What a week

It's the end of the week and all of a sudden I appreciate the weekend so much more. We've worked hard this week, picking grapes, sorting grapes, crushing grapes, eating grapes, fermenting grapes, cleaning grapes. Oh, and drinking wine.

The work is tedious and the hours long, but we really are enjoying ourselves for the first time on the trip. No trying to convince ourselves that it really is fun and telling ourselves that it is all part of the experience. We're working during the day, chatting with lots of great people, eating wonderful food, drinking some amazing wine, learning a lot and experiencing things we will never experience again.

During all this Marike is of course being herself and charming everyone with her gracefulness. She's always walking into things, messing stuff all over her and keeping everyone's spirits up by just being herself. The highlight of all her escapades so far has been "the bidet incident", when she tried to relieve herself on the toilet like normal people do, but she was in such a hurry that she sat down on the bidet instead. Of course, she only realised this once she tried to flush the toilet and couldn't find the flusher anywhere. Luckily for us it was only a number 1.

So between all the grapes, Marike is keeping the trip interesting, the people are amazing and the food even better. I have now ticked everything from my little to-do list and am ready to go back to London and start the Contiki tour and work on my other list. We have both crushed the grapes in the barrels and have had countless meals at a long table under the trees. Usually I eat so much that I am almost crying after lunch while I'm sorting grapes, luckily we're only here until Monday, so after that we can hopefully try and eat normally again.

A word of warning to you all, the Italians are saying that we are now nice and tanned. They've even stopped calling Marike Mozzarella, so don't be startled when you see us again.