When I was 20, so of course now, I can’t remember how, but I saw an ad for being a temp. worker in Champagne for the grape harvest. NO pay (!) but live with the family for two/three weeks (and it inferred drink champagne all day and night) so what could be better than that? I applied and was accepted.
Armed with the name and address of my host family (and absolutely nothing else… this was pre-cellphones or anything like that), I jumped on a plane from London to Paris and then took a train to Epernay, which is NE of Paris going towards Belgium. From there I had been told to take a certain bus from the station and just get off at the village of Chatillon-sur-Marne. What you did then seemed to be up to you. Had this been today you would be armed with cellphone numbers and texting and Googlemaps. In those days, I just got off a bus in a village.
I did all that. It was dark by the time I boarded the bus, which did not help in locating a village. I sat right at the front, literally behind the driver, who said he would tell me, but I was not 100% sure. I did not take my eyes off the village signs that fortunately are well posted outside each one. Suddenly in the intense blackness, there was the name I needed. I descended along with a schoolboy, on to a very deserted street. If there was lighting, it was candle-power.
Fortunately, the child was being met by maman and I fell on them as apparently the only people alive there and asked for the abode of Monsieur Beaumont. She had never heard of him. My life was saved by an old crone who tottered out of the gloom and she was quizzed and pointed down the street to where the pale street lamp was and assured us that was chez lui. I certainly hoped so, as the rows of houses either side looked like they were about to collapse at any moment. Summoning up all my courage, I knocked on the door.
Madame Beaumont answered and stared at me like I had two heads and had come from the moon. In my best French I assured her I was here to stay and help, which just seemed to confuse things even more. Fortunately, a teen male child came to see what was going on and all became clear. I was the foreigner who had come to help. Well, duh… didn’t I just say that?
They were just about to sit down for supper and a place was laid for me. Probably 8-10 of the most bucolic French faces I had ever seen and all speaking something that kind of sounded like French, except I could barely understand a word. Pere de famille, Monsieur Beaumont, probably 50, was virtually toothless, so that did not help. It was just so amazing that a total stranger was sitting eating within five minutes of coming through the front door and I was already just one of the family.
I never worked out who was who, as they were somewhat lax in making introductions. Families very much come together for ‘la vendange,’ so I gave up trying to work out if they actually were immediate family or cousins from Nantes who came every year to help out. They all looked very connected in appearance.
We drank champagne like it was tap water. OMG, I was quite buzzed and also had to find the loo fast, as it always goes through me at record speed. The loo was… basic … I realized there was a sort of conflab going on about sleeping arrangements and did manage to ascertain that I had not just barged in on a family but that they were only vaguely expecting me, but it rather seemed no more than that. SO, I was here and what do we do with him?
Answer was… put a bed in the stable. However, I was not going to turn into the Little Lord Jesus, as I was sharing it with … not a human… but the family horse! Hercule was his name and he was definitely descended from a long line of cavemen art. He was HUGE and had eyes the size of soup plates. A partition was erected and his straw swept to one side and I am assured he is ‘très sage’ and will not bother me. There wasn’t much I could do about it anyway and in the end I had to admit that if I had to spend nearly 3 weeks sleeping with a horse, then Hercule was just the best room mate ever. He would put his huge head over the partition in the morning and gaze at me. I liked to think it was admiration, but he never let on.
In the morning, we assembled in the front room which doubled as parlor and dining room. The traditional oilcloth table covering was swept of the breadcrumbs from last night and big bowls of milky coffee (the type of soup bowl things they use in France, with lips on either side for lifting) and hunks of bread and that was breakfast. Oh, I forgot. As it was cold in the morning and very misty and dank outside, then the bowl of coffee could have a good shot of marc (think grappa) which would serve to fortify us until we warmed up from our labors. An excellent idea.
We walked to a nearby vineyard and I was shown the ropes. All the others had been doing it all their lives and now there was little moi. I had a wooden basket (think bucolic peasants sitting around in hayfields pictures by Breughel and that was us, but no hayfield and in dank, gloomy weather) and a pair of long pointed ‘scissors’ and shown how to rummage around in the leaves, all still firmly attached but turning beautiful autumnal shades and when my hand found a bunch of the hardpacked black grapes, then I cut. Two things needed to be factored in here. My left hand was frozen within minutes and became more numb by the second. This was a good thing so that when I used my scissors and impaled the points on my left hand fingers, I felt no pain. It was a very good thing, as I was continually doing it.
Within ten minutes of stooping or just kneeling on the near frozen earth, my hands were iced and bloody and my back was giving out. At least eighteen more days of this?
There will be more to come. Food, glorious food. And I meet an old American who had lived in the village since 1917 (honest) and he could not remember one word of English!
timothyvalentinestravels 