DUHHHHH.....

This is called Tuesday night burn out. I want to write something about a lot of things, but I really had a tough day working. I'm trying to finish the restoration job on the house I've been working on by tomorrow and I put in 10 hours mixing cement, brushing cement, cleaning joints in the stone work before I put in the cement and found myself doing a very dangerously silly tired balancing act on top of a ladder trying to finish ...I had to stop. So I will finish tomorrow morning. The last bit of cement and the brushing up. I will take some pictures.
I also got a call asking if I could come and work for a week at Chateau Vieux Chevrol in Neac, where I have worked every fall for the last 5 years on the Grape harvest. It has been breaking records every day here for heat and the grape vines are flowering way ahead of schedule. Normally, there are groups of workers who go from vineyard to vineyard to do the Vendage Vert...the green cutting, and they won't be able to get to Vieux Chevrol in time, so I get to fill in! The excess flower bunches are systematically cut from each vine to insure that the grapes that are left get all the plants energy. The proprietor, Jean Pierre, said this is the earliest flowering he has ever seen. Here spring is flying by at a dizzyingly pace. The garden is in full flower and we want to put in tomatoes and the potato plants, but peasant wisdom tells us that we must wait until the next full moon as is the custom for the Saint-Glace, traditionally the last date that frost will occur. I have to cut the lawn, again!
So a little political news, the number one book in the country is a cut throat tell all expose of Sarkozy by an ex UMP government minister who went to Bayrou. He is on all the talk shows and is a very well liked Algerian fellow who is now whole heartedly endorsing Segolene Royal. The polls tonight are 49% Segolene and 51% Sarkozy.
Both are wooing Bayrou's 18% in the first tour. Many are going to vote for Segolene. She has requested a public debate with Bayrou to show what his sympathies are. He will never do it and UDF ministers will not come out for the Socialists because they have been threattened by the UMP that they will be directly opposed in elections if they do. The UDF exists only because of a tacit agreement between the two parties over territory. Segolene and Sarkozy will debate one on one this week. A debate between the two from 1993 is being broadcast over and over again and Segolene destroys Sarko. The news on all channels is doing features that compare the stands of each party on individual issues and doing a very fair job of it.
The best fallout from the first tour of the election was the utter collapse of the Front National. It was LePens last race. He is very old and he was the glue that kept all the warring factions together. Now the knives are out and the fief is being carved up into mini parties of varying degrees of hate! It will be a long time before the far right can organize itself to be a real threat in an election again!