There are several ways to tell that autumn is here, but the most convincing is the vendange, the wine harvest. Last week, on a cycle, it suddenly struck me, even though it was 25 degrees and felt like summer. An enormous tractor, towing an even bigger trailer, joined the road a little ahead of me. I couldn't see what was in the trailer until I caught up with it. It turned out to be a heaving mass of purple grapes, the biggest quantity that I have ever seen in one place. Probably at least a ton. A little further on, a grape harvester was at work, slowly wending its way along a row of vines. These huge machines, which seem to be always painted blue, are interesting to watch. They completely envelop the plants, and seem to be chewing them up with huge plastic teeth. But, behind the machine, the plants emerge apparently unscathed, apart from the fact that they're denuded of grapes. These machines are much in demand this time of year, and regularly start work at 04:00. A few kilometres further on, in the village of Le Fleix, I passed the wine co-operative building. All the doors were open, and I was almost knocked off the bike by the smell of fermenting (rotting?) grapes.
Mention of the tractor reminds me of one of my French cycling friends who recently had an altercation with a tractor. He had turned quickly on to a narrow side-road, featuring an even narrower bridge, with the sun in his eyes. He didn't immediately notice that the bridge was entirely occupied by a very large tractor. He managed to avoid hitting it head-on, but couldn't avoid the huge back wheel, and descended rapidly off the bike on his left side, bruising everything from his ankle to his ear, and damaging several ligaments in his shoulder. It could be worse. He could be dead. He has no broken bones, and will be cycling again shortly. We have asked him, however, whether he'll be expected to pay for the damage to the tractor. He doesn't get the joke.
A few days ago, on another cycle, I came across, for the first time, a sunflower harvester. This is also a vast machine that moves much more quickly than a grape machine, and throws up clouds of dust. It cuts the stems off half a metre from the ground, for reasons unknown to me. The sunflowers grown around here, and there are a lot of them this year, all go to make sunflower oil.
Another sign of autumn is to be found in the fruit and vegetable market. A few days ago, only one stall had any charente melons. I bought one, and she said to me that these were the last of the crop. The numbers of stalls selling peaches and nectarines has dropped to just a few. Soon there will be none. They only sell stuff in season. There are still plenty of figs and walnuts. Last week one of the supermarkets was selling figs from Turkey! And, the Dordogne is covered in figs. That's the difference between the supermarkets and the markets; the latter sell only local produce. The supermarkets are also selling garlic from Argentina! There should be a law.
Today, I came across an apple-picking scene. There are huge orchards to the west of the town, and they've been festooned with big green boxes for weeks. These are the boxes into which they place the hand-picked apples. Today, I met a full-size articulated truck loaded with hundreds of green boxes, full of apples. I often wondered if they had mechanised the apple-picking, but they just climb ladders and place the apples in crates which are then emptied into the boxes.
How much do you know about compost heaps? I have a big compost bin, and I know one thing now that I didn't know before. In hot weather, you can listen to the compost at work. You can clearly hear the wildlife chomping away at the the vegetable matter. In fact, if you have the stomach for it, you can lift the lid and watch them in action! It's gone quiet now that the temperature has dropped.
One morning recently, we awoke to the sound of men's voices in the garden/driveway next door. We noted that the outside light had been turned on, - a rare event. The husband has a heart problem and cancer and a number of other things wrong with him, and has been taken away by ambulance (the SAMU) previously. So, we concluded that this was another such event. Later that day we met Madame, and expressed our concern for Monsieur. She said it was nothing of the sort. It was the men arriving to close the pool! At twenty past six? An hour and a half before sunrise! Only the French!
Sarkozy is back in the news. He never really left. He had been before a Tribunal de Grand Instance, charged with accepting large sums of money from Liliane Bettencourt, the richest woman in France, before being elected president. She owns L'Oreal. He has now been acquitted of all charges. Every time they show a clip of him, they also show Mme Bettencourt, a wizened old dame, being led along. She has gone completely loopy in recent years. She is also living proof that the L'Oreal anti-ageing products don't work! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2449482/Woman-suffers-blistered-face-using-LOreal-anti-wrinkle-cream.html)
The big news today is the weather. The French are nearly as obsessed with the weather as the Irish. I can't understand it, as they get the weather that you would expect most of the time. But, it's still news when it happens. In summer they suddenly announce that it's hot on such and such a beach, and they go there and interview a few bucket-and-spade wielding visitors to confirm that it's great seaside weather. Today they're excited that it snowed in the Alps and some other (high) places. So they show a herd of cattle battling their way through a snowdrift, and interview the farmer about the hardships of winter, as if this is something new. It turns out that the snow arrives on this very day most years! The intrepid reporter is dressed like Nanouk of the North, and looks like a snowman by the time he's finished his live report. All he's missing is a carrot for a nose.
Watch this space!
