Memories!

A day of memories for me.  I watched the Tour de France avidly earlier today because they started in Libourne (a town I knew well when I looked after four children there as a sort of au pair in 1973!) and then continued through Riberac in the Dordogne and right through Tocane St Apre which is the village where my sister lives!  It was so exciting seeing it all on the TV and I found myself waving at the telly!

The Tour would also have gone very close to where this photo was taken near St Emilion in September 1972.  We were celebrating the end of the vendages (grape picking) which was pretty hard work harvesting the grapes but it was such good fun and my French became fluent.  The owners of the little vineyard had five sons and so the six of us English girls (who had heard through friends that the family needed help with the vendages) had no option but to muck in join in all the fun with them, their friends and cousins.  We all became firm friends and I still keep up with some of them including Lisa who is holding the bunch of grapes above me!

To celebrate the end of the harvest, a clapped out old piano was on to the truck at the back of the old Deux Chevaux car (see extra) and we went down into the tiny little village and drove it inside a cafe where the party continued!  Heady days!