I’m having another night of being haunted by a line from a song which keeps playing in my ear.

This one , like the last , Porter’s spirited evocation of the Empress Josephine, was not a song that had a particular resonance for me.
It was a song that crept into my subconscious by being frequently played on Radio Éireann in the sixties , Mc Alpine’s Fusiliers as sung by the Dubliners.

The recalcitrant line is :

Oh Mother Dear I’m over here
I’m never coming back.
What keeps me here’s
The rakes of beer
The Ladies, and the craic.

I have decided to update this to make it relevant for a rather older retiree in the Languedoc :

Oh Children Dear I’m over here
I’m never coming back
What keeps me here’s
The sky’s so clear
And chilled Picpoul- en vrac*.

*En Vrac (in bulk ), is how the careful tippler buys his Vins de Pays here.

If you bring your own container (one, five or up to fifty litre ) the vigneron will let you fill this from a petrol pump like dispenser in his Cave .
You will pay a fraction of the cost for exactly the same stuff as in in the bottle.
Normally about a euro per litre.