Although it would have been good to spend more time in the Loire seeing more of the vintage, especially with the positive news coming out of Anjou about the potential of the sweet wines, I'm glad that we didn't in view of the spread of strikes in France and the threat of petrol running out due to blockades etc. Although we will be in Bordeaux at the end of the month for a friend's birthday party. Hopefully flying in will be OK but it might be a long walk from the airport!
Time for many to dust off La Petite Reine! For some it may an attempt to fly. However, I'm doubtful if the above prototype will get Charles anywhere near to Sweden today! I fancy he will have to try more conventional means even if they could be problematic given the strikes etc.
Time for many to dust off La Petite Reine! For some it may an attempt to fly. However, I'm doubtful if the above prototype will get Charles anywhere near to Sweden today! I fancy he will have to try more conventional means even if they could be problematic given the strikes etc.
Talking of La Petite Reine, the route for the 2011 edition will be announced in Paris this evening, although it is already known that the start will be in the Vendée. See here.
Report from Vincent Ogereau on the latter stages of their 2011* vendange but first I have to head off to St Albans to follow more of the fraud trial. See my investdrinks blog.
* Vincent is often en avance but on this occasion my mistake - 2010 vendange. Sorry done in a hurry before heading off to catch an early train northwards.
Phew, Vincent Ogereau really is a man ahead of his time Jim if he's already harvesting his 2011 fruit!
ReplyDeleteRegards...Mark
Loire and le Tour 2011 rumours: Looks like a Le Mans to Châteauroux stage on Friday July 8th, tailor-made for a Mark Cavendish win I would think!
ReplyDeletehttp://paris.thover.com/article/341/en/tour-de-france-2011--rumours-on-the-race-route-and-the-stages-.html
Colin
Thanks for the comments. Glad to see you read Jim's Loire attentively, Mark!
ReplyDeleteYou lot of spelling mistakes when hurry, my friend !
ReplyDeleteTalking about petrol shortage, here’s the view of a LEFTY (I swear it is true) about the social clash ongoing in France:
The “happy few” (I was told it has to take the singular) of this country – i.e. the civil servants !- has many reasons to dislike Sarkozy’s rule, as anyone else. But now, they have taken advantage of the very wrong reason to combat him, at the cost and disadvantage of all the rest of the – working – population.
Only one thing will unite the French: their retirement privileges!
Sarko’s bandits have applied cuts on the budget of Education, Justice, Health care reimbursement, local infrastructures ... you just name it. No reaction whatsoever.
But, as soon as the French Rail (SNCF), the French Mail (La Poste), the gas and electricity people, the teachers (18 hours a week is their service!), French Telecom have realized they might have to work a few extra months to earn their “retraite”, they have sent the country into a chaos.
The 3 millions or so margin of the population (out of 60 millions) who works the least and retires the earliest, paralyzes the overlarge majority of citizens, willing to break their neck under the harness in order to make a decent living. And a lot of naive classes just follow suit (the students, the truck drivers, the oil company workers ...). John Lennon’s “working class heroes” are being abused by the civil servants, once again. The cheaters of this society, the “profiteurs” are at work again.
And the upper class laughs allheartedly, from the windows of their manors, their private jets, the club house of their golf greens and their top-rated restaurants.