Incredible

We haven't paid our vines any attention since we finished pruning at the end of March. Normally we would have sprayed them every ten days - an onerous, heavy, exhausting and dreaded job. But circumstances such as moving, a trip to Australia, a death, an elderly mum, three houses to administer and filthy weather put paid to that. I felt as guilty as sin and my shame at abandoning the vineyard had been keeping me awake at night. However, our lovely pals S&A walked round the vineyard last week and brought us back photos of perfectly healthy vines. It gave us the courage to look.

So today we took the dogs and went to see for ourselves. If anything the vines, except the Carignan which are always fragile whether treated or not, look more healthy than when we treat them. I think the high winds may have done us a huge favour.

The only problem is the head-high weeds. Usually we mow and strim and plough, but we haven't done it. Yet. So tomorrow we're going to get up early and start the mowing and strimming in earnest - before the heat of the day kicks in. We're too late to plough, and in any case we wouldn't be able to see where we were going on the tractor. We use a walk-behind machine that we call the yellow muncher to slice out the grasses in the rows between the vines, then a heavy-duty strimmer (brushcutter) to go in closer to the actual vines. There are only 30,000 square metres (7 acres) to do. It could be worse.

Out pals in the Loire will be horrified to read this, but honestly, we haven't had time. And we are seriously ashamed - and it will get better. Promise.