Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all, the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And so here we are again, back at the start of the song, or better put, at the start of the weekend \u2013 do the weeks seem to be passing at a reasonable lick right now because I\u2019m sure it was Sunday afternoon just a moment ago. Anyway, I\u2019m not going to argue, if it\u2019s the weekend it means it\u2019s wine o\u2019clock and I\u2019m happy to sing along to that. With temperatures in parts of Yorkshire and Cumbria hitting -4C on Thursday morning, I was a bit nervous to look at the forecast but actually it\u2019s not too bad \u2013 sunshine, clouds and the temperature getting closer to 20c on Sunday \u2013 full steam ahead for barbecues and Ros\u00e9 drinking then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n History<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last weekend, as we all know, was a back to front bank holiday. Friday saw most of SW19 sitting in their front gardens, sociably distancing and drinking bubbly from a flute or cider from a lemon, depending on their age. Driving round the grid, dropping off good cheer, there was a definite scent of positivity in the air; good humour with a sense of togetherness that made it feel as though perhaps, yes, we really can get through this current crisis but people, to do so, we really must stop listening to Vera Lynn and George Formby\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then 7pm on Sunday happened, or didn\u2019t really. Boris clenched his fists and waved his arms about whilst telling us all that Loose Lips sink Ships and that we should Dig for Victory. Ok, he didn\u2019t\u2019 say any of this but you always felt that he was but a tongue slip away from telling us to Keep Calm and Carry On. Oh, and stay alert\u2026 given the clarity of his message he could quite easily meant that he was going to go and stay in Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world (in Canada, just past Chequers). A previously clear message, now nicely muddied, quickly resulted in a couple of empty bottles of wine in our house!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Business<\/p>\n\n\n\n But carry on we do, for the time being still as a closed shop focused on doing deliveries. We have been asked by a few people when we are planning to open up again and the honest answer is that we don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are only two of us here, one of whom was sent into self-isolation very early on and who happily has recovered and come out the other side, but what we learnt from those weeks was that it doesn\u2019t take very much to knock the business sideways. We don\u2019t have massive shop, it\u2019s only 2.5 metres wide in fact, so it wouldn\u2019t take too many bodies to make it full, especially if 2 of us are already in it. We have spent the last ten years encouraging people to come in, taste stuff, touch the bottles, read the tasting notes, shoot the breeze \u2013 it\u2019s at the heart of what we do – but these things are currently strictly verboten, so we\u2019re not sure what opening the doors would actually offer? Do we insist on gloves and masks? Do we buy industrial vats of hand disinfectant and make use of that a condition of entry? Do we invest heavily in Perspex and recreate the homely and welcoming atmosphere of the offies of our youth? Add to this that the inside of the shop looks like a bomb-hit warehouse; that we are still here 6 days a week putting together orders and then delivering them full time – might need to open the shop just to have a rest!<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, in a nutshell, we\u2019re not sure\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Travel<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not happening. Locally we are told that it is our \u2018civic duty\u2019 to avoid public transport which is easy to say when you\u2019re a minister with a chauffeured Jag parked outside. Internationally, also not happening. On Wednesday, Tui announced that it expects to accelerate its transformation plans to adapt to the current situation with the knock on effect that 8,000 staff will now be going on permanent holiday \u2013 so where did the 1.8 billion euro loan, effectively from the German government, disappear off to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Music<\/p>\n\n\n\n You probably all know this already but Post Malone has launched a Provence Ros\u00e9. My son, who listens to Mr Post\u2019s music was very much of the \u2018so what\u2019 opinion. I don\u2019t knowingly listen to the Malone but am of a similar opinion\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sport<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, we actually have some sport to report on. The Bundesliga returns this weekend, with Wayne\u2019s team, Werder Bremen not actually playing until Monday when they host Bayer Leverkusen but, with both teams desperately needing the win from opposite ends of the table, it could be a cracker!<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s it from us. The Volvo is parked outside, I checked the air pressure in the tyres yesterday and now it\u2019s all ready for a full load of weekend wine \u2013 send us your orders!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have a great weekend, doubtless the next one will be along shortly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all, the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before And so here we are again, back at the start of the song, or better put, at the start of the weekend \u2013 do the weeks seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1287,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions\/1287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}