Grape Harvest time again and a different venue this time - Halfpenny Green Vineyard in South Staffordshire. This is a much bigger concern than Chilford Hall and we were looking forward to seeing how it all worked. On Monday lunchtime we set out all was fine until we hit the dreadful M6 through Birmingham and the ridiculous speed cameras that change from 60mph to 40mph to 50mph to 60mph on successive gantries just to catch you out. It really is an awful road and the ill-designed roads through Wolverhampton are not much better. We were pleased to arrive at the very peaceful vineyard and check in.
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| View over the vines |
On Tuesday the we joined the other pickers at 0900hrs on the car park and set out to harvest. We picked until 1200, had an hour for lunch (with tea, coffee and wine) and then picked again until 1600hrs followed by more tea, coffee and wine.
Wednesday followed the same programme, albeit we were a bit stiff from the previous day's exertions. The weather started to deteriorate in the afternoon so we had an early finish, but it was still good fun.
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| Fair days pay for a fair day's work |
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| Madeline Angevine grapes |
Thursday started off fine but by mid afternoon there were rumbles of thunder and a storm started brewing. There were cries of "stay away from the wires" as we picked in the thunder, finally giving up at at about 1500hrs just as we finish picking the rows of Madeleine Angevine.
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| The day started well.... |
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| Storms a'comin' |
The following day we had a leisurely breakfast in the café then set out to drive to the Wirral Country Park Cackyvan Club site. The Satnag took us through Wolverhampton again, then up the dreaded M6, then M56 and the M53. It was a bit of a slog, but we arrived spot on 1300hrs and got a pitch overlooking the estuary. We had a bit of a tidy up in the van and stowed all the wine we had acquired (you can fit 17 bottles under one of the floor hatches, albeit they were packed securely with dirty socks!). We plugged in and started charging everything we could before heading off for dinner at Flissy's.
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| Dee Estuary |
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| Wine cellar in the van |
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| Wirral Country Park CAMC Site |
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| Caldy RUFC |
On Sunday we switched our planned nights stay from the Wirral to Chester Fairoaks CAMC site for two reasons: to reduce the journey time on Monday and to be nearer the shops for reprovisioning. We did the short run in pouring rain and stopped at the outlet mall, parking in the coach park (once we had found it). The mal was horrible! It was packed and not a nice experience so we had lunch in Harry Ramsdens and spent the afternoon on the caravan site watching the pouring rain.
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| Coach park at Chester Fairoaks |
On Monday it was still chucking it down. We refuelled and reprovisioned in Costco and went back to Halfpenny Green via a much better, and more direct, route. We parked up by the very pretty fishing lakes and checked in.
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| lunch in Costco |
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| Mucky from the awful weather |
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| Fishing lakes at Halfpenny Green |
On Tuesday we were due to pick and reported in for work as usual. The weather, however, had other ideas. Rain stopped play. It didn't stop raining all day.
It actually stopped raining on Wednesday. The Met Office could have actually got a forecast right, but I suppose by the law of averages they are going to get it right once in a while. We started on the long, long rows of Rondo grapes, which grow quite low so it was tiring, but satisfying work. We ached by the end of the day.
On Thursday there was a lovely, misty, autumnal sunrise after a very cold night. The leaves on the vines were starting to turn and the grapes don't like the cold too much so it was important to get them in. Another hard day's work.
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| Lost amongst the Rondos |
On Friday we were up early, packed and on our way home after a very enjoyable, but very tiring, trip away.
Halfpenny Green is a wonderful place run by a lovely family. Our only regret was that we didn't get to meet Martin, who was responsible for laying out this vineyard, as he very sadly died suddenly the day before we arrived. Whilst picking, our thoughts were constantly with the family who had to organise and run an incredibly stressful harvest whilst suffering this horrible loss. They were absolutely brilliant.
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