Cider and water

Today, we bottled the 10 litres of cider that we racked off last week. We added a small amount of sugar to the brew to give it a bit of a sparkle and the initial tasting was very positive. It now needs to be left in a cool place for 4-8 weeks which means it will be ready for drinking by Christmas - but can we wait that long?!We also racked off the second 10 ltr barrel which will be ready for bottling next week. We will probably turn that into a slightly less dry cider.

So, all good on the cider front. The same cannot be said for the water. We turned the taps on at lunchtime and the flow stopped. Our 'bassin' just up the hill, from which the water to the house is drawn, was dry..... not even a trickle was coming out of the pipe that feeds into it from the 'source' somewhere up the hillside. No mains water here! I called SMDEA who are the nice people now responsible for maintaining the supply and somebody was on site within a couple of hours. Thankfully, they successfully restored the supply and water is now slowly flowing back into the tank up the hill. However, they maintain that the source of our water up on the distant hillside is running dangerously low following two poor winters in the area - the stocks are simply not being replenished. Time to set up a collection barrel to recover rainwater, methinks!

Only other event today was our first visit to a dentist in France for a check up. And what a pleasant experience it was. No work required for either of us :-)