In March, Provence makes the change from winter to spring. I could feel the baton being handed over on the afternoon of March 22nd, at about 3 o'clock. It felt like the sea turning from dead low to a slow incoming tide, as air pressure and clouds heaved themselves over the Luberon mountain and into our valley, bringing warmth and heaviness.
If you choose to come and stay here in March, for a week in a vacation rental, you are likely to get a mixture of all the weathers of Provence: a little rain, some cool wind, misty mornings giving way mysteriously to startling blue skies and Spring warmth by lunchtime.
This week we went to the Maubec flower show in the next village to ours, and it was so sunny that I came home with a red nose and sunglass stripes on my temples.
I thought the Maubec flower show might divert us for 10-15 minutes, but no, this is quite a big deal around here. Half of the Luberon was there, circling the avenues of plants, flowers, herbs, pots and fountains before moving in for the kill at the saucisse-frites stand.
We bumped into some new friends and sat on a shaded knoll for a pleasant hour, shooting the breeze and not worrying where the children had disappeared to. It’s not like life in the city here. Not at all.
This picture was taken at the very beginning of April, when the trees come to life again.
