Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness?

Is this the end of the summer dry weather, or just a temporary set-back? Who knows, certainly not me! Last night we had the first rain we have had in a month after three days of scorching temperatures above the thirty degree mark and very welcome it was, too. I woke at four or five when Laika announced a clap of thunder and I went down to pull the computers. I saw that it was drizzling outside and hastened to pull in the sun-loungers which had been left out and were getting wet. This morning 

, I could see by the level of water in the sheep`s dishes that there had been some rain, though not a lot. Nevertheless, it is very welcome and has just about refilled our water reserve in the plastic barrel Still, this morning the rain has stopped and the temperatures are due to be a much more supportable twenty degrees so we can get on with collecting and processing our grapes. 

As you can see from my header pic, the main vines here are of the Bacco variety originally (not sure of the spelling ) once used to distill into brandy or eau-de-vie, though of course you can make wine from them. They are illegal to plant nowadays, apparently and were said to `rendre fou` I don`t know whether this was because the wine was over-strength? At any rate, our only attempt at wine-making was disappointing and produced a very sour wine. We now use the grapes for producing grape juice for drinking un-fermented.  You boil the grapes for a moment, still in their bunches, crush them with the potato masher and strain them through muslin to produce the juice. We pour this into old lemonade bottles and put in the freezer, otherwise you get wine willy-nilly and exploded bottles to go with it! We also use the juice to make a delicious grape jelly. Neither has driven us mad, as far as we can judge...

   The fig crop has been disappointing up to now, there are loads on the trees but small and un-ripe as yet, perhaps later. The quinces look promising but that`s for later. We have already picked most of the accessible damsons and a good supply of  damson jam has been made, My favourite, I think.

  Kim`s veg patch is producing loads of courges, tomatoes and green beans and she has already harvested onions, garlic and some potatoes. So you can see that my title is quite appropriate!

   Bye for now, going to see if Kim is stirring, she had a bad night so is being left to sleep late.