Trip to NOLA 3

 - w/e in PA

We are getting better at sleeping, and although the sun was peeping over the horizon when we woke, we lay in bed for a while reading. Breakfast at nine, and M had already taken Fergie to the supermarket by the time we got down. But as he still needed a walk, we joined M for a stroll to Stage Stop Farm along country roads. It was lovely to be out and about and we saw lots of birds flying about. SSF is an old stage stop on the route to somewhere. Passengers could buy tickets for their journey by the entrance and get on when the stage arrived. The window is preserved, but as it is a private house, we couldn't walk up to the front door, positioned on the side if the house, to see it. They do have a huge pond to the other side where there were loads of Canada geese and some swans. It was very idyllic.


We turned here and walked back to the house where I. was ready to take us down to Barnes and Noble for a browse among the books. We had been talking about what we had been reading and watching on TV, and I. ended up with the first two of the Millennium Trilogy (Swedish version) and also two Wallander DVDs also Swedish with English subtitles. We had coffees at the in-house Starbucks, then headed back to the house as we were off to watch the grape pressing for this year's homemade wine. This year the club have bought Sangiovese grapes from Napa Valley and these have been sitting in barrels with sugar for several days. The fermentation has finished and now the group takes the resulting juice and divides it between their carboys for the next stage. To get the maximum amount of juice, they squeeze the fermented grapes (must) through a special press. This was quite complicated as if it spills it makes everything very sticky as well as staining anything it comes into contact with - like the walls and so on. So the process is mostly outside and it was suddenly very cold and wet, quite unpleasant.  About halfway through, M decided it was time for us to depart up to the house and Fergie, where she made us some supper. I. would have supper with the wine club. We were then going to watch a film, but couldn't get the DVD player to talk to the TV, so we waited for I. to get back, then sat and watched the latest Bourne film with Matt Damon.