LUTECE, NOLA, DINGA, ALLEN, IRONHEART

Top week. Started at The Ex, where I had a few with Lutecia (above), who was planning her second haircut. Like in her life. She always wears it up but I begged her to let it down for this one last snap. 

Apart from Lutèce being the Roman name for Paris, as in Lutèce d'or, I thought the word had meanings along the lines of peaceful and placitude, which were pretty well the opposite of the meanings of the  name of our third buddy Barbara. Barbara still means of barbary; barbaric, but it's starting to look like Lutèce means swamp or marsh, which I then thought is usually a place of fairly placid and peaceful demeanour before I realised barbarians could be there too. Indeed they are.

Ask Lutecia or Barbara. Them lasses don't bullshit.

Then the posh chooks moved in next door. These fat bastards live in a six star chookhouse on wheels and they've come to the shade in my bee hive tree because it's gonna be fairly hot these next few days and chooks aren't as tough and enduring as native bees but they sure do attract flies. And they need to be out of the sun. 

Then Milton sent me this snap of our mate Dr Robert de Bellevue who just rocked in from New Orleans talking to his lover Julie while a magpie interrogates the both them digitally at Milt and Anne-Marie's shack. Dr Bob's a serious bird nut, so this magpie must have been like their envoy sent down the frontline there in the Aldinga scrub to talk to the man from NOLA. Notice the spectacular leap in architectural philosophy, that gap between the chookhouse and Milton's outhouse (photo©Milton W0rdley):

... then I woke to discover the veils were being lifted from the brides in the Ironheart Vineyard in my front yard, meaning those grapes are ready to pick ...

... which they soon were, between me tripping over this By Jingo rug and catching a cool glimpse of pickers sharing a tea and biscuit in the back yard ...

... Milton and Anne-Marie and Dr. Bob then came to a stunning lunch at The Salopian where we drank the three new Yangarra wines my landlord Peter Fraser makes from the amazing vineyards around me, like that one above. I shall review these wines soon. I think they're the best ones Peter has yet made. With Shelley Torressan and the crew in the winery and Michael Lane's vineyard brilliance with Dan Mullins and the gang. Roux Beauté Roussanne, High Sands Grenache and Ironheart Shiraz 2013 ... Shivers ...

... we called in to say gidday to  Corrina at Olivers Taranga (Dr Bob, Corrina, Anne-Marie and Milton), where I took this photograph of the secret exhaust pipes:

... which reminded me in turn of these  rufous entanglements ...

Anyway Dr Bob assures me that Allen Toussaint's album will be out as planned in a month or two and that his mates and family have found an amazing trove of recordings that he'd been quietly working on for years. You can see Bob in the throng here with Elvis Costello and Dr John, helping get the good Allen's coffin into the truck in November. 

I love most of all Irma Thomas ticklin that hearse with her feather. 

Here's Milton's shot ©Milton W0rdley of dinner with Dr Bob and Julie with Allen in New Orleans. These people are terminal Grange nuts.

Allen really loved Grange. He was a musical genius. He loved fine things.

Here's Dr Bob tasting 2016 ferments with Peter Fraser and the new stainless steel egg ... photo©Milton Wordley