Happy Holidays!

I'm in Paris for the holidays. Pat and I arrived here in mid-October, for a full rundown on what happened since my previous posting, please take a look at Pat Hartley's facebook photo album. She did a great job of chronicling our trip to Paris, the Loire Valley, and the month we were here before she left. I don't need to add to it, so I'll pick it up where she went home. Note the photos from the wonderful display of carousel aninals. The zebra striped donkey was obviously done by someone who had visited Tijuana.

I've posted some photos of the vendange in Roquebrun, which was going on when we got back from our tour. Early every morning I awoke to the sound of tractors pulling empty grape trailers down the road (much noisier empty than full). By mid-morning there would be a line of them waiting to dump their grapes at the Cave Cooperative a couple of blocks down the road from my house. By afternoon they are finished for the day. In all of the villages traffic is rerouted to accommodate the tractors, and there are large piles of fermenting stems and skins outside the cooperatives, which eventually get hauled away for fertilizer. There are also the vendangeurs, the grape pickers who travel with the harvest. Some are older, some quite young, many have dreadlocks. Some are quite large and un-French looking, having come from eastern european countries for the work. They camp down by the river and eat and drink their lunches alongside whatever vines they are working that day. I understand that the standard pay is eighty euros a day and two liters of wine. Its pretty hard work, and I would imagine the wine doesn't get saved from day to day. They have a bit of a bad reputation for petty theft, but seem like a pretty decent bunch to me. Several of us were walking our dogs one day down by the river, and one of the dogs (not mine) ran up and peed on one of their daypacks, we were quite embarassed and apologetic, but they just thought it was funny.

I buy my wine in bulk (en vrac) in my own bottles from one of the local private domains whose vineyards and main operation are a couple of miles out of town, but who have a cave in town, actually an old chai, that they use as a salesroom. There are large wine tanks and the equipment for moving the wine from one vat to the next when it is first being processed. The equipment is fairly old, and I thought it was just being left in there for show, as it is their "storefront" in town, and in the summer season they sell a lot of wine to tourists. They bottle it, and also sell it in boxes -- it is AOC St. Chinian, very well respected wine. Wine in a box here is not what it is in the US. At any rate, one day during the height of the vedange I stopped to buy wine and the sales area was set up in the remise (barn) next door because they were using the old chai to process wine. I was quite surprised, as some of the equipment is around a hundred years old. Its a family operation, and the woman I usually deal with is the mother of the family, and I would guess in her late 70s, very nice.

I've mostly been getting reorganized since Pat left. I've moved from the apartment in Montmartre to one at the outer edge of the 20th arondissement, in an area known as "La Campagne de Paris" -- very interesting and much calmer than Montmartre. Montmartre area has a rich history, but it is absolutely over-run with tourists. Steady stream of them walking by my window reading guidebooks and snapping photos. I was right across from the Musee de Montmartre, so many people walked by on their way to the museum. The street is also part of several walking tours in various guidebooks. Read more about that in Pat's blog. It is reminiscent of some of the Provence villages I've visited which no longer have any businesses other than those serving tourists.

My buddy Chris is coming to visit after Christmas, and staying a month. We'll have a great time eating our way around Paris. Around the 20th of January we'll head back down to my little place in Roquebrun, and he'll return to Paris on the train to the airport. It snowed last Thursday, two or three inches, but it brought the traffic in Montmartre to a standstill. No cars, no buses, no taxis, just trucks that had work to do.

I had Thanksgiving dinner with my friends here, Ellen and Jean-Pierre, a lovely turkey with all the U.S. trimmings! Really enjoyed that. Also had a chance to spend an afternoon with my friend Marval, outside Paris. Please note the photo of my Paris christmas tree, purchased from the equivalent of a 99 cent store, also its trimmings and lights. Happy 2010 everyone!