Vues sur les vignes

It's raining again this morning. We had a pretty, sunny day yesterday, but with gusty winds in the afternoon. Accuweather says our high temperature this afternoon will be 26ºC — 80ºF. The sky will be cloudy, with a slight chance of showers. This is strange weather for the end of October. Here are some pictures I took out in the vineyard about a week ago. These are our fall colors. Heavy rains and wind gusts have blown a lot of the leaves away now.

    
On the left above is what we see as we go through the back gate to walk in the vineyard.
On the right is the view of our back yard and house looking in the opposite direction.

Here's a closeup of those red grapevine leaves.

    
On the left above is the vineyard parcel closest to our house, which is behind the tall trees on the upper right.
The plot of land with the propriété privée sign on it is a small orchard on the north side of our house. Some people from Brittany own it. They used to come regularly to cut the grass and pick ripe fruit, but it's been a year or two since we've seen them.

Today is the big day for the 22-year-old Peugeot: it's contrôle technique time. My fingers are crossed, because I'm hoping it won't need any major repairs. My mechanic says it might need a couple of shock absorbers to the tune of 550 euros. It's a car we drive to places that are no more than 15 miles from home. We have another car for longer trips. I took the Peugeot out for a 25-mile drive yesterday. I also calculated that since its last inspection 23 months ago, we've driven it about 80 miles a month. That's less than 2,000 miles in two years.