Snip!

We started the pruning today. Here are Lizzie and Trish with the syrah which, as you can see, is pretty ebullient. They're working as a team. Lizzie prunes the vine itself and Trish pulls the long sarments (the long, whippy stems) out from between the wires and stacks them up in piles between the vines. I will come along later and load them into our oil-drum on a pram chassis and burn them - that's the science bit.

It was a fabulously beautiful day. We started with hats and scarves, then took off our coats, then our jumpers til we were down to t-shirts. The pristine blue sky was only marred (or maybe enhanced) by the odd vapour trail, home-made ham and salad baguettes were heavenly and the dogs behaved like angels.

All in all a cracker of a day.