Would you believe that this is the first vineyard blog since December, 2022. That’s nearly a year since the last one for a blog that I used to post every month. In fact I had, until that point, written 94 of them. The vineyard years, as I entitled it, had been a part of my retirement life since 2013 and took the form of a blog, a book and even a podcast. It took my illness, that so far has lasted pretty much the whole of 2023, to bring it to a halt.
It’s not just that I didn’t feel as if I had the energy to write it, I couldn’t even engage in the activity of working in the vineyard and so I had nothing to write about. Secretly I had hoped that without any care and attention from me and Mrs Summerhouse there would not be any grapes. Failing that that the grapes would quietly rot on the vine.
Sod’s law. We currently have quite a healthy and large crop. I could still let them go mouldy and wither away. But I won’t because my neighbour across the dale has taken an interest and, reluctantly on my part, he has dragged me, not quite kicking and screaming (but close), into planning to pick grapes and make wine.
My neighbour has his own vineyard but it’s only been planted for about three years so too young for any serious grapes. Which means he’s keen, if that be the word, to set up a vinery of his own and try to make wine using our grapes. It will be a kind of experiment / dry run, except it will be wet. I’m hoping this will call for minimal involvement from me and Mrs Summerhouse, like no picking for example.
But, as you will guess, that is not the way it’s working out. In fact I’ve just invested £1300 in three stainless steel tanks which will reside in my neighbour’s out-building where I transported them using my van. This meant a drive of an hour there and an hour back. Given I’m not fit this proved an effort. But it’s done now.
So the next task is to measure the sugar levels of the grapes in order to pick them at the right time. It’s been a slow year weather-wise so we’re hoping (my neighbour is) that we will be able to pick the grapes in another couple of weeks. Until then it’s a matter of sorting out all the wine-making equipment that I’ve taken from my garage up to my neighbour’s. My garage being where I made last year’s wine (and am still making it)
So there we have it. The medical problems I have had this year – cancer and enlarged prostate and a few other things and the operations that go with them – have curtailed not only our vineyard activities, my music, this blog and most forms of travel. I have felt too tired to engage in any of the above. So giving up on these retirement activities has seemed sensible if not entirely pleasurable. Guilt you know. By the way I have a new date for my prostate operation – 6th of November as you ask, let’s hope my stomach doesn’t cause a cancellation again. Watch this space.
PS. By the way – again – because I’ve not written a vineyard blog for nearly a year I’ve not written about my wine-making efforts in our garage. Everything done by us with some help from family. Not bad effort though I say so myself. Pity there’s no on-going record of it all.