I bought myself a fantastic grill today. It is a Weber gas grill. Yes I agree – grilling on a gas is cheating. No real man would do that. It is for yuppies with no sense for tradition. I have always used charcoal in Sweden and my dream was to build a real genuine charcoal grill on the terrace – maybe I even could burn wine-wood down to a very hot wine smelling heat there I could grill my sirloins and sausages.

So – why on earth do I by a gas grill? The only reason is that my French friends are getting annoyed at me because every time I invite them to a grill party I complain about the French charcoal. Honestly, it is absolutely useless. It must be made from the most fast growing wood that they can find. Even if you load the grill with lots of charcoal and wait until it gets white and nice, I could sit on it with my bare bottom without putting my family happiness into jeopardy. No I have not done that as, at my age, I have to be careful with what I still have. If I look at our neighbour when she grills some sausages she puts them about 1 cm above the heat to get them ready. That’s the way they do it here and they do not know anything else. If I did that with the charcoal we have in Sweden the sausages would be burned to ashes before I could count to three.

The important thing is that French people do not like that you complain about anything in France as they are – just like Americans – absolutely convinced that however lousy it is in their country, it is far better than any other place. So – to keep my good relations to my neighbours I have got myself a gas grill. No complaining about bad propane gas – If there is something like that.

My new grill is NICE! I have put it on the terrace and next week I will build a pergola over it. I have already got a wine plant that should cover it. A little problem was that the plant had some decease – said one of our expert friends – so I had to spray it with some terrible sulphur smelling solution last Saturday. Hope it gets well so I can get some good grapes next summer. Maybe I could deliver a bucket to Le Cave Cooperative and get a bottle of my own wine back.

I have seen some families picking their grapes manually. A lovely picture seeing everybody from the 10 years old daughter to grandfather filling the cones they carry on their back with grapes. Most of the harvest is however done by machine. I was fascinated when I imagined a machine that could pick the grapes gently and put them in the tractor trailer to be delivered to the pressing. I am still looking forward seeing how this kind of machine works.

Today we had a cloudy day with a bit of rain which is very unusual. It is my fault as I washed my car yesterday.