Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He would be off for a few weeks but if it had got the tendon it would have been several
months. News of his accident spread like wildfire.
Sean had to take it easy and make regular visits to the hospital. I couldn't drive the tractor
so we prayed for good weather and no fungal growth. By the next rain, Sean was well
enough to get back onto the tractor.
Monsieur Bonny's mechanic, Éric, came over to reconfigure the shark and to check the
leak on the sprayer. After looking at them he took me aside.
'Votre mari est trop musclé.'
(Your husband is too muscly.)
I laughed.
'He is tightening the bolts too tight and that is what broke the casing on the sprayer.'
Machinery was complicated; first the bolts were too loose, now they were too tight. No
wonder Sean was getting a complex. He felt he couldn't touch a machine without doing it
or himself some damage. Fortunately, Éric offered this news in such a diplomatic manner,
Sean smiled when he joined us minutes later.
After Éric's visit, Sean remembered how he had cut his arm. He was tightening the bolt on
one of the shark's knives when the spanner slipped and the power he was applying drove
his arm down onto the knife below. Éric was right, he was
trop musclé
. The accident made
me starkly aware of how dependent we were on Sean. There was no sick leave at Haut Gar-
rigue and no safety net; if Sean was injured, we were in trouble.
We had leapt into a business bristling with physical and financial risk.
We hadn't even made our own wine yet, but everyone kept reminding us that the problem
wasn't making the wine, it was selling the wine.
Selling the wine we had bought with the property would help to fill the hole created by
the unexpected expenses. Despite the success of our Christmas campaign, Sean was pess-
imistic. 'The first campaign was supported by a lot of people buying the wine because it
was our first offer. Most of them prefer beer.'
Perhaps he was right but I forged ahead regardless.
Barry O'Brien, Aideen's husband and one of our best friends back home, forwarded me a
special offer for flights. An executive in a large tech multinational by day, he transformed
into our unofficial strategy advisor and official representative on the ground by night. He
had negotiated the go-ahead for another wine delivery with the customs officials, although
we were still waiting for his official appointment as our tax representative. It was part of
the long process for making our direct shipping business official and easy to do on a regu-
lar basis.
