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had died and gone to heaven. Matched with a young Saussignac, redolent of apricot com-
pote, it was sublime.
I went home in time to help Sean finish off the day's winery work. It was the twilight of
the Feely seniors' stay. We had been through one of the most intense periods of our lives
and were closer for it. The next morning I said a tearful farewell to them and Sean took
them to the airport while I got on with the winery ward round.
Sean walked back into the winery just as precious cabernet sauvignon shot onto the
winery wall.
'What the heck's going on here? Why didn't you wait for me to get back?' he demanded.
I had not tied the over-pipe sufficiently tightly and the pressure of the pump had shot the
pipe out of the vat. I hastily switched off. Relatively little had been lost and the incident
gave Sean the opportunity to step back into the driver's seat. I could have waited for him
but John and I had been doing this successfully the weeks he was out of commission and I
wanted to get ahead with the work.
He overreacted partly to reinstate his position as leader in the winery. Now he was able to
do most of what was required as long as he protected his bandage from getting wet or dirty.
I cut back my time in the winery realising that the less time we spent together the better.
Working together was very different to being married. I wasn't sure if it was possible to
achieve both successfully.
Sean was ambivalent about harvesting the Saussignac. He was still running on morphine
and finding the wines he had in the winery tough enough to control without another baby
coming into the ward. I desperately wanted to have Saussignac in the range. There was
something exceptional about the wine and the group of producers that made it. Sean's hand
was sufficiently healed to drive a tractor. I decided to see if a few friends would help.
After one positive response from a retired English couple in Saussignac, Sue and Ian
Cameron, who had become friends, I got no more takers. Sue was a major force in the
village; active on the
syndicat d'initiative
, the local tourist office and initiative commit-
tee, welcoming to newcomers and a gardening dynamo. One couple would not be enough
to help us on our own. Most of our local friends and neighbours were vignerons and had
enough on their plates already. The O'Briens and Rogers from Ireland were due to arrive in
two weeks but they would be too late. We had to get at least one pick in before that and we
couldn't afford to pay for a team of hand-pickers. Seeking consolation I tucked into a row
of
touche de sérénité da
rk cherry chocolate as the phone rang.
'I just heard about Sean's finger. Fiona and I can come and help harvest. Do you want us
to make an open invitation to our friends?' said Bruce Kingwill.
Bruce and Fiona, his wife, were South Africans who lived a few kilometres away. A styl-
ish couple in their fifties and dedicated Francophiles, they had moved to France to follow
their passion to make wine and restore houses. For a few years they made small quantities
of wine, buying grapes in from other growers. They soon realised that winegrowing was a
