How I ended up living in Andrea Calek's barn by mistake

Hannah continues her adventures in France, trading in a winemaking apprenticeship in Banyuls for Andrea Calek's estate in the Ardèche.

They say all roads lead to Rome, but mine (no doubt en route) led me late at night to Andrea Calek’s mobile home where I now live. No mom don't worry, not in the mobile home; but just up the slope past the verbena above the cellar in a barn, which, geographically is halfway between the villages of Alba-la-Romaine and Valvignères, and viticulturally where I wanted to work when I started this whole 'I wanna wine internship' business.

So success, yes, but success is a long journey. Literally because Amsterdam is 1,117 km away, and emotionally because when we left - expensive cat and house packed (the latter surrendered for six months to Brexit refugees), tyres pumped to bear maximum load of stuff we wouldn’t need because the next apartment was furnished - we were moving to Banyuls where you left me, and where a month ago I left the person to let me into his cellar and his life and house every day for lunch when I’d asked, "Can I do a stage?"

The Ardèche was just a stopover.

Not so by the ti…