Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HelenandDerek,friendsfromNewZealandwhowereonasix-monthtriptoseetheirsons,
both of whom lived in France, arrived to give Sean a hand with vineyard maintenance. I
worried that retirees might not be up to jobs like pulling the wood - removing unwanted
vine growth from the trellising - and was dreading another bout of 'Sean the Recluse'.
Helen was blonde with wonderful apple cheeks, the look of a happy chef and a gift for
creating gourmet delights. Derek was witty and wiry, with a doctorate from MIT, but pre-
ferred to spend his days making furniture or growing olives on their smallholding. Sean
showed them how to pull the wood in the sémillon vineyard then came up for a meeting
with a bottle supplier. At lunch Helen and Derek returned.
'We've finished the vineyard,' said Derek. 'What can we do next?'
We had estimated two days to get through that work.
'You can relax this afternoon. I don't think Sean has finished pruning the next vineyard,' I
said.
'We want to clear the brush around the cliffs near the hangar. It looks like a satisfying job.
I think it will take about three days.'
'How will you do it?' Sean and I had looked at the wall of brush he was referring to and
decided it was not a job for a man, but for a very large machine. The brush was 5 metres
deep, 3 metres high and about 100 metres long.
'With your chainsaw that I saw in the shed. I'll cut it down with the chainsaw, Helen will
help me pull it out, then we'll burn it.'
Derek had sussed out the brush and done an inventory of our tools. The next day when I
went down to give them a hand they had uncovered the first section of a magnificent am-
phitheatre of white cliffs that had been the old quarry. Derek cut back swathes of plant mat-
ter then Helen dragged the trees and brush out to feed the bonfire. Some of the brambles
were as thick as a man's arm and 50 metres long.
When Sean came up from pruning and saw what they had done he said, 'We're wimps.'
On the third day they moved up to the section on top of the cliff. This dense wall of wood
ran from the tasting room to the far side of the winery. From the vineyard below we could
see there was something on the back of the winery, perhaps old rabbit cages. Sean and I
had tried to reach it by cutting a path through the wood a few months before, and failed. It
was like Sleeping Beauty's forest, impenetrable. Or so I thought.
Sean got back that evening exploding with excitement. 'Come and look, Carolinus!'
Around the side of the tasting room, a magnificent view had opened up, and the building
wasn't old rabbit cages: it was a solid stone structure on two levels of 20 square metres
each. To the side of it were two tiny, low stone buildings. It was a miracle.
The following day I visited Tim, our building engineer friend who had helped Sean with
the tasting room roof, armed with photos and hoping to get some ideas for how to trans-
form this ruin into a gîte, a self-catering cottage.
'Is the building on the
cadastrale
?'
