More pictures of the river

THE BIG STORM

Had a lot of trouble inserting this video but hopefully you will be able to see it. This is the River Cesse at Bize and the River Cesse is normally a quiet trickle! The damed part to the left of the picture is the village swimming pool which is used by everyone during the summer. Part of the dam has broken away and logs are strewn all over our walkway which crosses the river from one side of the village to the other. It was a terrible day with a lot of damage done throughout this area of France. We have high winds again tonight, but nothing as severe as Saturday.

MORE EYE NEWS

Both Dave and I are signed up trouble makers on a forum which covers French things and I always put my blog address at the end of my forum posts. Well, after reading my last post re the eyeballs a kindly forum member contacted me and told me of a clinic in Perpignan which was reputedly the best in Europe, so I contacted them and made an appointment to see one of their opthalmic specialists. To cut a long story short I went there on Thursday and the doc reckons that they can improve my sight with laser and it can either be done in Perpignan or Narbonne (our nearby city)., I said I should really have it done in Narbonne as it is much easier to reach so I have to phone the clinic there at the end of the week.

Not to be outdone David decides he is having dizzy turns and so the day after my "victory" in Perpignan, he has to go to the docs. Our local Doc of course sends him to the hospital in Narbonne for tests and now he has to go back to Perpignan for a check on his battery pack and then back to Narbonne for another stress test at the end of February. So I guess I will have to wait for my further tests until the bionic man is sorted out!!! Ah well, c'est la vie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carnival next month, lets hope its better weather than last year.

Talking about weather, we had the most horrendous storm a couple of nights ago. Trees down, power lines gone, it was almost a hurricane. We are on top of a hill of course and so we got the worst of the gusts but fortunately the only problem was my newly planted trees which were bending. We tried to tie them to their supports with more ties but the ground is so wet and muddy that the stakes were just floating out of the ground. Gardening in the South of France SH*t! Next day, Sunday was so calm and sunny it was as though nothing had happened.

Anyway more news as and when it happens, stay tuned!

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