Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Despite having a sore throat and threatening worse, Sean replaced 150 rotten trellis poles
using the lead cloche in cold and rain. A few days later he had a raging fever. The doc-
tor diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed an antibiotic. The antibiotic didn't work
and Sean's chest infection turned into pneumonia. He was feeling grim and stressed about
the work in the vineyard going undone. Despite a second antibiotic Sean's pneumonia
worsened. The third antibiotic was so strong it made Sean nauseous for several hours after
each dose. At least it worked. A week later Sean was well again but we were seriously be-
hind with the vineyard work.
The buds started to swell on the vines and Sean raced to finish tying the canes onto the
trellising. Once the buds develop there is a chance of damaging them, but it's a fine bal-
ance. To minimise harm that can be caused by a late frost it's best not to tie down too soon.
We were under intense pressure, so I asked Sonia to look after Ellie again and took a break
from renovating the wooden shutters to help Sean. Now that the weather was improving
I had moved from painting inside to outside. My days were a round of cooking, feeding,
cleaning and renovating. I took great satisfaction from the renovations as the interior of the
house was significantly transformed but I was lonely. I filled the gap of missed colleagues
and friends with slabs of cherry chocolate. It would take time to find good girlfriends.
We revelled in the greening beauty of springtime but I was slow at tying down. I blamed
it on being left-handed but Sean blamed it on lack of will. He expected me to keep pace
and yelled at me to hurry up. Soon my fingers were blistered and I was even slower.
'Come on Carolinus, get on with it!' he shouted as I lagged behind yet again.
Our relationship was better than it had been in winter but Sean was a different person to
the one I had known. He was stressed and hostile like he used to be at the end of each
quarter when he worked for the bank. Back then it was for a couple of days once a quarter.
Now it was constant. I could understand it since everything was new, unfamiliar and dan-
gerous but I didn't know how long I could live with it. An error in his analysis would have
been dire but not as bad as if he misplaced his finger and it was chopped off by the electric
secateurs. In the back of our minds we also had the ever-present pressure of worrying about
our finances. With no income for the foreseeable future and constant outgoings, they were
not pretty.
Those few days were our first taste of the headlong rush that spring, summer and autumn
would be for us. We finished tying down as the buds turned from hard little green nodules
into pink lumps. Within a day or two, tiny, fluffy, pink and lime-green leaves appeared like
tiny fairies standing on the canes. It was swift and magical.
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