Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He gave me a lesson on bottle economics, the number of factories in Europe, the number
that had been closed down by the three main players and more. All I cared about was our
bottles and when he could deliver them. His assistant arrived and saved me from the final
instalment.
'I can't believe it. They've confirmed your order. The other four in February were placed
before yours, but yours is confirmed and the others cancelled. Yours must have slipped
through because it's quite small and they can fill it between other orders.'
Suddenly Monsieur grabbed the order confirmation from his assistant. I feared the worst.
'Ah, ah, ah! But I have made a mistake. You are Mrs Feely, it is another
étrangère
who
didn't pay their bills.'
It was a relief to know our name was clear but nothing compared to the joy of having my
bottles. I took a copy of the confirmation and asked them to bring the delivery date forward
a few days to be sure.
For our previous bottling, the capsules were available off the shelf so we assumed the
same would be true this time. Now we had a week to go and the FVB told me they did not
havewhatwewanted instock.Itwouldbefourweeksuntil thenextlotarrived. Igrovelled.
'I'll see what I can do,' said Madame.
A few days later she had found some capsules for us. I collected them. We started bottling
the following day, progressing at a snail's pace. Neal and Gillian, Sean's brother and his
wife, were over to help, and within an hour they were treated to a full education in French
expletives from Pierre, our bottler.
'Quel bordel! Ces merdes de capsules! *!@*!&*$%^*!&!'
It was a Pierre I had not seen before. The culprits were my last-minute capsules. Every
second one was sticking on the machine.
'These are bad, bad quality,' he said accusingly.
'Now I know why Madame at the FVB found the capsules so quickly for me. No one else
wanted them.'
'We will have to put the capsules on by hand. Paul will do it.'
Paul, Pierre and Laurence's nine-year-old son, was soon positioned on top of a plastic pal-
let placing capsules onto bottles. Several thousand bottles later we took a break for lunch.
Paul's great work was enabling us to keep pace despite the
'capsules merdiques'
.
The following evening we all celebrated the successful bottling with Pierre and Laurence
in their house, the slowly transforming middle section of Saussignac Castle. At last, after a
wait of about four years, Pierre had fitted the oven for Laurence.
'Ça avance!'
(It's progressing!) I said excitedly.
'Oui, à pas de fourmis,'
(Yes,withant-like steps)saidLaurence patiently,strokingthenew
sideboard.
Ellie's voice resounded around the room. 'Mummy, I need to go to the
toilette
.'
