Another last-day-of-the-month missive and a photo journal for November.

Before that, well done England and the USA, commiserations to Wales, and the days of four games a day of World Cup football on BBC and ITV, one after another, have come to an end. England’s opponents in the quarter final on Saturday 10 December, if they prevail over Senegal – if – this Sunday in the last 16, will more than likely be France or the runners-up of Group C (currently Argentina, but we’ll know tonight). Crikey.

We started our harvest yesterday. It’s obviously a fairly early one, what with all the heat and the drought for most of the summer, but more on that another time.

Instead, this end of August missive is dedicated to Margaux, our much-loved terrier, who sadly died just short of her fifteenth harvest. She died peacefully at home having braved a heart condition for many months. It is very sad, of course, but she had a really good life and we are blessed to have had her, and she didn’t suffer at the end. She gave so much pleasure to so many people, and she was loved by so many in return.

A successful, early flowering in the vineyard is almost a cause for celebration in itself. We’ve had lovely weather at Bauduc, with the only fly in the ointment being a potential drought. (As you know, farmers are rarely happy.)

Our final photo-journal of the year is a glance at the vineyard, namely the same image snapped over several months. Below that are some highlights which are taken mostly from the previous 11 photo-journals of 2021.

To see just the images of those 11, a swift way is to click through to the fast-loading ‘photo albums’ on bauduc.com here.

Each one of those albums has a link at the start to the relevant ‘news’ post which are listed here.

And all the posts can be seen in the ‘archives’ on gavinquinney.com – feel free to leave a comment or question on any of the posts there.