How time flies when you're having fun. Two months since I left London and in four days I return. I know the name of every village in the minervois, and the bars thereof. I have travelled the length of the Languedoc and seen the ancient, the magnificent, and the curious. I have - to some minor extent - learnt french: I talk like a hick and swear like a trooper. I have learnt far more about wine - from the vine to the bottle, seen it turn from sun-ripened grapes, to juice, to wine; trimmed it, pruned it, picked it, raked it, destemmed and sulphured it, pumped it, wracked it, dug it, pressed it and drunk it. I have been cold, wet, hungry, hot, stuffed, terrified, bored, guilty, expansive and drunk. J'ai chercher pour an autre mode de vie, and although I have not yet found it, I have found that I am capable of more than I thought: of hard labour, of knuckling down and under, of behaving both recklessly and with restraint. To the point: I have not yet discovered that of which I am incapable, and that will do for now.