Cuts, sores and bruises

Posted on | November 11, 2005

From October 3, 2005

Incredible the number of wounds, bruises, knocks and cuts one suffers during the harvest and wine-making.

In the line of fire, one feels practically nothing, except perhaps when one cuts the end of one’s finger with the secateurs, or when one steps back hitting a palette very hard, or when the harvester brains you with his yoke and basket whilst asking you to empty your pail…

No, it’s in the evening, in the shower, that one discovers one’s multiple small sensitivities: a painful finger that one forgot had became squashed; a sensitive tendon, whose existence one also forgot; a bruise that one discovers, like that, on one’s leg without ever knowing how it got there; lots of cuts, sores or gashs that nothing can apparently justify; for certain one would have a new another nail, covered as it should be with a new coat of dark blood, and which hangs sadly,  irremediably broken, as soon as the soap and the hot water reveals it. (Stupidly one pulls above the place where it might be properly cut, and there, it tears from the tissue that joins it.. ahh, what horror, this blog is turning into gore :)) I would not wish to forget either the red spots from the wasp stings, bees and other diverse and varied insects, all of which are grizzly, creeping and shaggy, and their venom irritates for at last 24 hours… and mosquitos, let’s talk about the mosquitos. Wait. Now I think of it there weren’t any mosquitoes this year, at least on any of the  parcels so far harvested…Is that a sign? I note it for future generations: 2005, formidable vintage: no mosquitos…

Hervè Bizeul

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