Fugitive

There is a little bit of magic to vines. I'm no expert, but I do what the Internet tells me and cut it back to a 1 metre high stump, with a couple of stubby side branches 10 or 15cm long, in the dead of winter (roughly the same time we will briefly lift the lid on the sleepy bees we shut up yesterday, and dribble some acidified sugar water on them - it's for their benefit, honest)

At that time of year, the vine looks not just dormant, but stone cold dead. No sign of stirring buds, like those on beech or ash; no colouring of the bark like willows. And it stays that way long after almost everything else has broken bud and embraced the new spring. The sleepy adolescent, loath to leave a warm bed; the anxious late arrival, waiting for the party to be in full swing

Then, on a sunny spring day, it throws caution to the wind and starts growing like Jack's magic bean. And it's still going - slowed a little now the days are shorter, perhaps, but I have to keep moving that piece of wood on the logstore roof, that is keeping the growing tips on the premises! Given a chance, it would branch and branch and branch again. Web wisdom says remove the branches, so I pick out the shoots that grow from the base of each leaf-stem, just like an expert tomato-grower

The oldest leaves are spread-fingers-palm sized but delicate - you can see why it fears any hint of frost. Just in the last two weeks, they have begun to senesce, acknowledgement of the inevitable. But they somehow advertise their purpose openly: the maximum possible surface area, catch every possible photon, run the factory at full capacity and pump out the sugars; summer is short, make every day count. A life lesson

I measured those branches today - they are 5 metres long. Three of them growing in one direction from the corner post and three on the opposite side. Probably that's too many - I think I may pay the price in small-sized grapes. Perhaps we will crush them down and try our hand at wine. If I treat the juice like cider, will I get Ironstone Champagne?