Page 31 of A French Inheritance
Friday morning when Briony woke she found Meg curled up on the bed beside her.
‘What are you doing up here?’ she said. Two big brown eyes regarded her sorrowfully, while a tail began to rhythmically thump the bed.
‘You know the number one rule is no dogs on beds. You’re supposed to be in your basket in the kitchen.
But I like your company, so we’ll ignore that rule. ’
She stayed there for several moments fussing Meg before getting up and pulling on some clothes to let the dog out into the garden.
After breakfast and a shower, she’d walk up to the farm and introduce Meg to Lucy, Adam and Django before settling down to do some more box-checking and organising as well as trying to finalise a business plan.
Briony clipped the long lead onto Meg’s collar and went up through the fields, letting Meg stop and sniff and familiarise herself with her new surroundings. Up at the farmhouse, she knocked on the kitchen door and called out. ‘Okay to bring my new dog in?’
‘Of course, we’re looking forward to meeting her,’ Lucy said. ‘Elliot told us last night you were giving this beautiful girl a new home,’ and she immediately bent down, stroking Meg. Luna and Django wandered over and Meg stood patiently, her tail wagging.
Adam looked up briefly from his laptop. ‘Morning and hello Meg,’ he said before returning his attention to the screen with a groan.
‘I sincerely hope they’ve got this long-term forecast of a late frost warning for Easter wrong,’ he said.
‘The leaves on the vines have unfurled beautifully and the buds are starting. The avocados too are showing new leaf growth. Frost is the last thing we need. Bruno tells me a late spring frost in April 2017 was the worst in France for over twenty-five years. Down here the damage was bad enough, but it caused absolute devastation further upcountry.’
‘Is there anything we can do to protect the vines?’ Lucy asked.
Adam shook his head. ‘Not really. Bigger vineyards have lots of short-term protection options, like oil heaters, large paraffin candles, setting fire to vine pruning or even straw. We’re lucky that the vineyard is on a south-facing slope, so it should retain the heat of the day.
Temperatures drop to their lowest close to the soil and create a so-called temperature inversion.
Might start praying for warm sunny days but cloudy night skies that would offer some insulation to the buds. ’
‘Could you buy a load of straw?’ Briony asked.
‘Wrong time of year. There’s never a lot of straw available down here and farmers that do use it have used last year’s straw over winter and are short of it. I have rung around but haven’t found any.’
‘Fingers crossed the forecast is wrong – they often are, aren’t they?’ Briony said, trying to be optimistic.
‘Météo France are usually on the ball,’ Adam said. ‘We can only hope they’re being extra cautious warning everyone and they’ve made a mistake.’
After leaving the farm, Briony walked Meg down to the lake and for the first time let her off the lead by the water.
A typical springer spaniel, Meg instantly jumped into the water enthusiastically even without Luna being there to egg her on.
Briony smiled at Meg’s antics. She looked so happy swimming around.
Briony held her breath when she called her to come out of the lake in case her recall wasn’t quite as good as Elliot had said, but Meg came and quickly rewarded her with a wet shower.
‘Come on then, Meg, let’s get you home and get both of us dried off.’
With Meg in her life now, Briony was determined to spend time with her making sure she settled and was happy in her new home, so over the next few days they developed a routine.
Their early-morning walk to the lake was usually on their own, but in the evenings, Elliot and Luna often turned up at the cottage and the two of them walked the dogs together.
Luna and Meg were firm friends now and keeping them out of the lake was impossible – where Luna went, Meg was bound to follow and vice versa.
Briony inwardly admitted to herself that she missed Elliot as much as Meg missed Luna on the days when Elliot didn’t get home early enough for an evening walk. Not that she would ever tell him.
As well as working up at the farm on Saturday and walking Meg twice a day, the days began to fly by for Briony.
She was determined to sort through the boxes in the garage before she moved any of them up to the unit.
It would be better to see what they contained first. Slowly she was working her way to the back of the garage, where she could see some folded-up trestle tables that she hoped would be useable.
She soon had three separate piles of boxes: one for the brocante, one for rubbish and one full of things she wasn’t sure whether to sell or keep. She was hoping her mum would take a look and help her decide. Meg curled up happily alongside her in the garage or wherever she chose to work.
A couple of times, Briony went up to the units. The first time was to tell Holly and Calvin that she was going to be their new neighbour and was looking forward to being there with them. Both Holly and Calvin were thrilled with the news that the third unit was going to be opened.
‘That is good news,’ Holly said. ‘And a brocante is sure to bring more people up to the farm.’ Both wished her good luck.
The second time she went up to the unit was to try to work out a plan of how to make the best use of the space and how to display items. The trestle tables from the garage, if they were useable, could be covered with some vintage material and there was a shelf unit on the landing in Owls Nest that would be useful.
Slowly but surely her new life in France was taking shape and Briony was enjoying every minute of it.