Yesterday was Beaujolais Nouveau day, in Lyon and elsewhere. The ceremonial opening of the first barrels in Place Bellecour at midnight on Weds/Thurs is an event we've long intended to go along to at some point, but never quite got round to.
We were out on Weds evening, watching the Arsenal ladies take on their Lyon counterparts in the female version of the Champions league. Well, the former are the reigning European champions. And a friend and fellow Gooner once teased me with tongue firmly in cheek about never having watched a women's match. "Can't call yourself a fan unless you've been to youth, reserve, women's and first team games..."
So now I have...
It was a bitterly cold night (and has got colder since), but the 0-0 draw was reasonably entertaining, if mainly for comments coming from a bellowing, partisan OL fan not far behind us.
If the above sounds somewhat rambling and disjointed, it's because I've been partaking of the nectar of the gods somewhat earlier in the day than is my normal wont. Three or four years ago la bienheureuse filled in some flyer offering the chance to win wine & other prizes, so a few weeks later we duly received a phone call. "You've won a gift and the chance to have a wine-tasting at home."
Hmm...
Well, unfortunately for la bienheureuse and fortunately for me, it's her who goes out to work and me that is able to receive visitors at home during working hours. If you see what I mean...
Thus it was that I found myself having a wine-tasting in the comfort of my own home one morning about 3 years ago. And thus it was that I found myself ordering 3 or 4 cases of wine. Fairly foolproof method of carrying out door-to-door sales. Get the customer drunk first...
Anyway, since then, every so often I get a phone call saying the salesmen is in the area, and somehow I've never been able to refuse a visit. Nor turn down the chance to buy more wine. Well, we do get a gift of some sort each time, albeit probably worth less than half the cost of carriage for the wine. And this morning (despite forgetting the appointment & thus indulging in a bit of degustation in my dressing gown) I also got left with a glass of the 30 euro Bourgogne that I'd managed to resist buying. Very nice it was with lunch too...
