Another first!

Nick wished me luck as he set off to join the cycle club ride this morning; I certainly felt in need of it, I was desperately nervous.

One of my English students has a chai (an armagnac distillery); he’s retired, but continues to make armagnac as it’s a passion of his. He’s a member of a 4000 strong group, world-wide, known as the Musketeers of Armagnac. He had a busload of tour operators and press visiting the chai this morning as part of a tour of the region, looking at future tourist destinations. His English being pretty basic, he’d asked me to be the translator for the visit.

We’d had a run through how his still works, so that I could find any words I didn’t know, then the bus arrived, disgorging its load of Lithuanians, Japanese, Russians, Australians, Belgians, Dutch, Bavarians, Czechs, lots of French and even one man from Harrogate! The visit went smoothly, then the tasting began; by the time they’d got to tasting the fourth armagnac, it was quite difficult to make myself heard above the hubbub. This being Gascony, drink is never served without food, so we brought out trays of ham, foie gras, duck neck stuffed with foie gras, duck breast, cheese and bread, all prepared by the owner’s wife and followed by local speciality croustade; all washed down, of course, with red wine.

I exchanged cards with a few of the visitors, some of whom have promised to send me their photos, so I’ll post them if and when they arrive; but now it’s back to the reality of the house being a tip and only a few days till Alex arrives with her family. I finished grouting the tiles in the arrière cuisine on Friday; it looks really good, but I’m particularly pleased with my hand-painted tiles, that I did in Margaret’s class back in Harrogate.