UPDATE ON THE EYEBALLS

So having played about with photographs and vineyards, I went for my six monthly check with the Opthalmic Surgeon today. For those ardent followers who know nothing of my problems suffice to say that I have the most complicated eyes in the universe. Since having my operation at Moorfields just before coming to France my eyesight has gone downhill. The surgeons in London though by removing the cataract in my "good eye" they would improve my sight and allow me to drive again. However scar tissue formed over the lens implant and my sight is as bad if not worse than it was with the cataract. It seems that nothing can be done to improve that and with the glaucoma complication he found today that the pressure in my left eye was very high and he is not prepared to try anything until that is settled again. So its another 6 months before my next appointment and I guess that any dream I had of driving again has really gone out the window. I cant get any glasses either so I will just have to soldier on. What can I say apart from S**T. Still there is one good thing about a blog you can let it all out.

Loving my gardening as I do and hard as it is over here one good thing about bad eyesight is the fact that the weeds have to be quite big before I see them!!! Well you have to laugh. Anyway more cheerful news anon.

THE MUSCAT VINE

So this is the Muscat grape and although it is snowing as I write this and it was VERY cold yesterday when we walked through these vineyards, it is crushed stone you see mulching the plants which provides drainage as the muscat does not like a lot of water and reflects the sun on to the ripening fruit. There you see you learn something every day.

EXPERIMANTAL BLOGGING

As you can see I have just had a go at inserting a slideshow and I thought I would sum up the year of the vine in a slideshow. The Vignerons (wine makers) are out in the vineyards at the moment and it is around - 4 degrees (South of France remember!) pruning the vines. Some use hand pruners, just like you would prune your roses with, and others use battery powered trimmers which are much quicker and very expensive. It looks as though it is a very very lonely and cold job, not to mention back breaking. We went for a walk yesterday with our walking group, I dont like to call them the Troisieme Age because they are all a lot fitter than me, but we were out in the cold walking through vineyards and villages and we saw the grapes being trimmed. Strangely there only ever seems to be one poor lonely soul per field and they are BIG fields. We also saw vineyards which only grow the Muscat grape which is very popular in this part of the world. The Muscat does not like a lot of water so they ground up stone and use it as a mulch around the plants, in fact all over the field and it looks just like snow.

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A VINE

BOXING DAY BROUGHT SNOW!

Found a way to get more photos on one page, not ideal but at least you can see we had snow on Boxing Day. Bottom left shows the vines and I dont suppose there are many photos of vines in the snow. The top three were taken on our trip to Narbonne and the blurry one is a shot of our Christmas Eve oysters. Just to prove I do still have some life in the garden I have taken a photo of one of my roses which is still blooming and doesnt appear to be affected by the cold weather.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY

CHRISTMAS EVE IN NARBONNE

There is a different theme every year to the Christmas festivities in Narbonne, our nearest major city. This year it was ice and snow and they built an ice-rink in the main square. Having already lost enough teeth for one year I decided that I would take the photographs and Penny and India took to the ice. Not for long though as it was extremely cold and I think they decided to stop before I caught them on their backs!!

There was a clear blue sky and the sun was blindingly bright as you can see but the square looked lovely, surrounded by white Christmas trees.
We went to Les Halles which is a large indoor market you may have seen on the Rick Stein programme when he toured this area in a canal boat.

The market is open every day of the year and has the most mouth watering produce on sale. It is always packed on Christmas eve and it is difficult to take photographs. The fish stalls have everything you can think of, from lobsters, all alive of course, to sea urchins and a fantastic variety of fish.

We bought two kilos of oysters which only came to about 8euros and we had them on Christmas Eve with our buffet supper. We had half raw and the other half au gratin. Yummy!





We also bought bread from this Patisserie. They have lots of lovely looking cakes and biscuits but we decided we had enough calories in the basket to do for this year.

One thing I have not learnt about blogging is how to get more photographs on one page, so I have a few more which may be of interest and I will have to insert them on another section.

CHRISTMAS TIME 2008

We had the biggest moon ever last week. This picture does not really do it justice but I thought it was quite a Christmasy scene and something, along with our Christmas Tree that would send wishes to all who read this little blog of mine

So far the weather here in Bize has been not very French!. Much much colder than last year and quite grey, almost like the UK is.

We are going to take granddaughter India to Narbonne next week where the Christmas decorations are always fabulous and this year they have promised an ice rink in the main square. I will be taking the photographs and will certainly NOT be risking losing any more teeth on the ice rink!

Regarding the old Christmas Tree, as is the norm one of our sets of lights declined to work this year and, as they were bought in England, the shops here did not sell spares, so off we went to buy a new set. I liked the look of the new white LED's but when you get them on the tree and turn the power on they are so so bright and more blue than white, still I suppose it will have to do. I was kicking myself when I realised that the picture on the wall was crooked but it will have to do and I hope you like it.

The garden looks like a mud bath at the moment and everything is brown and boring but we are looking forward to the Spring when all the new plants will come to life I hope.

We went on the club walk this afternoon. Why or why do the French like climbing hills? The first one nearly killed me and made me realise how unfit I am. Well I do sit down a lot these days, nowt else to do. However, after the first hill things improved and it was a beautiful walk through pine forests and vineyards, although the wind was biting and we were all glad to get back to the cars for hot coffee, mince pies (which the French thought were fantastic) and various cakes. We are going to the club lunch on Thursday which should prove to be another food stuffing, wine swilling session still c'est la vie as they say.

So to whoever is brave enough or bored enough to read this when you must have better things to do -- A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND PROSPEROUS (IF THATS POSSIBLE UNDER GORDON BROWN!) NEW YEAR.