Remembering the bubbles

First of all, an apology. I didn't take any proper photos today. I was at church in the morning, but there's a limit to the number of angles one can shoot without repeating oneself ad nauseam. And we got so cold - church wasn't as cold as when we've been up there singing, but there are so many icy little draughts, including my special one which emerges beside me between two stone slabs and the organist's air-con in the form of a howling gale that comes down the tower and emerges through the organ pipes - anyhow, we got so cold that we easily reached the decision to stay in and do some of the stuff we've been putting off.

My main accomplishment was the ironing. It's been sitting in a pile on the side of the spare bed, looking at me. A king-sized duvet cover and attendant linen, a large table cloth, four matching napkins. All now beautiful and stashed away, after months of reproach from the sheets at least. And while I was grovelling under the library shelves in the back bedroom, which is where I do the ironing (to the accompaniment of Leonard Cohen on shuffle from my phone through a speaker perched among the books), I found a box with forgotten photos in it and stopped for a rummage. 

That's where this collage comes from: our long-ago visit to a friend who lived in Château-Thierry, east of Paris, in Champagne. One memorable day she took us to visit Épernay, home of so many champagne houses, where we toured the Cave of La Castellane, from which had come the champagne we'd enjoyed at her wedding and which has since become my favourite too. I've never seen it on sale in Scotland, but my #2 son always manages to produce a bottle at Christmas and sometimes also as a birthday present, brought home from his annual visits to his belle-mère. 

The three photos show (top) the view from the tower at La Castellane, and the other two parts of the bottling process. What I most vividly recall are the scented crunching underfoot of a myriad of champagne hailstones which pop out of the bottles as part of the removal of impurities, and the words of our guide at the end of the tour as she wrapped a bottle of champagne liqueur which I had bought as an esoteric reminder. "Madame a tout compris!" she said to the girl holding the Sellotape, and I felt smug. (Our friend Claudine had stuck to whispering the translation to Himself, who didn't do as much French as I did).

Aplologies for the quality of the photos - they were on small, glossy prints. We've come a long way since these days - but the champagne remains the same!