Relative Something

Continuing with Saturday, September 25…

After a really pleasant lunch break, it is back to picking grapes. I settle into the role of carrying tubs of grapes back to the winery to dump through the squishing machine. Carrying these loads is a significant effort that has me expending as much energy as one of my morning soccer games. After Luis arrives, and Victoria and Stephanie join the effort, it becomes a challenge for me to keep up, collecting the contents of all the bins and walking the distance back and forth to the winery. The farther down the rows of vines they pick, the longer my trips become.

Over time, additional guests arrive, some of whom join in picking grapes. Cyndie runs out of strength for the task of picking and excuses herself to lie down and stretch. Shortly after that, Stephanie asks me to let Cyndie know that it is tea time. I notice that Francisca has changed from her work clothes into something nice, so I stop in and give Cyndie that update. She indicates she will rally and appear. I turn back to the miscellany of tasks with Ian as we move from picking the last grapes to assisting Luis with the next steps toward get them pressed.

After a bit, I step back in our cottage and find Cyndie ended up going to sleep. I let her sleep for a short bit, but then worry that she may sleep too long for a nap; plus, all the guests appear to have gathered for treats and our absence may seem conspicuous. I roust her and change out of my disaster of a tee shirt, even though the rest of me is still sticky-dirty. I don’t find Ian in with Luis anymore, so I head round to the main house and find him on the porch with all the fixings from tea time still on the table, but all the folks gone. He says they have gone down to see the horses. He and I snack a bit and he gives me a lesson on three modified ways to say thank you in Portuguese. Then Cyndie comes up, looking wonderful and ready for an event. She joins us for a brief bite and then she goes off to find the crowd while Ian and I get back to supporting Luis.

Later, Cyndie and Stephanie described quite a threatening situation down in the field of horses with the large group of adults and children. The horses became nervous and it wasn’t apparent that everyone was aware of the situation. Cyndie and Stephanie worked together to avert a total disaster, and prevent injury to either horses or people. It made quite an impression on both of them.

Meanwhile, Ian and I are doing everything we can to keep things progressing as Luis applies his knowledge. Unfortunately, there is one mistake that requires going backwards in the process and consumes a fair amount of time. We struggle to assist Luis in the difficult task of removing the squished grapes from the press to re-orient the walls of the device. We had not fully centered the outer pieces before he started filling it. Suddenly I realize the guests are coming in to say good-bye, and I’ve hardly said hello to them.

In a blink, it seems, it is dark and evening is here. There seems no time to eat, and poor Luis hasn’t had a break all day. We are now committed to this project that must be completed all in one day. Stephanie stops in with treats for Luis to take home as a token of appreciation for his extra efforts. When we finally reach a point that can be called done for the day, it is almost 9:30 p.m.

Ian and I head up to the house where Cyndie, Victoria, and Stephanie have been waiting. Cyndie had baked banana bread and Stephanie served some dinner for us, and we sat for a few minutes in their kitchen together to eat. Ian looked pretty pooped. Even though the banana bread wasn’t ready to come out of the oven, Cyndie was trying to get us free to go to bed and give them their house back. She recruited Stephanie to watch the bread for ten more minutes and we said good night.

It was a very long day. I just wanted to get out of my trashed clothes and take a shower. I ended up spending a bit more time than I intended processing a few pictures and posting on Brainstorms before turning in for sleep around midnight. Long as it was, it was a one of a kind day that I will cherish forever.