A Provence Diary

Cracked tractor

I’ve discovered an undeclared passion for tractors among the people of the Luberon. During the grape harvest, the lanes are filled with a stately procession: noble and ancient tractors rumble towards their local wine cooperative to unload, leaving a squishy purple Hansel & Gretel trail of mashed grapes behind them.

And it seems that the older, the better. There is pride in length of service here. Today we came across a beauty: a pre-war Citroen, apparently enjoying a rusty retirement in a field. But as we stopped to admire it, up popped the owner, proudly claiming it to be in full working order, except for one part he was working on.

Just resting, not idle:

Olive harvest

Across the Luberon, thick silvery olive trees rustle, sway and chatter. For it is the olive harvest; when a seemingly innocuous ladder leaning against an olive tree means only one thing; that hidden inside, two or three olive pickers are braced against ancient branches, dropping olives to the nets below, and keeping warm with a flask of something or other.

Picking olives is rather like combing the knots out of a head of unruly hair. A small plastic rake and a head for heights is all that’s needed. Local mills do the pressing and will let you watch as these unlikely black berries give up their oil; litres and litres of the delicious, fruity, peppery stuff. But the Luberon olive groves aren’t competing in the global oil market. Like much of Luberon production, this is thankfully another crop that the locals like to keep local.

Mur de la Peste

Fired up by my recent hike to the top of the Luberon, I attached a rucksack to the back of Child A and a compass to his shorts and we set off on a short ‘balade’ to educate ourselves on the ‘Mur de la Peste’.

Marseilles first welcomed the plague to Europe in the 14^th century, where it seems it had such success it became a repeat visitor, regularly wiping out more than half of the population.

In 1720 someone had the extraordinary notion that a wall would keep it at bay – Le Mur de la Peste. Not surprisingly the plague took no notice and bounded on, unrestrained, towards Avignon and the rest of  France.

It’s a dry stone wall, once 2m high and 25km long. We picked it up at Cabrières d’Avignon, following little orange circles painted on trees along a stony track. Just as the ground begins to soften into a warm bed of pine needles, the wall appears, undulating away from us like a mini Great Wall of China.

The mur de la peste in Provence:

To the top of the Luberon

Today was the day I let a lovely local lass lead me up to the top of the Luberon mountain; a great hulk of prehistoric rock whose mood and colour changes on the whim of the sun: a 60 kilometre-long kaleidoscope.

On a hearty breakfast of almost half a croissant we set off on a stony path from Oppede-le-vieux. White cliffs close in immediately on either side. These looming walls of limestone are studded with caves and at one point a perfect hole (‘the pierced rock’), shaped by both wind and water.

For yes, this is one of those crazy places that geologists would have you believe was once entirely submerged, and that giant aquatic monsters cruised these caves before becoming unfortunately embedded as fossils. The Luberon chain of mountains first popped up around 35 million years ago, though it’s a mere 8 million years since the sea made her final retreat and the Luberon became what we see today.

Hard to fathom as we climb the 2000 feet to the top. For a townie like me it’s a struggle and I take every opportunity to admire the view or a resting cricket while surreptitiously catching my breath.

The Luberon is like a garden wall for our sheltered valley – once at the top we are dizzingly exposed – in the distance les Alpilles, l’Etang de Berre de Marseilles, the Mediterranean herself, Corsica, Africa…the feeling of adventure is undeniable.

Wild rosemary, box and thyme give way to tall pines in whose shade we drink rosé and plan the next ‘randonnée’, though back down in the valley I’m not sure I don’t prefer my view of  the mountain from our garden, gin and tonic welded to my hand.

A cleft in the Luberon mountain on the walk from Oppede-le-vieux:

Break a leg

Before our youngest inconveniently broke his femur, this weekend had been earmarked for camping close to the almost tropical Porquerolles, a bicycle-only island two hours south.

Looking on the bright side (though I’m not sure our boys see it this way), his 3-week hospitalisation gives me a good insight in to the French medical system and some handy new vocabulary: le pistolet (bed bottle), le suppositoire (suppository), la douleur (pain), le calmant (sedative) and of course the ubiquitous petit bon homme (little chap).

The French are proud of their health care, and while in England everyone has their own hospital horror story, Avignon’s Hôpital Henri Duffaut, where Husband and I alternate 24-hour shifts, comes with a 5-star reputation. So while our camp bed for the next 3 weeks is not quite where planned, it is in a private room with ensuite bathroom, courtyard view and nurses that actually come when you push the button.

The island of Porquerolles, where we did not go:

Conquering the Sorgue, by kayak

When an ex-rower for some fancy Thames rowing club came to stay, it seemed the ideal time to discover the Sorgue, by kayak. I duly appointed him as my ‘stroke’ (his sporting wife gamely teamed up with Husband), while children were put mid-ship for improved instability. The magical green waters of the Sorgue flowed before us, and we were off, off on our own Swallows and Amazons adventure.

This river is pristine and every bend offers up an ideal swimming spot. Ideal if you have the constitution of a penguin, for these waters are a heart-stopping 14 degrees year round. In a dreadful display of machismo, Husband and above rowing friend did indeed plunge several metres into the Sorgue from an overhanging branch to emerge breathing heavily, but alive. I prefer to wade in waist-deep, offering up my thighs to what feels like the equivalent of three weeks in one of those frozen seaweed cellulite wraps at the spa.

The clear waters of the Sorgue, between Fontaine de Vaucluse and Isle sur la Sorgue:

Possessed by Fontaine de Vaucluse

I am living proof that brains shrink during pregnancy. Since my first days of queasiness some years ago I have been coaxing the wrinkly grey stuff to liven up a bit. I began gently, looking at pictures in Heat magazine. When the neurons started buzzing, I stepped up to photo captions in Hello, and soon I was reading whole advertisements in Vogue. And so on, until today when I find myself re-reading A. S. Byatt’s Possession, that thumping great, many-layered romance.

And lo and behold, I come across a description of our very own Fontaine de Vaucluse: “a sight awesome and sublime enough to satisfy even the most romantic traveler….a vision of green water and louring rocks…In front of the cavern, which is fringed with fig trees and fantastic roots, several white rocks rise among the surface of the fast-flowing stream, which seeps away into a mat of flowing green weeds…”

This describes the very source of the Sorgue river, where it sometimes shoots, sometimes flows imperceptibly, out of the ground at Fontaine de Vaucluse. This spot first attained literary prominence as the place where the 14^th-century poet Petrarch mooned for 16-odd years after the lovely Laure, recently married to Hugues de Sade – ancestor of the dastardly Marquis de Sade.

No doubt there is something extraordinary about Fontaine de Vaucluse; it is the place that lingers most in the hearts of all our visitors, and, it seems, Dame Byatt’s too.

Avignon also has an airport

Child B refers to our most recent guest, Reg, as ‘that silly, silly man from the wooden airport’, which reflects both Reg's predilection for high jinks and his arrival at Avignon airport, using the new FlyBe service from, of all places, Southampton. He flew over, quite literally, for lunch, and so it seems right that I should shamelessly promote the new thrice-weekly service from Southampton and Exeter which makes such extravagant gestures possible.

Anyway, I really can’t see why anyone would choose a big airport over a small provincial one, where you are free to swan about in white linen and floppy hats reenacting bits from Casablanca and can happily forget all about the existence of those nasty airport shopping villages.

Not such a silly, silly man after all.

Cinema La Strada

In village shops across the Luberon you can pick up a photocopied leaflet; black and white and patterned with film reel. It’s the programme for a roaming cinema that comes to villages across the Luberon: Cinema La Strada.

Wary of French films with subtitles, let alone those without, I went on my first outing to this ‘cinema itinérant’ this week. Monday is the turn of the Salle des Fêtes (‘village hall’) in Maubec and the film was Anna M. As we arrived, the local football team finished practice and their barbeque billowed delicious spicy smoke across the car park. The Luberon mountain loomed dark against an inky sky and the village of Maubec snuggled against it, drowsy and still.

Inside we paid 5€ into a tin kitty and helped ourselves to tea. It’s free seating here, but there wasn’t exactly a scramble as we chose our hard plastic seats among four short rows lined up in front of the portable screen. Lights down and I forgot I wasn’t on a squishy velvet seat with on-tap popcorn and surround sound. I was hooked by the romance of this little cinema bringing its wondrous film reels to sleepy villages across the Luberon. And soon we were lost in film; a great French tradition.

I reckon I qualify as a proper Francophile now, having watched a French film, in French, in France. Mind you, the plot of Anna M is not complicated and I think I got the gist: mad girl gets madder, madder still, has baby and feels better… or does she?

Tonsillitis

Today I have a ‘belle angine’ (tonsillitis) and have taken eagerly to my bed in the belief that the Luberon must be one of the best places to languish ill, in a Proustian kind of way. Shutters that have folded protectively against heat and light for almost a century will do the same for me. Tiled floors are cool and sanitary. Maybe someone in the village will come running with an ancient Provencal remedy of crushed herbs. Maybe someone will fill my room with lilies to mask the stench of tonsil-breath. Maybe the doctor will pace the hallway with Husband, speaking in hushed tones.

Or perhaps the children will jump all over the bed and bring me an assortment of trucks and plastic dinosaurs “to make you feel better, mummy” while setting off the samba version of jingle bells on an electronic keyboard. My prescription will yield four boxes from the world’s major drug companies and Husband will thunder up and down the stairs asking rather brusquely if I need more scrambled egg and tea.

Brocanting in Provence

Come Sunday morning, and I won’t get out of bed before 7 for anything other than a vide grenier (the elegant French equivalent of a car-boot sale, which translates as 'empty the attic'). It is May Day, when Provençals bring luck in to their homes with a bunch of lily of valley (‘muguets’), but more importantly, it is the first vide grenier of the season.

So today is the first of many Sundays when my brocanting partner and I abandon our kids to bleary-eyed husbands and a short sharp coffee sets our noses twitching for a bargain.

But this is not browsing for chic brac-a-brac in upmarket Isle sur Sorgue, so favoured by interior decorators and travel magazines (and a tempting 15 minutes away), this is real people emptying out years of hoarding: bathsoap gift boxes, tragically ugly china, toasters and all-in-one ski suits so ancient they’re actually back in fashion, in a retro sort of way.

From the back of cars, on wobbly trestle tables, or simply laid out on the grass, families display their wares, and egged on by mums selling off bundles of baby clothes, sulky teenagers offer boxes of toys they’ve long grown out of, probably to fund something altogether less innocent.

As always, when I arrive home from these dawn raids, Husband is waiting bemused – waiting to see what discarded object I am hailing as an objet d’art. Today I have outdone myself: six iron coat hooks, two bizarre art-deco-ish wall lamps with bits missing, a wire mannequin, an iron last, and catch of the day: a tiny brass ashtray with Christian Dior stamped on the underside. It’s news to me that Monsieur Dior made ashtrays and I don’t even smoke, but at €2 quite frankly who cares?

Vide grenier at Maubec

Provence v. Tuscany

On my first visit to Tuscany I was seduced, like all English people, by the likeness to a mythical England in full summer; an England of guaranteed sunshine, populated by a handsome and charming people, an England where every café makes its own ice cream.

But just as my loyalty to Provence began to slip, came the long drive home - we left behind the ghostly greenhouses of the Italian border’s flower industry and crossed into France. The switch to playboy’s playground is immediate. Signs to Monte Carlo, St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Nice beckon, lush palm trees flank elegant facades, roads widen.

Two hours on and we approach the Luberon valley. She opens her arms and we are home; flanked by the Plateau du Vaucluse to the north and the Montagne du Luberon to the south: solid and ancient.

This land is a tapestry of vines and orchards, criss-cross lanes, salt & pepper roofs, towering walls of poplar. The vines show first thick foliage, acacia blows snowstorms of blossom and fields of winter wheat are thick with poppies.

I grant you, Italy is beautiful, but this corner of France? It can be sinister and melancholic, grand and cultured or just a simple, sunny delight. But early morning, or at dusk, when shadows slide across the mountain and the light is soft and peachy …… it is achingly beautiful.

Is Tuscany by contrast (and apologies to our good friends who are setting out on their own adventure), just a little too obvious?

Provence - plus subtile?

Frogs' legs

It’s the time of year when a girl’s thoughts turn with dread to the unavoidable unveiling of legs that have been slenderized under a pair of Wolford 60 deniers for much of winter. And thus, as part of my study into the effortless elegance of our French counterparts, I have news on French women, their legs and more.

Come April, the pharmacies are wall-to-wall with contour gels, evil massage devices, herbal appetite suppressors and tanning pills. Supermarchés dedicate acres of floor space to foot spas, pedicure sets, and above all epilators, for an epilator, my friend, is the way of the French. Effortless? I think not.

But you need the courage of Joan of Arc to use an epilator, so if you’d rather put yourself in the hands of a French beauty salon I include this quick guide. I include it because it’s a delicate matter, and you wouldn’t want to go in asking for hair removal of your ‘jambons’ (hams) and ‘armoirs’ (cupboards) as a certain English lady once did…

A beauty salon is an institut de beauté and waxing is épilation

Epilation aisselles = underarm wax

Epilation maillot simple = basic bikini wax – you can mime any advance on that

Epilation jambes entières = full leg wax

Epilation demi-jambes = half leg wax

Tu-tu

My memory of school French is of sitting in a wobbly grey pre-fab block placed thoughtfully where our netball court should have been, with a rather glamorous Mademoiselle. It was a severe all-girls school and she stood out by being the only one to wear heels and fluffy sweaters in bright colours.

And apart from having to take on a pseudo name just for use in French classes (the point of which still eludes me, and incidentally mine was Bernadette), the only actual lesson I remember was when Mademoiselle spent an entire afternoon with her lips puckered and her tongue rolled upwards against the back of her teeth, repeatedly saying ‘tea’.

The point is, that when you do this, you come out with the perfect ‘tu’

And you know, it works really well, except when your rusty mind is preoccupied with finding the word you need to follow ‘tu’ or if you’re really advanced, the one that will come after that one. Or perhaps you’re wondering whether you should be using ‘tu’ at all; maybe this is one of those intimidating ‘vous’ situations?

And in either case, pausing to pucker and roll and think ‘tea’ instead of ‘too’ really isn’t an option.

The accent of Provence

It’s pretty weird knowing your children are effortlessly mastering a language that you are still grappling with after some years of study. Weirder still; I am absolutely deaf to their developing accent – that of Provence. Is it to the Parisiens what a Geordie accent is to Londoners? Or a Texan accent to New Yorkers? Husband reckons it’s a sing-songy accent, influenced by the proximity to Italy.

What I can spot though is the classic ‘eng’ ending in Provence-speak.  Thus demeng mateng at the boulangerie I will buy some peng. If you get my drift.

On cycling in the Luberon

If there is one sound that marks the arrival of Spring in Provence more than any other, it’s the beefy bark of cyclists calling to each other as they criss-cross the Luberon valley. In a moment of absolute quiet; still wind and spotless blue skies, a sudden volley of shouts will punctuate the silence, and sure enough a gaggle of 20 or so cyclists will come spinning down the lane. I like to think their barks translate as ‘nice ass; you in the yellow’ though I expect it is something more mundane: advice on gears or chains or whether to go left or right at the next junction.

Cycling in the Luberon is much loved. There are the serious lycra-lovers on wheels so thin I don’t know how they stay upright. There are nut-brown, breezy couples on sturdy bicycles weighed down like pack-horses. And then there’s a handful of mothers from the local village; set free by the morning school bell, freewheeling down a bumpy track past fields of wild mint and early poppies, yelping with delight. I think this is what we moved to Provence for.

Crocodiles everywhere!

Putting visions of Hermès handbags out of my head, we head to the Crocodile Farm at Pierrelatte – about an hour north of the Luberon and into the Rhone Valley.

Crocodile Farm is a misleading name because it is not a farm at all. Here about 400 crocs wallow in the warm waters of a huge greenhouse, artistically staged with waterfalls, bridges and even those little wooden huts on stilts. No doubt I would rather see all animals in their natural habitat but these monstrously lazy beasts look pretty smug to me and I think they know they’ve lucked out at Pierrelatte. No fashionistas wading in after a couple of belly skins here.

Anyway, if you are looking for an attraction that will engage children and adults alike (plus it's indoors), here it is.

One of the residents at Pierrelatte Crocodile Farm in Provence.

Between snow and sea

A fine example of how shallow my mind runs is my glee at how close we live to St. Tropez. That’s the beauty of the Luberon. It’s the timeless jam in a sandwich of snow and mountains to the north; sand and palm trees to the south.

Last weekend we travelled three hours north from the Luberon to the extreme-skiing destination of La Grave, where our skiing was not so much extreme as focused on the next hot toddy. A couple of weeks later and Husband has indulged me by booking a ‘cabana’ on St. Tropez’s famous Pampelonne Beach – two hours drive south.  Child A, who is old enough to remember life in suburban England, can’t quite get used to this land of variety and will be greatly disappointed when he finds there are no airports involved. And his parents too…

The Alps to the west...

St Tropez to the south

Spring has sprung

Winter ended yesterday. The Mistral fled, the sun shone and the local annual flower show displayed stand after stand of spookily perky flowers. Ponies overdressed in shaggy winter coats obligingly introduced a queue of young girls to a freakishly expensive hobby while local volunteers created a complex system of queuing and tickets and he-who-shouts-loudest for a tub of tabbouleh and a spicy sausage.

Out in the vineyards, the rotund bundles that through winter seemed to barely move among the misty vines, began peeling off the layers and showing themselves to be rather lovely young men with sturdy brown forearms. In the garden, the handful of irises that escaped stomping by young children show several inches of strong spiky leaves. Best of all, there are wood pigeons, which have me wondering where the cricket games and sponge cake are, but not for long: they do after all, make quite good éclairs here.

Christmas Lights

As I exhibited my usual control-freakery over the decoration of the Christmas tree and wailed hysterically at husband and children to keep their hands off (and don’t even think about coloured lights and/or tinsel), I comforted myself by the fact that we were in France, land of the effortlessly chic, and control was what was required.

Across Provence, surely houses would be decked with small twinkling silver lights; highlighting an olive tree here, a cypress there. Minimal wreaths of eucalyptus would hang on lavender blue doors. No doubt beautiful women swathed in pale grey cashmere would be arranging casual bunches of snow-white tulips.

But no. The favoured decoration in Provence is not a frosty eucalyptus branch, but a giant Santa climbing up the outside of the house. Yes, it’s true, all across Provence, ancient farm houses buzz with a hundred thousand multi-coloured lights, guiding Santa up past the perfect World of Interiors shutters and on to a flashing sleigh on the terracotta-tiled roof.

November 11

We took the kids to the village ‘cérémonie d’armistice’ on Saturday, though explaining its meaning to a 4-year-old wasn’t easy. (His perception of war was created one sunny day outside Marseilles airport when a jeep-full of handsome of French soldiers swung in front of us all smiles and winks. A recruitment campaign if ever I saw one).

We joined a good number of villagers, some decorated with medals, and some time after 11 (this is France, after all) were led by the mayor and four flag-bearers to the cemetery at the top of the hill. Here the village band - ranging from our 10-year-old neighbour upwards - played the Marseillaise. Flowers were laid and there was silence, excepting Child A who asked repeatedly, and loudly, why dead bodies are put under the ground, and not left out on top.

All four sides of the war memorial are carved with the names of villagers lost in World War One and in a village this size it’s heart-wrenching to imagine how empty but for grief this place must have felt.

Guy Fawkes Nuit

After a year enjoying some serious French hospitality, I rashly decide we should put on a traditional English Guy Fawkes Night for our new friends. The thinking is that if the food or wine disappoint I can blame them shamelessly on English tradition. So just before heading back to France, I buy 40 rock-hard toffee apples which rather weirdly the BAA allows me to board with, though I am relieved of a tub of lip gloss and a tube of Zovirax. 

Back home, and husband makes a text-book bonfire, the kids make a wobbly papier mache Guy and I lean heavily on Nigella for chilli and brownies. Momentarily, I am in control.

Two hours before our Guy Fawkes Night starts, I find the imported toffee apples have been left on the floor; on our underfloor-heated floor. English tradition is now a selection of soggy apples on soggy sticks and a plastic bag of sticky syrup. One hour to go and my carefully constructed playlists are inexplicably wiped off the ipod.  Finally, a German passenger boat passing under a bridge causes a 2-hour blackout across large parts of Western Europe, including our own village (but not the one next door). The ipod, fairy lights and under-floor heating forgotten, we crouch around the bonfire, toasting marshmallows and writing our names with sparklers. That, after all, is English tradition.

Back to England

I take the kids to England for a week and am struck by the light pollution; an eerie orange glow hovers across the land. I’m also struck by the amount of shopping that’s going on. But a year in the wilds of Provence hasn’t knocked the high street out of me and soon I am scorching the plastic from Whistles to Top Shop. After a bit I feel queasy and wonder if it’s the orange glow.

While in England, the film version of Peter Mayle’s A Good Year is released. It’s set in the Luberon and covers all our local haunts. I call Husband with the reviews. The Guardian’s is my favourite, describing it as a “humourless cinematic slice of tourist gastro-porn”. Still, all admit the Luberon looks gorgeous, it’s put our favourite plonk on the map and it becomes a pleasingly lazy shortcut for describing where we live to people who ask, but clearly aren’t that interested.

On our last night I ask the kids if they’re looking forward to going back to France. Child A declares that he doesn’t like France and wants to stay in England. Good progress there. Child B doesn’t have an opinion, but seems to think that Daddy has been waiting at the airport for the past week, in the spot where we hugged him goodbye, making fireworks.

Lost in Translation

A perfect day was spent at the l’Arc en Ciel animal farm, near Saint-Andiol. As a standard-issue soppy English vegetarian who habitually circumnavigates the aisles of freezer cabinets boasting ‘cheval’, I was delighted with this farm. Lots of perky, clean animals hang out in high-spec accommodation. What delighted me most, however, was the translation of notices into English with enthusiastic use of some free internet translation site. This is something you see a lot in the Luberon, and I take it as proof of the fabled French charm; they’re delighted to welcome visitors, but they aren’t part of some international network of tourist-traps.

Thus directions to the farm include mention of ‘tricolours of fire’ (traffic lights) and ‘round nots’ (roundabouts), while sheep at the farm enjoy a seasonal ‘mowing’ and ‘ducks and hens of ornaments jacassent’. It goes without saying that it is ‘strictly interdit to span the fences and go cherish the animals’.

Happy donkeys at l’Arc en Ciel:

French Beauties

Recognising my research in to what makes French women so very sure and so very chic has gone a bit slack, I go to our local chemist for advice on skin care. This is the norm in France, and whereas in England you’d probably be handed a tub of Vaseline Intensive Care, here every corner chemist has a collection of the most charming people in swishy white coats, dealing out advice on skin care ranges such as Caudalie, Nuxe and Roche-Posay – heralded as ‘cult’ brands by Harpers and available with a bank loan at Space NK.

And thus my blotchy English skin ended up in the hands of Darphin – self-proclaimed ‘haute couture of beauty’ , where a size 6 consultant with skin to die for (in fact can’t I just BE her?), told me my skin was very reactive, very sensitive, very dehydrated and sold me a great many products in lovely little green boxes. Time will tell.

The Yellow Sign

Villages across the Luberon are littered with yellow boards - an obligatory declaration to be made by anyone carrying out building work. And today Husband installed our own yellow board. So we’re ready: architect’s plans, approval from the Mairie, standard-issue rugged builder, and yellow board.

Half of our house is restoration project; the half that has rested since the end of the 1800s. It’s a dusty spider’s lair, home to birds and hornets too. On the ground floor the fireplace is lined with newspaper carrying news of the First World War.

Two adjoining rooms have stone troughs built into the wall and a deep shelf holds a harness that would have been worn by a horse working the vineyards. The stuffing is coming out of the collar and the leather is tough and cracked – a restoration job in itself.

Inexplicably, there are no stairs to the second floor, so access is currently up a ladder and through a window. Here there are signs of silk production; big business in Provence in the 19^th century. Wooden poles were posted from wall to wall and on these silkworm larvae would spin their silken cocoons having gorged themselves silly on mulberry leaves. Unhappily, the cocoons were then dipped in hot water, killing the pupae for their silk, before they got a chance to fly.

Underneath this there is a house:

Provence History Tour

Glanum

Current guests are real history boffins, eager to sniff around any available ruin. First up was Glanum, a roman settlement that goes back to 150BC and was occupied for 450 years.

It’s hard to feel the vibe of ancient ruins with 4 kids under 5 in tow, let alone stop to read the descriptive plaques, but Glanum has some obvious novelties like the swimming pool into which a bearded stone man spewed water, a sauna complex of three rooms (hot, warm and cold) complete with early underfloor heating system, a sacred spring and obligatory towering temple pillars.

Outside the main ruins are a triumphal arch and mausoleum, both of which are huge and elaborate and got our resident history boffins choking on their baguettes.

Tarascon/Tarasque

Sunday, and no let up in the history boffins’ tour of Provence. Today they announced a visit to Tarascon, to admire the thundering great castle that sits on the banks of the Rhone. But these are serious boffins, and they insisted on visiting the church first, as a kind of warm up act, I suppose.

St. Martha’s collegiate church is vast and pompous; half gothic, half Romanesque. Downstairs is a crypt dating from the 3^rd century, creepy and steeped in the stench of death – even fearless Child B couldn’t get out fast enough. Here lies Saint Martha; she who tamed the mythical ‘Tarasque’. Today there is a stone ‘Tarasque’ outside the castle, not deemed worthy of inspection by the boffins, but very worthy of clambering over by Child A.

Finally we got to cross the bridge for what we came for: a perfect sandcastle of a castle – and simply enormous to boot – complete with moat, sly holes above gates for dropping hot oil on intruders and dinky windows for shooting arrows out of. A Boy’s Own dream. 

The castle was built in the 15^th century, but two hundred years later was turned in to a military prison after Great Britain declared war on France. The castle is empty of all furnishings but full of ghosts; British prisoners have recorded with great grace and artistry their capture and in some cases, release. No mention of tarasques though.

Creepy Castle

Last stop on the history boffins’ strenuous tour was Lacoste, home to the Marquis de Sade who in the late 18^th century lived on and off in the castle that looms over the village. This infamous French aristocrat spent a great deal of his life ducking in and out of prison for deeds that accounted to somewhat more than a good spanking; of course he gave his name to ‘sadism’.

 

The castle is gloomy and inherently creepy though our history boffins leapt about it with great enthusiasm, pointing out the layers of rebuilding through the ages.

After trying to peek through the keyhole (the castle ruins are now owned by fashion designer Pierre Cardin), we tripped down the ancient cobbles in search of ice cream. Settling on cool chapel steps looking out over the valley, the adults marvelled at the distant sights of Bonnieux and the Luberon mountains, while the children applied themselves to fast-melting ice lollies.

Cezanne - Cathedral of Images

After lunch with the kids in a St. Remy café (traditional French fare of ketchup with chips) I determined to inject some culture into them and headed for the Cathedral d’Images at Les Baux de Provence where giant images are projected on to the walls, ceiling and floor of an unused limestone quarry.

A 100 years since his death, Provence is celebrating local boy made good, Paul Cezanne, and the quarry ‘gallery’ was steeped in his colours.

The entrance was enough to set the kids gasping. Great cubic chunks of limestone have been lifted out of the hillside and inside it’s dark, really dark. But eyes quickly adjusted and soon the boys were jumping on those famous apples and running their hands over seascapes and mountains. Not sure this is the accepted way to admire Cezanne, but it worked for them.

For me it was a chance to get lost for a while in the heady mix of colour and music, and of course to escape the blazing heat, for after a month in the high 30’s, it’s a delicious and goose-bumpy 15 degrees inside.

When it rains, it pours

The weather gods are always kind to the Luberon Valley: 300 days of sunshine and rarely a drop of humidity. If a stray cloud decides to linger the Mistral will soon liven up and send it on its way. Rain, when it does come, comes properly. A full-on monsoon, the type that windscreen wipers can’t keep up with.

On Friday, our patch of the Luberon received much of our annual rain quota in just under an hour. Roads were flooded, new rivers sprang up and flowed through vineyards. Hail stones the size of gobstoppers bounced off the ground.

Seconds after the rain stopped we ventured out on to grass made deliciously cold by the hailstones, then donned wellies to gawp at flooded fields. Trees were shorn of leaves, vines shredded, tomatoes pitted, courgette plants flattened. But the rain clears the dust, and the clarity of light was the stuff of artistic legend. And of course, the sun shone on.

Lights, Camera, Action!

The Luberon Valley is a favourite location with the film world. Emmanuel Beart flitted about the olive trees in Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, John Thaw trundled through A Year in Provence and yummy Olivier Martinez was heart-thumpingly dashing on the rooftops of Cucuron. Most recently, local resident Ridley Scott (he of Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, etc) polished off the new Russell Crowe film; A Good Year, in neighbouring Bonnieux.

So when I saw a call for extras pinned up at the townhall of Oppede-le-vieux quite naturally I saw my name in lights, possibly next to Monsieur Depardieu himself. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite meet all the requirements: unplucked eyebrows, natural and long hair and no piercings. But my disappointment quickly waned when the crew moved in – they were filming Mr Bean 2....

Village feast

Highlight of the Oppede calendar is the Soupe de Pistou – a gathering of 250 locals for a hearty veg and bean stew with a dollop of ‘pistou’ on top – the Provencal pesto – a heavy-duty garlic and basil paste. And so it was that I found myself at an unsettling hour in the local school kitchens with 30 or so other women, chopping potatoes by the bucket load; occasionally scolded by a terrifying woman for chopping to uneven size.

It was with a sense of having made a major contribution that Husband and I sat with our new friends on a mile-long table and stuffed ourselves silly as darkness fell on the village square. Towards midnight we cycled home, made precariously off-balance by our dirty crockery (it’s strictly bring-your-own here) and bloated forms. And behind us tables of villagers danced on to the tunes of Chuck Berry. Rock and roll lives on in a small village in Provence.

Chickens run riot

A fancy brood of chickens lives perilously close to our veg patch. The unspoken rule is that they are ushered up-hill to peck the grass and not down-hill to roam free through our potager. Alas up-hill has been confused with down-hill and the result is widespread anarchy. An entire salad crop has been destroyed in one afternoon of delinquent chicken behaviour. Still, I destroyed an entire egg crop in one single tortilla, so I see it as a kind of informal exchange, though Husband has declared chickens devious and full of vengeance.

Veg patch accounts to date:

Profits:  3 courgettes, handful of chard

Losses: 5 cabbages (shredded to lace by unknown beast), basil, coriander, 2 peppers, 2 strawberry plants, entire salad crop.

On critical list: all aubergine, melon* and all remaining peppers

*Incidentally, Cavaillon, our nearest town, is ‘melon capital’ of France and is thus announced by an enormous stone melon at the entrance to town. If I can’t produce a melon in the Luberon Valley, the very heart of melon country, I will hang up my trowel and take to my hammock.

The Row - Part 2

With tails between legs and heads hanging low, we followed the newcomer’s guide to settling disputes in Provence. Step 1: ask advice of everyone in local bar Step 2 : arrive on doorstep of person to whom you have done wrong, with bottle of Pastis. Step 3: shake hands and laugh merrily as if nothing ever happened.  It’s a cliché, but that’s because it works.

Provence cherry season

The Provence cherry harvest is coming to its end. To a townie like me Christmas came early. Used to the insane prices of mean and over-packaged supermarket offerings, here neighbours push free cherries by the crate-load.

Cherries are everywhere. Half-stripped orchards are part green, part red, and unpicked branches hang heavy to the ground.  Talk is of cherry recipes and cherry stains.

The boys gave a thumbs down to the traditional Provencal cherry dish ‘clafoutis aux cerises’ (Husband described it as a cold cherry omelette) but thumbs up to a less eggy cherry cake (ever thankful to www.joyofbaking.com site) which I have made 5 times in as many days. Many pounds heavier and finger nails forever stained, I will be quite pleased to close the door on this harvest, ready to usher in the next.

The Row - Part 1

So there I was, cat rolling in the dirt, etc. feeling very at home with my baguettes and lavender; a bit smug, in fact, when out of nowhere we have a fantastic row with the owner of the neighbouring vineyards and the man who farms the vineyards and the wife of the man who farms the vineyards and the partner of the woman who owns the vineyards (because that’s how it is here).

Actually it was Husband who did the rowing; I thought it best to make my Englishness scarce for a while. At least Husband is 50% Mediterranean and has all the right qualifications of olive skin and a proper accent, etc.

Unfortunately, it was completely our fault. We neglected to ask for permission to use the edge of the vineyard as access to install our septic tank – we’re talking about 20 metres of dirt track. So when a filthy great yellow JCB turned up on Monday morning and rolled around the vineyard, while I was celebrating the best free entertainment a mother of two young boys could wish for, a storm was brewing.

New septic tank arrives - free entertainment for the kids:

Cat leaves house!

Today, my old and ugly cat of uncertain years abandoned her sit-in and left the house for the first time to start her new life in Provence. It’s been seven months since we sat for hours at a special cat check-in area at Gatwick. Seven months since, sobbing pathetically, I handed her over to a kindly gentleman who told me not to worry, put her in the aircraft hold and sent her off to cat hell.

She made it of course, and within hours of leaving chilly England she was tucked up in a wardrobe in Provence. Whereupon she began her seven-month sit-in, moving only under the cover of darkness to her food and litter tray. So today is quite a day for her and for me; for it’s only now that I’ve seen her mis-shapen form purring in the sunshine and her big fat tummy dusty from the warm Luberon soil that I feel we really live here.

Freeloaders II

Batch two of English freeloaders has been and gone.  One of our guests, a hardcore cyclist, had planned to conquer the Mont Ventoux – a climb of 21km at a sickening 10 degree incline, and one of the toughest stages on the Tour de France. But he broke his finger (is that used in cycling?) playing cricket so had to be content with freewheeling it to the boulangerie each morning.

Peculiarly, instead of packing bicycle clips and padded shorts (or whatever it is these cyclists use) he felt it fitting to travel to Provence with the box set of Superman 1-4 on DVD, under the pretext that they were for his kids. But what with the pool, the sunshine, dips in the Med and an afternoon relieving the Chateau la Canorgue in Bonnieux of several cases of organic red and some delicious rosé, he only made it through Superman 1.

Music in Menerbes

Last night I took my parents to a concert in the church of St. Luc, a beautifully stark monument on the prow of Menerbes, one of the Luberon’s many ancient hill-top villages. It was the start of the Luberon music festival.

While baroque quartets are not really my thing, it was rather lovely to let the manic strings and breathy flute waft overhead while getting lost in the kitsch splendour of St. Luc.

The churches of the Luberon are fantastically romantic: crumbling slowly, frescoes fading gently. St. Luc (now a target of the World Monuments Fund) is no exception; its cobalt sky is studded with pierced red hearts and cumulus clouds while obligatory cupids pose, chubby in gold lame nappies.

If you’re in the area, my other favourites are Oppede-le-vieux’s Collegiate Church of Notre Dame d’Alidon and Gordes’s Romanesque church, now home to rather a lot of pigeons.

The church at Oppede-le-vieux:

It never rains

Husband’s current pride and joy is a small plastic map that shows Vaucluse and the Luberon in relief. Vaucluse is our Provence ‘departement’. Initially I mocked this miniature version of the region (incidentally he’s also very keen on model villages) though recently I find myself drawn to it.

This map shows that our valley is in a natural harbour created by the Plateau de Vaucluse and dominated by the Mont Ventoux (a regular and most gruelling stage of the Tour de France) and the Montagne du Luberon. I don’t remember being actually present for my Geography O-Level but I think it is this natural harbour that brings so many reliable sunny days; 300 a year according to the weather boffins.

When the cloud does come, the Mistral soon hears about it and comes howling down the valley, chasing the clouds out like an over-exuberant sheepdog.

And that's why it (almost) never rains in the Luberon.

A natural harbour:

Le pic-nic

The French really like to picnic, and the iconic baguette was made for picnicking. Today we joined them, in the Foret des Cedres – about 20 minutes from Bonnieux. The cedar forest is at the top of the Luberon mountain, and a great place to cool down on a hot day, as the pines and cedars seem to have their own air conditioning.

So we perched on a tree trunk bench with our baguette and melon slices and enjoyed the stillness and quiet, except when Husband was ranting about how even in Provence, a land made for picnicking, people will still throw down the blanket in the car park.