and pronounced "She's a Brittany spaniel." And so it turned out to be, and pooh to the vet who called her a cross.

We, of course, are besotted. She has us wrapped round her small paw, and we find it hard to talk about anything else. In fact, we now have an imaginary bell which we ring at each other - ding-ding - to remind us not to bore our friends rigid with Purdey stories

Purdey embodies both the fur and the feathers aspect of life down here. Her expressive ears are fringed with brown fur which I call her feathers, and they provide my abiding image of her. When we walk together she will go off exploring, but once she gets to the end of what I think of as her invisible lead, she has to come back and check on us. And if we are out of sight, she comes at greyhound speed, all four feet off the ground, tongue lolling, feathers in the windâ€¦

Ding-ding.

Â© Patricia Feinberg 2004

The Good Ol' Boys

Patricia — 2003-10-01T09:31:57Z

Every village has them. The good ol' boys who congregate in the village square or in the bar, gossiping and swapping tall tales and passing comment on the world as it goes by. Our village is no exception.


Good Ol' Boys

We are particularly blessed in good ol' boys. There must be 10 or more to be seen of a morning, whiling away the time till midday, when Madame calls them in for lunch. It's always midi on the dot, of course - an hour which, in honour of the local accent, we call 'l'heure du paing et du ving'.

They have their favourite spots, the good ol' boys, and woe betide anyone who trespasses without invitation. The main gathering place is on the circular bench under the big plane tree in the square. Others prefer the benches that line the road, or the shady square by the post office with its war memorial and fish pond.

Three in particular like to park themselves on drowsy afternoons on the bench next to our old-fashioned metal bottle bank. Goodness knows why they favour this noisy spot, but perhaps it's because they do like to trot out their jokes. They have two. One is "Hey! Don't wake us up!" and the other is "You can leave any full ones with us." Every time you toddle up with your clanking load, and the good ol' boys are on duty, you can be sure of being treated to these same two jokes. Laugh dutifully, if you value their good opinion.

This 'front' part of the village, which abuts the busy road to town, is strictly male territory. In general the good ol' girls have more important things to do than sitting in the square gossiping. Sitting gossiping on their front doorsteps, on hard wooden chairs, is favourite. If they should fancy a breath of foreign air, they can walk the 20 or 30 yards to the little walled garden beside the church.

The good ol' boys have their factions. Jean-Bertrand won't speak to Monsieur Chevallier - a long-standing difference over a game of boules, we believe - and their respective cronies usually follow suit. The three bottle-bankers like to keep themselves to themselves. Remy is popular in any group: our sprightly octogenarian ex-mayor with his tame pigeons and his pretty spaniel who is a tart for sugar lumps. He and I share a birthday, a fact which he never tires of telling anyone who will listen. He always concludes, triumphantly, with "But I had it first!!"

Of course as incomers, and English at that, and mere striplings of fiftysomething, we treat the good ol' boys with extreme deference. At the very least, a respectful bonjour, messieurs is expected as we cross the square, and certain gentlemen positively require us to go out of our way to shake hands and exchange comments about the weather.

It is true that, if Himself and I have agreed to meet in the square, one or other of us might perch a cautious buttock on the very edge of one of the benches, but only if is empty, and we are always quick to give way should a rightful incumbent come into view.

And then came the day when our status rose among the good ol' boys. Not a lot, and never to be presumed upon, but it was a start.

It was while I was absent in England on some errand or other. The village was celebrating one of its many traditional foires and Himself had the video camera out. He was doing his best to be inconspicuous, but the good ol' boys have antennae for that kind of thing. Soon, it seems, they were mugging and playing to camera as if to the manner born.

That evening I got an excited phone call to tell me all about it. I should explain that Himself's French, which is negligible when I am there to translate, amazingly blossoms into fluency when I am not. "And we had a really good chat," he burbled, "and guess what: they invited me to sit on the bench with them!"

I know my wifely duties. Here was clearly a case for unbridled enthusiasm. "Well done you!" I congratulated him. "You've cracked it: you're an honorary good ol' boy!"

(First published in French Property News)

HAVING THE BUILDERS IN

Patricia — 2003-07-21T00:00:00Z


Getting Plastered: Reliable builders are hard to find, but.......

There is a sickness that afflicts those of us who dwell in the Midi. It is rarely fatal, although sufferers tend to become suicidal. We have almost all contracted it at some time or other. It is known as Having the Builders In.

As sufferers go, we are perhaps the luckiest: we have Reliable Builders. That means that if they promise faithfully to get the job done they will probably do so. In their own time, true. After much nagging, certainly. But our builders do actually build, and their work is good. Of course this is in itself a mixed blessing. Being reliable - Midi fashion - and delivering good work means that they are swamped with commissions.

And, being charming people, they just hate to disappointâ€¦ For this reason it's as well to learn the language of the builder. "Oui" means "perhaps, but I'm not promising anything." "Certainement," or - worse - "Sans faute" means "forget it."

Other useful expressions are
A deux heures before five (probably)
Demaing by the end of the week (probably)
Jeudi by the end of the month (probably)
La semaine prochaine never: by the time next week
comes they will have forgotten all about you

There are tips and wrinkles when it comes to dealing with builders in the midi. First of all, it's no good whatever being English about it. We English are so polite. We plead, cajole and thank effusively for service. If a builder turns up when he is expected we positively roll out the red carpet. Coffee? Croissants? Of course you can light up a Gauloise in my newly decorated, smoke-free-zone kitchen.

If, fired with indignation, we manage to pin down a builder and demand to know why he hasn't delivered what he promised, the slightest hint of tetchiness on his part will send us grovelling back into apology mode.

Now this won't do at all. My neighbour Josianne used to despair of me. We call her Mighty Mouse because she is very small and very, very fierce. She went to school with P'tit Guy, our local builder. She calls him 'tu'. She exchanges bisous with him. And still she nags and threatens, scolds and shrieks like a fishwife. If he is more than 30 seconds late for an appointment she is on the phone, breathing brimstone.

And does she get results? Well, after a fashion. Probably rather more than we did, in the early, timorous days. But you have to remember, this is the Midi. The disarming fact is that, at least in our village, you don't have to be English to suffer from The Builders.

The timorous days are behind us, now. Now we can get on the phone and bellow threats and insults at our builder with the best of 'em. Firing him works well, too, as Himself discovered one day when pushed well beyond the end of his (admittedly short) tether. He had lunched not wisely but too well, and retired for a siesta still brooding on the wrongs we had endured. Suddenly it all became too much. He sat up, grabbed the phone and, miracle of miracles, actually managed to run P'tit Guy to earth. So incensed was he that he quite forgot he doesn't speak French.

"Guyâ€¦ NON!" he thundered. "Fini!" and slammed the phone down again. I was speechless with admiration. And the next morning, there was P'tit Guy on the doorstep, all innocence, ready to start work. Not a word was said about the explosive phone call, but the message had been taken to heart.

THE HUNTING OF THE BUILDER

Now we are more experienced in the ways of the builder, we consider ourselves a match for him. There is a game which is popular among all of us bonnes mÃ©nagÃ¨res - English and French alike. It's called Cherchez le Constructeur. It goes something like this. Marie Elizabeth lives opposite the cafÃ©, her nets permanently atwitch. She spots P'tit Guy taking a morning coffee and instantly she is on the phone to Josianne. Josianne pops next door to tell me. I phone Helga, who lives a little way outside the village. The cry goes up: P'tit Guy is in the village! Suddenly Guy's peaceful crÃ¨me is interrupted as a dozen harpies descend on the cafÃ©.

More subtle, and even more satisfying, is the game of 'Gotcha!' Say a good friend has actually managed to tie P'tit Guy to an appointment at 2 p.m. Because she is a mate, she tells a chosen few. We all descend at 1:50 and lurk in her kitchen. Of course we know that P'tit Guy probably won't actually turn up until 3 at the earliest, but he has been known to wrong-foot us. Besides, she makes excellent coffee.

Eventually Guy turns up, an unsuspecting fly buzzing into the communal web. And -WHAM! - three or four determined spiders pounce. The look on his face makes the game worth the candle: outrage, mixed with a you-got-me-bang-to-rights sheepishness. And a roguish twinkle which is the reason we all put up with him.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

When it comes to builders in our village, P'tit Guy is the main man. He's getting on, now, and doesn't do much actual work, but it's his company and he sends the workmen in. P'tit Guy loves us to bits. He often drops in just for a chat, and looks hurt when we tactfully suggest that we discuss the work in hand.

Henri is the plasterer and bricklayer. He's in his sixties, a wiry and astonishingly handsome little man with a big laugh and a personality to match. Getting to Henri is best done through P'tit Guy although, as Henri never tires of telling us, he doesn't work for P'tit Guy. Oh no, he's just helping out as a favour. His plasterwork is glass-smooth and his walls, which go up in no time flat, are straight and rock solid, but he's the messiest workman I have ever come across. You never, but never, decorate before calling Henri in.

If you want a parquet floor, kitchen cabinet or window frame, Monsieur de St. Phalle is your man. Jean-Jacques, as we are now allowed to call him, is our local carpenter. His work is exquisite and he is consequently much in demand but, by Midi standards, he is as reliable as they come.

One day, though, he failed to turn up as promised, so the next day Himself and I went to beard him in his sawdust-scented lair above the village. He looked at us mournfully with eyes the colour of ginger wine. "I am so sorry I didn't come," he apologised, "I had to go to a funeral." Thinking "Oh yeah? Pull the other one," we nonetheless made the proper noises. Jean-Jacques looked bemused by our condolences: "No, you don't understand," he said. "I am also the undertaker."

Like P'tit Guy, Jean-Jacques seems to have taken a liking to us. It is rather a pitying liking, as of one who would say 'They're only English: they can't help it," and he does tend to look as if he is suppressing laughter every time he looks at us.

This may be a result of the day we asked him to build us a linen cupboard. Contrary to popular belief, our part of the world is not always hot and sunny. Every day is not a drying day, and when the weather decides to do damp and dismal, getting the sheets and towels aired can be difficult. We English understand the problem. Midi dwellers, brainwashed by their region's publicity, do not.

We explained to Jean-Jacques that what we wanted was a cupboard with a heater inside it, for storing household linens. He looked at us in incredulity. He asked us to repeat what we had said. He began to giggle. Then he howled. It was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. To this day he pops by occasionally to find out if the linen cupboard is satisfactory. He hasn't yet brought friends round to inspect the oddity, but we think the day may come. Why is it that the English seem to exist only to provide an endless source of hilarity for the French?

But, as I've said, we are lucky. At the end of the day - and it was admittedly a long day - Having the Builders In has not proved fatal. Now the dust is settling and we can congratulate ourselves on having not only survived the experience but benefited from it. We can sympathise with those of our friends who are in the throes of the illness. We can assure them, with that delicious hint of condescension, that it will all prove worth while in the end.

And what a source of stories: we'll be dining out on our experiences for years!

LIKE YOU WOULD

Patricia — 2003-07-14T09:24:34Z

If it is possible for two people to buy a house by accident and at the same time by predestination, then we were those two people.


A Vendre: A house in Southern france for sale.

If it is possible for two people to buy a house by accident and at the same time by predestination, then we were those two people.

When I first met Himself he announced casually, quite early on in the relationship, that he didn't like France. Well, I thought, this will not do. Either the man must go, or I'll have to change his ways. Being a woman, I found the latter option the more acceptable.

After a little more subtle probing I discovered that there was one place he quite liked, one place he had visited in his wild youth and not found wanting. This place was Capdag - which I had never heard of. I later found out that he meant Le Cap d'Agde.

And so it was that we planned a holiday in that part of the world, and found ourselves renting a house in PÃ©zenas, a busy market town in the Languedoc Roussillon. It was the start of what has been, so far, a 19-year love affair.

Not that it started that way. We hated PÃ©zenas on sight. We arrived on market day, the streets were congested, we got lost, and when we finally arrived at the house, hot, cross, weary and in need of siestas, the exceedingly fierce cleaning lady threw us out again because we were not supposed to turn up till 4 o'clock.

But by the end of the fortnight we were talking tentatively about returning next year. By the middle of the following year's holiday we were saying "When we come back next yearâ€¦" And by the third consecutive year in PÃ©zenas we were fantasising about having our own house there.

It was never meant to be more than a fantasy. Ever since we had known each other we had been making wild, improbable plans about a bolt hole in the sun. A boat in Greece, the inevitable bar in Spain. A house in PÃ©zenas was just another fun dream, bien sur.

We told the owner of our rented house that if he ever wanted to sell, we would like first refusal (looking back, we must have been mad. It was quite a horrid house). Well, said he, I do know someone who wants to sell a house in the area...

It was one of those typical Midi arrangements. If we went to a certain bar in PÃ©zenas at a certain time and asked for Jerry, this person would take us to the house he was selling. Feeling rather as if we had wandered into a remake of The Third Man, we duly presented ourselves at the bar at the stated time and asked for Jerry.

Of course, he never showed up.

Well, no Jerry, hence no house. Or perhapsâ€¦? It was then that Himself noticed that the cafÃ© was directly opposite an estate agency, and said the fatal words "Well, it wouldn't hurt to go and look in the window, would it?"

This was how we came to meet our good friend Robert, the estate agent. Robert was small and friendly with no English but a great determination to find us exactly the house we needed. Suddenly the fantasy began to take on ominous overtones of reality. Were we really going to go house hunting? It seemed we were.

Four long, hot days of trudging round PÃ©zenas ensued, in the course of which our friendship with Robert was cemented over many a cold beer, but no likely property emerged. PÃ©zenas, it seemed, was out of the question. Everything we liked, we couldn't afford. Everything we could afford needed prohibitive work done on it.

Would we, said Robert, consider the villages?

Now this was the time to cry "Fini la comÃ©die." The moment, if ever, to back out gracefully, leaving our fantasy intact but unfulfilled. After all, we had never really meant to buy a house, had we?

Fine, we said. Bring on the villages, we said.

Two more hot and thirsty days later, we had at least firmed up our ideas of what the ideal property would have to offer. "It must," I told Robert, "have a garage, a terrace and a boulangerie."

Robert blinked a bit: he hadn't quite got to grips with the English sense of humour. But he soon cottoned on to the fact that what we needed was shops within walking distance. No rural idylls in the middle of nowhere for us. We were city mice.

House after house was seen and rejected. Nothing came quite up to expectation, and the end of our holiday was drawing closer. Then one evening Robert said "I have two more houses I think you might like. We can go and see them tomorrow."

We managed to wheedle the addresses out of him. This was a great concession, because estate agents live in mortal fear that the potential buyer will do a private deal with the potential seller and cut the agency out. So, as a rule, they are very cagey about giving out addresses.

We promised faithfully that we would do no more than suss out the villages and take a look at the houses from the outside, and we kept our word. Well, almost: we sussed out two villages and looked at one house from the outside. The other house we completely failed to find.

Considering that the village was tiny and the address was in the Rue du Saint Sacrement, this might seem unlikely. Despite our very best endeavours, and despite my cries of "Look for the church!" we never did find the house that evening.

The next morning we drove back to that village, in Robert's little Peugeot. All became clear: we had been looking on the wrong side of the road. Our village is sharply divided between the old and the new, and the road runs between.

Robert duly turned right where we had turned left, drove up a narrow street between ancient houses, turned the corner (by - yes! - the church) and stopped. We got out of the car. On the angle of the church square and a road so narrow you could have spanned with outstretched arms, stood the ugliest house I had ever seen.

It was clearly old, very old. It was clearly cobbled together out of what had been two houses. It rose slab-fronted from the street, acres of decaying, yellowish crÃ©pi bisected by sundry phone and electricity cables. A ridiculous stone staircase flanked by a stunted tree rose ungracefully to a pocket-handkerchief front terrace littered with debris and encrusted with bird droppings.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Ohmigawd" thought Himself to himself (as he told me later), "we've just bought a house."

As it turned out, he was right. Of course, it took a bit longer than that. We did take the precaution of actually viewing the house I had so precipitately fallen in love with. The house, I was convinced, that had opened one eye when I walked in and remarked "Well, you took your time getting here."

And we did play the property buying game, disdaining the derisory amount the seller was asking, and then chewing our fingernails till he came up with a counter-offer (we knew, Robert knew and for all I can say the house knew that we would have bought it at twice the price). But effectively, yes, we bought that house at first sight.

So, having signed our compromis de vente and agreed faithfully to have the money ready by October, we reluctantly got on the road and made our way back to England. We hardly dared look at each other. Had we really done it? And how on earth were we going to afford it?

By the time we got back to the UK we had come to terms with the idea. Indeed, we were positively blasÃ© about the whole thing. And when friends asked us if we had had a good holiday, and what had we done while away, we soon learned to reply nonchalantly "Oh, you know. Went to the beach. Had some good meals. Did a spot of sight-seeing. Bought a house."

Like you would.

Confessions of a Vendange Virgin

Patricia — 2003-06-27T06:50:12Z

When you have reached the age of fiftysomething, spent a good part of your year in the south of France and have never picked a grape in anger, you begin to wonder what you have missed. So when Antoine, a local friend with a couple of tiny vineyards, hinted that he could do with some vendangeurs for a day or two's work - unpaid, but well fed - I found myself volunteering.

Himself was not impressed, but I pointed out reasonably that this was an experience we owed it to ourselves to experience. And anyway, I had volunteered, so that was that. As the day drew near and the September skies grew blacker and the rain fell in torrents day after day, it looked as if we would be off the hook. But the weather changed on the Monday, and on Tuesday Antoine was on the phone. "It's time to pick the Merlot, he announced. We've reached 13.3 degrees (of alcohol content) and now we have to get the crop in - there's a bonus in it." For him, I might add, not for us, but we had promised.

Wednesday dawned very black
indeed, but that was because we were up and out of bed by 5:30 - an unprecedented hour for us. By the time the sun staggered blearily into the sky it was obvious we were in for a very fine day.

At eight on the dot we were up at the mazet in Antoine's vineyards. Or rather, we were in sight of the mazet. The already-assembled pickers could see us quite clearly, as we trundled up and down every track in the vicinity, assuring ourselves with diminishing conviction that we'd been here before, lots of times, and surely we knew the way?

Eventually, by a process of elimination, we found the right track, and roared up it to shrieks of derision. The loudest of these came from our next-door neighbours, but then they had a right to jeer. Some months earlier we had all gone to a party at Antoine's, and they (who had been there before) got lost and we (who hadn't) didn't. And did we ridicule them and have a huge laugh at their expense? Well, yes, I'm afraid we did.

We needn't have worried, though: we were far from the last to arrive. The rest of the merry gang - we were nine in all - straggled in at intervals during the morning. After a day of picking, I understood why they - cannier by far than us innocents - had chosen to start later.

We were assigned our tasks and sent off with secateurs, two to a row to strip each side with maximum efficiency. The grapes hang down in jewelled clusters, deep amethyst and succulent and ready to fall into your bucket at the merest snip. Or that is the theory. The fact is that for every bunch that hangs down like etc etc, there is one that fiercely hugs the vine, the supporting wire and itself and defies you to detach it without a lengthy battle.

Working opposite your other half, I discovered, is the best option. There's an element of "I'll reach that one for you" and "Mind your fingers" and "Let me carry that heavy bucket." Working opposite the patron is the worst option. He picks tetchily and fast, leaving you far behind as you struggle with a recalcitrant bunch.

Then it was breakfast time. In our case, alas, not rustic benches and a long table spread with checked cloth under the trees by smiling apple cheeked old ladies. Instead it was a listing picnic table and several rather tatty mats for seating.

But there were croissants and fougasse, cheese and saucisson and patÃ©, tea and coffee, chilled water and fruit juice - even beer and wine for those who could face it at 10 a.m. And the sun smiled down and the breeze cooled us and the view over the valley was glorious and we realised that vendange really is like every clichÃ© you have ever read or seen in a movie.

I have to admit, though, that as the day wore on my mind was less on pastoral idyll than on screaming muscles. Bend, crouch, snip, kneel, bend, snip, lift - the person who invented the expression 'backbreaking' knew what he was talking about.

But every now and again the evocative shout of "Seau!" rang out, as someone filled their bucket and needed an empty one. Every now and again a clandestine grape found its way into your mouth (don't tell Antoine). Every now and again you'd look up and catch a rueful grin from your opposite number. It made it all seem worth while.

At last we were done. Twenty three rows and 2.5 tonnes of merlot grapes - not bad for a small band of largely inexperienced pickers. The patron was happy. The cave seemed to be happy. We were happy. It was over.

The traditional end to the vendange, at least chez Antoine, is the grillade. The chef from the local cafÃ© appears and, over a fire lit in a circle of stones, produces brochettes and baked potatoes, with home made pate to start and home made apple pie to finish. And of course someone has brought along a guitarâ€¦

As the wine flows and the stories get taller, you stretch weary limbs and reflect fondly on the hot shower to come and a lie-in tomorrow.

That's when the truth dawns. You haven't done the vendange at all. True, your back is broken, your fingers cut to ribbons, the nails stained purple in perpetuity. True, a tolerant friend has allowed you to bumble round his vineyard for a day, and you have hopefully repaid him for the experience by picking a useful amount of grapes. But that's not the REAL vendange.

The real vendange is done, increasingly these days, by machine, or if by hand then by gangs of hardy annuals who arrive for the season and pick doggedly day after day. The men and women who answer ads like the one in our local bar: "Grape pickers needed at Roquessels. Three weeks' work". Three weeks? I couldn't manage three days.

But next year? Well maybe, just maybeâ€¦