Until next year

Leave the shutters open, we will be back!

A couple of weeks ago I dreamed that I was back in Canada and I was running a marathon all the way from our house, right across the country, and the most remarkable thing was that I felt that I could run and run and run and never stop. It felt so good! When I told Gord my dream his comment was, "Oh, and what did you do when you got to Kerrisdale?" (about 10 minutes from our house!!) Well going to Provence has been a wonderful dream, and not even Gord with all his hesitation, stopped it from happening. He has told me that it wasn't that he didn't want to go, it was just that he didn't want to leave - family, friends and Vancouver - as he has spent his whole career going away. But he also has felt that this time away has been a fabulous gift to each other and the very best way we could have spent his first eight months of retirement. We have memories to last a lifetime that we will treasure and we will always have a very special place in our hearts for the Luberon valley and all things "so French"!

Coming home was made more complicated by the roving volcanic dust and it was with grateful hearts that we landed in Vancouver in the middle of the night, 30 hours after the start of our journey, to a warm welcome from our son Steve and his fiancee Christy. It was so good to see them and so unexpected at that late hour! Our house has been left in very good shape by the tenants and well overseen by Steve downstairs. The garden was needing a bit of TLC but that was just to be expected, and we have had fun cleaning it up this week. The other day I came around the corner and came face to face with a raccoon, not quite a wild boar but still an unwelcome visitor. Recently in France, I opened a window to find a scorpion sitting there who I encouraged outside, a little more alarming than the spiders I am encountering here.

One of the hardest things to get used to being home is the noise.  I miss the sound of the church chiming out the hour and the birds and the occasional car that I know the driver of without ever even lifting my head from the pillow. Here I listen to the traffic not far away and have to try really hard to pretend that I am back in our little attic bedroom in Provence. I am never sadder to be home than when I walk into the grocery store and see the limited selection and none of our new favourite foods. I am going to have to be much more creative in finding sources for some of the things that we have grown to love and being a lot more inventive in the kitchen. 

But it is good to be back. It is wonderful to see family and get reconnected with friends. Our house feels enormous and the kitchen is so wonderful, I have a real oven again! We will only be here for a few more days when we will head back to the cottage for a couple of weeks and once again experience the quiet, broken this time by the loon instead of the village church clock. And we will return next spring to our Provencal village home for a couple of months. In the meantime we have a wonderful storehouse of vivid memories and we would be glad to share some of our thousands of pictures with you! Our hearts desire is that we bring some of the wonder of the time away home with us; the connection that we felt after limitless hours with each other, the sense of peace and total lack of rush and busyness, the fun of exploration, the rich time spent with friends who came to visit. 

It was marvelous, it was a dream, it was a precious gift, il etait une fois en Provence.......

One last Sunday Morning

A tsunami of poppies!




We took some time out from the cleaning and packing to spend one last Sunday morning in my favourite way here in France; visiting L'Isle sur la Sorgue and the antique and artisan market. Glorious poppies lined the road the whole way to the town. I had been worried that we would not be here to see the poppies but we have not been disappointed but they are wonderful, and I enjoyed every one. I felt like they had come out just to say goodbye and I was the queen in a royal procession with my public lining the way and waving to me. (Okay I know I am getting a little sentimental but then these days are drawing to a close rapidly!) Once at the market, we followed our now familiar pattern. Gord spent about 40 minutes reading in the car while I went to say goodbye to my absolute favourite store (not to be confused with my other favorites). It is a shop that sells linens of course but the perfect part is that Madame has a workshop on one side where she sews and the other side where the retail part is. She makes everything from old linens and cottons and it is a feast for the senses! (But Gord does not quite share my enthusiasm, at least not to the same extent.)

Perfect right? and oh so French!












When I had had a chance to see most of my choice spots we then met up on the bridge by a lovely old maison, that now houses a bank and must be the prettiest bank in France. We spent about 20 minutes walking the now crowded market together, about Gord's limit, and then went to the classic Cafe de France for our coffee.

 We sat outside under the plain trees at a little round table not far from the accordion player next to the                                                         
stall that sells gorgeous flowers (very reasonably!) Our harried water arrived, carrying our cafe au lait and cafe allongee (tall black coffee). Ahhh, the moment was perfect, too perfect so I had to wreck it by shedding a tear. The scene was so quintessentially French and I am going to miss the experience of this place so much.

 All too soon it was time to drive back home and up to the village one last time and to finish the clean up and hand back the keys to our little piece of heaven. We are not quite ready to go but then could one ever be ready to leave all of this?

Our dream chateau

 

Well, we almost made it of France without falling head over heels in love with a house. My brother had asked me to look for a place to buy and I had told him that we would never want to buy here, just visit, but today we changed our minds. We went for a near perfect hike today and started off in the little village of Murs. There, perched on a hill overlooking the village and the valley was our dream home, actually the chateau! What made this so perfect was not only the outlook, but the lands surrounding the chateau, the enormous gates front and back, it's own private chapel, wonderful outbuildings and a farm just waiting for someone to pour money into it to restore it back to its former grandeur. The fact that it was not for sale was not the only factor in our hesitation to pursue the purchase of this property but it was just about perfect otherwise. After practically climbing the walls to get a closer look we went from there up into the surrounding hills. The walk was long but without too many steep inclines and the views from the hills were spectacular. The countryside is uncharacteristically green, florescent green that is because of all the rain we have been having! The wildflowers are just amazing and I am sure that I saw at least fifty different varieties on our walk (no exaggeration, this time!). 

The threatened rain held off long enough for us to complete the four hour circuit, complete with a great picnic spot at a magnificent viewpoint. We are really going to miss walks like this, it is our favourite activity here in these beautiful hills, and the countryside never looked better than now, in springtime, in Provence.

Old cars that even I get a kick out of!

 

 Now that the weather is getting warmer, people are bringing their interesting vintage cars out of hibernation and enjoying driving around the back roads. We have seen a lot of old Porches, Jaguars and I (an old Morgan fan from days past) have never seen so many Morgans in such a short time. Our friend was in a car rally recently in a  Bugatti, something I would have loved to have seen. In typical French style, the rally started in a village in front of the Gendarmarie with the red wine being served liberally at 9:00 in the morning! Not only were the gendarmes not alarmed, they actually joined in the celebration before waving them off for the race. The rally then continued slowly through several villages before ending up at a lovely outdoor lunch, complete with champagne for the lucky participants that mandaged to negotioate their vintage cars through without a scratch.

Even when some of the more exotic cars are not as visible we see the old Chevrons, known as 'Deux Chevaux' every day. There is one that lives on our village street, usually complete with a sleeping cat on top, and we followed another one down the road today. The 'deux chevaux' literally means two horse power, and while they are slow,  2 hp seems impossible to us. The french measure their horsepower differently and what would be 120 hp in Canada would be 8 hp in France. Even still they do not have a lot of power and they are reputed to go from "0 to 60 in one day!" They were produced for 42 years, starting in 1948 and they are the iconic French car. They really add a lot of character to the scene and they make me feel as if I was in an old French movie. As far as I am concerned there is nothing finer than following an old 2CV on the narrow roads through the vineyards and orchards, plus it keeps Gord from driving too fast as the roads are often to windy to pass safely on.

Today though, Gord got a real treat as he went for a ride in the hills with our friend and his latest toy, a 1959 TR3. He was in his element with a fun car and an excellent fast driver. Sadly the threatened rain put an end to the joyride. You can't get these old cars wet you know! Gord helped dry it off and tuck it away, but it took a lot longer to wipe the grin off his face. Now if only he had his old Corvette for these roads.....

Last times

As Gord and I were walking this afternoon, I asked him what he would like to do to finish off our time here. What places, hikes, cafes and restaurants would he like to revisit before we go. In true characteristic style, while I was armed with a list a mile long, Gord said that he was entirely satisfied and felt that we had done all he wanted to and he had no unfulfilled wishes. While I cannot wait to get home, especially to see family and friends, part of me will never be ready to leave this place. After all, I could never get enough of the lovely little villages, markets, linens, cheese............
This week the weather has changed from the lovely sunshine we have been having and is rather cloudy and overcast and looks to stay that way for most of the week. While we are sorry, it does make it easier to pack up and leave.  Today it was terribly windy. I don't remember as windy a day since we were newly arrived and I had a battle with the wind over the garbage and lost! I am reminded of Mary Poppins, and also Vianne in Chocolat, who left when the wind changed and so I guess that the wind is a harbinger of things to come. Despite Gord's satisfaction with the place we do have a few "last times" to fit in starting with dinner with our friends M and G tonight. They have been so good to us while we are here and a meal around their table is always a delightful affair. Their dinner guests are always interesting, the conversation lively and the laughter usually uproarious, thanks to our very amusing host. Our hostess is a fantastic cook and their home is definitely my favourite place to go for a meal in the entire valley! There is always something new and interesting to see at their place, whether it is progress on the building project or a new car (so far there have been three of those since we met!!) and tonight we are going to see G's new vintage TR3. Our social life vastly improved since meeting this interesting couple!

The view from our bedroom just now












PS We did not get up from the dinner table until after midnight so I did not get this posted last night. The meal was as wonderful as expected, the guests very entertaining but the new car was "sulking" as it was so wet and did not get visited so Gord has to return to see it before we leave!

Feasting in England

We returned "home" to Provence tonight after a weekend in England celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of my Aunt Sheila and Uncle Arthur. We wanted to go to see all the relatives while we were on this side of the world, and having a celebration like this is a wonderful opportunity for bringing all the family together. I was also a flower girl at the wedding so it was important for us to get there. For a while it looked as if the Icelandic volcano was going to disrupt our plans but fortunately things settled down enough for us to go. We were very grateful to be picked up at Stansted (supposedly a London airport but actually miles away) and driven through the night by my very kind cousin Sally. She gave us a remarkably warm welcome considering the hour that we arrived.

The bride with three of her five bridesmaids




The celebrating continued for two days and included a lunch, a dinner, another lunch and a tea, so basically we ate solidly for two days. The parties were also held in two parts of the Cotswolds and Gord and I enjoyed being back there and reminiscing about the lovely holidays that we had had when we rented a cottage in Burford. Sadly there was not enough time to do any retail therapy there and Sally and I looked longingly out the window at the shoe shop that we cousins, sisters and friends have supported over the years, but alas Gord was driving and so he hurtled past in case we should seize the opportunity to jump out at a red light.

After all that celebrating we were grateful that Ryanair did not charge us excess baggage, though fortunately they do not weigh the passengers yet but I expect they are considering it, (did you hear that they are considering charging a pound to use the loo on the flights?) We made it back to Marseille, tacky trumpets heralding the on time arrival and all, and picked up a little Citroen that we will use for our last week here. It does not have the bells and whistles of our Peugeot but it will do to get us around these last few days. We made the familiar trek north from the Marseille airport, we have done that trip a lot with all our guests, but this will be the last time for quite a while. I was delighted to see that the roads are now lined with lots of red poppies, I may yet get to see a field full of poppies before we leave - I do hope so!