Champagne In the Vines

Living my best life

Champagne in the Vines

Day three in the vines and I'm properly into it now. Chatting with my Mikey (and Jimmy) on the phone early morning and had to run to grab the van, it was leaving. Not as hot today, quite windy, which after the last two days was actually a relief.

Spent the day filling my bucket with grapes, premier cru grapes for Champagne. Not that I ever want to think about teaching again, because I don't, there is a saying that says you fill someone else's bucket with compliments and kindness, this is a different kind of filling your bucket. I guess there is something in that. Fill a bucket, it just depends on what kind of bucket. This time it's literal, however it might be literal but often when you have a glass you become relaxed and can be more open with compliments, and it's Champagne, being filled by something good. Something secret, something special. However not these grapes, because this year was exceptional. No disease, no pressure from the weather, just good fucken grapes.

Paired up with Violeta today, like the flower, like the pansy, and we worked our way up the row together passing one or two comments. She's from Ukraine and is trying to stay safe and work, her husband and son still there, not allowed out of the country. It's the same for Svitlana. Both trying to make a life out of Ukraine, but also very welcomed in France by a foster family, and welcome back in New Zealand too. We chatted as much as we could, one on each side of the vine, making sure we're getting the grapes from both sides.

You get a different partner most days, which I really like, I've worked with Alina and Svitlana, who are now friends that I want to bring back to New Zealand, these kind of people who make it easy to feel like you belong somewhere brand new.

Then there's a whole crew of young kids on the picking team having the time of their lives together. And what I keep noticing is that even though everyone works in pairs up the rows, when it comes back together at the end it's like a swarm of bees, everyone moving into this harmony to get the job done. I don't have a better way of putting it than that, it's the image that keeps coming to me. We are a team that gets the job done.

That's me writing that part now from reflection, because at the time I could just about understand the language enough to work out the vineyard manager was putting the faster pickers in row one, then the slower pickers in row six or seven, so the wheelbarrow boys could move up and down the rows. Lucky I was a middle picker, being my first time in a vineyard, I wasn't too slow. Whew.

Gasper and one of his friends worked up and down the rows collecting grapes and returning buckets. It was incredible hard work but there was a lot of playing around, a friendly competition between the boys on how many buckets they could get.

Nobody minds that my French isn't very good. Everyone just wants to help, which says more about them than it does about my French. Today's lesson was joyeux anniversaire, happy birthday, so I can sing it down the phone to Chris and Ivan back in Christchurch, and to Sam when his birthday comes round in September. It was on repeat and a lot of fun. I got it in the end, different accents and all.

I'm going to get a tattoo designed by one of the family, Dodo's daughter, who's an artist, is going to design me a tattoo for my leg. We ended up sitting together at lunch and she showed me some of her work and it's genuinely beautiful. She's got this really peaceful way about her and we really connected. Actually everyone connected on my level anyway, although I didn't understand everything, there was enough I did understand to get the picture.

There was also the secateurs saga. I forgot mine from the winery, then had to run back to get them, only from the garage so not so bad. Then that day I lost them three times, eeeeeekkkkkkkkkk, not because I lost them but because they fell out of my pocket. It became a bit of a joke, but it wasn't really that funny, because if the secateurs land in the press they can damage it really badly, punching a hole in the press balloon inside. So the vineyard manager was very clear about not putting secateurs in buckets or leaving them on the ground. It was a joke, but a fair warning too.

Feeling really part of the team and family now.

Not as hot, a bit windy, grubby clothes, French still patchy, and somehow that's exactly what's making it feel real.

Words of the day

• Bounduon, bucket, Gasper, Bounduon, I need a bucket

• Secateurs

• Joyeux anniversaire

• Yeux, oeil, eyes and eye

• Merci beaucoup

• De rien

Thoughts of the day

• Filling your bucket with premier cru grapes hits different to filling it with compliments, but it's the same feeling

• Working in pairs up the rows, then coming together like a swarm of bees at the end, that's the rhythm of harvest

• Faster pickers up front, slower ones further back, so the wheelbarrow boys can keep moving

• Joyeux anniversaire, learned today for Chris, Ivan and Sam

• Getting a tattoo designed by Dodo's daughter, an artist in the family, after a lunch conversation about what I like

• You don't need good French when everyone wants to help you anyway

• Lost my secateurs

• Have you got your secateurs

• Don't give it to him (my grape bucket)