Goodbye Paradise

So today is Sunday, my last day at Chateau Brandeau. To celebrate we're going to the beach and having magret de canard for dinner, yum.
There is ot much to report on the work front, I've been driving the tractor (or to use the correct term, doing "décavillonage"), trying to finish some of the fields as soon as possible - once it gets too hot the ground is so hard the tractor can't dig into it properly. I did some fertilizing on Thursday morning, that wasn't fun. They use organic fertilizers here and they stink, when I asked what it was made up of Phil told me it was mainly chicken bones, beaks and paws. When I crushed a piece to distribute it evenly, it was full of white maggots. That wasn't fun.
We've had the assistance of Alain for the past week, he's a French guy working in the wine industry as a sommelier (or wine steward, according to wikipedia). He came from Bretagne with his dog "Vitesse", which we called "Quickness". He was very funny and would laugh at the most insignificant thing, he especially loved it when Phil would kill a vine while doing Décavillonage, and would start singing dirges. He also couldn't say "crisps", which we found pretty amusing.
So yesterday we worked in the morning. We offered to do this, as the weekend should be for ourselves, but things are a bit iffy in this farm. The owners try to sqeeze as much work out of us as possible - doing 8 hours a day is already excessive, it should be 5 max for helpers. I don't mind it at all, because it's fun to work with the other helpers, but I do feel weekends should be for us to do as we please. But they make a point of us helping in the garden and they don't show any appreciation for it if we put in extra hours. It's been a big problem between Eddie and Phil and the owners - because they're staying here for so long, this lack of appreciation really gets to them. The owners can be pretty negative, and quite miserable too, so it makes the ambiance even harder to deal with. But Eddie and Phil have each other and live in a little house next to the main house, where they have a drink and a laugh and try to forget about the shism with the main house.
So anyway, in the afternoon we went to Chateau Montaigne, which is where the French philospher Michel de Montaigne used to live. He's famous for writing the first French essays - the nale of his book was titles "Essais", which would translated to "tries" or "attempts". He's also famous for being one of the precursors of skepticism, his famous quote bein "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?") and mixing anecdotal with personal information in his writings. The tower is still intact, with its little chapel, library and bedroom. Some people had signed their name on the frescoed walls, some dating back to the 19th century.
So after that we bought some wine from the onsite winery and had a drink next to the vineyards. The walk back was beautiful, the acacia flowers dropping from the trees and the grass that translucent green that you get when the sun shines bright.
I better start getting ready, it's time for the beach!