Above - Estelle modeling a new outfit from Manou - start of the week. Below: end of the week, Estelle and Eliott enjoying their dessert after a homemade pizza dinner and Ipad show of 300 photos from Slovenia, where they went on vacation this summer.
Saturday (yesterday) I harvested grapes all day at Xavier's property. Thomas stayed home with the girls just to make life easier.
Vines over a kind of terrace trellis-cover.
The view from the pool (where we all stuck our legs after being in the vines all morning).
Getting ready to press. We harvested all of those except 4 crates, which Xavier goes and buys from someplace out in the country to add variety to the flavor of his wine.
This is the press over the "cistern". Each crate of grapes is dumped into the "funnel", and someone turns that hand crank to smush them up. At the bottom of the cistern is a bunch of sticks, strategically placed in a bundle above the spout, with a huge rock on top of them to weight them down. This is to keep all the stems of the grapes from stopping up the hole and spout, that way just the liquid passes thru.
Here's the main course of the meal we sat down to after we got all the grapes in and before the pressing began. Xavier made this lasagna himself, it was ridiculously big pieces - interestingly, no ricotta cheese at all - only bechamel and bolognaise sauce. The entree was breaded fried eggplants and tomato salads, all from their garden.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch at dinnertime - I gave Léna her bath while Thomas took Estelle to swimming lessons. She was happy to see Daddy when he returned!
Other news this week: Estelle began her two Wednesday activities: collective swimming lessons (also Sat) at the municipal pool which is in the old town, a 10-minute walk. She enjoyed it a lot, so far! Also began a music lesson, a small group (only 2 other children). This is with a professional and is in the showroom of used pianos of a well-reputed Maison de Piano in Nice. It is an initiation to music course, which will run the whole year. All different kinds of instruments are presented as well as notes, chords, etc. Wish I was in that class!
