No, Maurice hasn’t been cooking in the kitchen, although he does sometimes. I actually had a real live little green frog in my kitchen one night. We have no idea how he got inside our house. It’s a real mystery. I tried to get a photo of him but the light wasn’t good and my photo came out blurry. Maurice had seen another larger one of the same bright neon green color in the little shed where our pool filter is. I was thinking maybe it got stuck on the broom Maurice was using to clean the shed the day before. The cat didn’t bring it in as he is a total chicken heart and only is outside when we are. The frog did go up the side of the island in the kitchen with his sticky little feet so maybe he just came in an open door but I don’t know why he would. I escorted him outside with my broom and haven’t seen him since.

 Sometimes there is nothing much going on around our village but the other day on my walk I ran into this guy with a dead rabbit. At first I thought he must have a trap somewhere but he told me that the rabbit had been hit by a car.

 So in my bad French I asked him if he was going to eat it. He answered me but I’m not sure what he said but he pointed to the back leg area so I guess so. Don’t think I would.

 Isn’t this drink a lovely color? Lisa of The Bold Soul brought it when she visited. It has a grapefruit flavor. It’s great to just look at in the glass too.

 You see these cigales for sale all over Provence. Most of them have a hole on the top like a vase and you are supposed to put sprigs of wheat and lavender inside for good luck and prosperity. I have one on the wall on our porch but the mistral has blown away every attempt I have made to keep anything inside it. They are cute though.

 Some of you may have come back hoping to read chapter 2 of my “memoirs” of my life before France. I’m not sure if this is the venue for something like that but if you would like to read the rest, send me an email at lpennin104@aol.com and say book in the subject line and I will send you a chapter a week, sort of a serial like they used to do.

 I had an interesting Saturday night. There are jazz concerts all over France in the Summer and we finally decided to go see one. It took place in the garden of a chateau which was also a vineyard. It was so great to sit under the sky and watch the stars come out and listen to some great jazz.

 I did get a clear photo but I sort of like this one-it looks like jazz music to me. They were from Jamaica and very good.

 On another note, isn’t this a pretty container? My sister gave it to me in Paris a few years ago and I’ve been waiting for a place to display it ever since. Now that I have my sideboard, I’ve put it out. It is a serving device for Absinthe, a rather dangerous drink before they took out the ingredient of wormwood, although there still are people who buy wormwood in other countries to make their own by adding it to Vodka. It causes brain damage and I’ve read that Absinthe is a possible reason that Van Gogh went mad and cut off his ear. They now sell it again in France without the wormwood and the label has a picture of Van Gogn on it. I’m not a fan of the taste but it would be fun to serve it. You turn one of the little spouts, put a sugar cube on the metal holder over the glass and let it run over the sugar into the glass. My sister saw this at the Parisian restaurant, le Procope, and when she found out they were for sale got one for me and one for herself.

Closeup of the lid. I think the whole thing is hand blown glass.

Here it is on my sideboard. Now I need to find a really nice silk flower arrangement to put there too.

 The last time I went to the Lavender festival I bought a few things that I really liked and went with the intention of buying them again this year. I was in luck.

Last year I saw these incense sticks and bought some. They are over a foot long and they last for 2 1/2 hours. The house smells incredible for a long time. The lady who sells them is also the one who makes them. There was a long line in front of her stall buying them.

 Aren’t these two sweet? They both smell strongly and delightfully of lavender. I hope it lasts. I bought one for Ella, my only grand daughter and the other for a new grandchild on the way. That’s right, I’m going to have seven grandchildren. I never thought I’d have so many. My daughter is expecting my 21st in February. I will, of course, make the treck once again to Texas to meet the newest member of our family.

 Last year I bought some honey from a religious order at the festival. A nun was standing there selling it. I bought it because I love whipped honey, so thick that you can’t pour it but must spread it on your toast with a knife. This honey fit the bill plus it had an incredibly mild lavender flavor. Sure enough, the same nun was there and I bought two containers. The order is a sort of cooperative (les Cooperatirices Paroissiales du Christ-Roi) and they have other orders in Spain, Switzerland, Argentina and Uruguay. This one was started in 1998. It looks like they offer some sort of spiritual retreats there. That’s not my thing but I’d like to visit it someday way out there by Valensole. I wish I were the type of person who could meditate. It sounds fascinating. I’d love to have the experience had by the author of Eat, Pray, Love reaching that spiritual plane where you are one with God. I think I’m too impatient to sit long enough to enter any sort of meditative trance. The closest I come is sitting on our terrace as the sun sets, looking at the view, waiting for Venus, then Saturn to come out and then tracing the slow movement of the moon as it slowly moves across the sky to my right every night during the summer months.

Some friends in a lavender field.

Our Yard and Bugs

There is so much that I want to do in the yard but can’t. First of all we have to wait for dirt to be brought in to fill in some low places. One of these areas is behind the pool where I want to do the majority of the planting with lots of bushes and trees, making it as lush as I can with plants that don’t need a lot of water. The area behind the pool is huge and in order not to have to work full time to keep the garden up, use less water and just generally make it look good, I have decided I need to put in some small walls here and there, maybe some trelleses, make some “walls” out of plants. That way there will be a large area we won’t see and can do the minimum with.
This being not only summer, but autumn, 2004, we just wait for the dirt. A man did come and dumped a huge pile of dirt and rocks across the road and told us he would be back in September to move it to our yard. The only problem is, we have to wait at least a year for all of the dirt to settle so I am afraid to try much of anything, not wanting my work to have to be done all over again if a bush or tree sinks a foot or so.
Maurice and I have been working in the area where we can which is below our house where we have been making steps out of dirt and rocks. One thing our property does not lack is rocks. They are everywhere in Provence. A lot of rocks were uncovered when our house was built and, to my surprise, we used them all up with our steps, the size I wanted anyway. I know they are under the dirt but I need some sort of tractor to get to them. There are some good sized rocks in the pile across the street and I have raided that. No one is living in the house below us and we have taken a wheel barrow down the steep road to get a few larger rocks. I don’t want to take a lot as they will probably need them for future landscaping and I feel like a thief when we do it. I’ve edged alot of paths with rocks and I am not sure where I will find my new supply.
I now notice all of the rock walls and edgings as we drive around our house into the country looking at how it has been done. Many walls have no cement or dirt, just the rocks themselves. I would love to watch how they are constructed.
I’ve noticed, also, that rocks from different areas, even those close by, are different colors. Our property has a lot of shale and some golden-white colored stones. Those delivered and dumped across the street come from Grambois, just a few miles down the road, and they are in shades of ochre and rust. I have found that shale easily falls apart and isn’t good to use if it is exposed to the air and rain. It chips all over the place.
Then there are bugs. I knew from my first experience on the property before we even started building that there would be many flies. Maurice and I had several big discussions, dare I say arguments, about flies, the source of which is the sheep farm up the road. He wants to leave the doors wide open for the fresh air which would be fine with me if the house didn’t become invaded by tons of flies. He thinks I want to live in a bubble, afraid to live as one with nature. That isn’t it at all. I really have a phobia about flies on my food and in my kitchen. He said, when he was brought up on a farm, they just accepted flies as a part of life and did fine. I finally did a google search on flies wondering if I was being a little paranoid and found that flies can carry over 15 diseases, some of them very serious such as typhoid. Once the air conditioning is needed doors have to stay closed so it isn’t as bad, but I am constantly killing flies in the house even so. I have had several French guests who left their windows open upstairs in the bedrooms and I walked into our kitchen to be greeted by a whole new group of flies to kill.
There aren’t as many mosquitoes, Provence being fairly dry, but there are those funny looking bugs that suck your blood, and also little flies shaped like little stealth bombers that lay their eggs under your skin, a yucky thing for me to contemplate.
Then there are the wasps. We didn’t see any of them in the Spring but they certainly arrived with the summer. At first I thought they were what I call “garbage bees” as they hang around garbage and, when eating outside, they come hovering about trying to pick up a piece of meat. I didn’t think they were that harmful, only very annoying, until Maurice’s son got bitten by one, followed by me. They only bite if you put your arm or leg on one. My, did it hurt, and I had a huge bump on my arm for about 5 days which itched and burned and woke me up in the middle of the night for several nights. We finally bought a bug zapper, one of those things that glow purple, but they only attract moths that I can see, the wasps being interested in food not light. Then we bought these little plastic covered bowls with a whole in the bottom. Filled with a beef broth, the wasps are attracted to the smell, go in the hole and then can’t get out. In an hour we trapped 7 of them. I would like to get rid of them at their source but, with our land being so large, I can’t track where they are going. I was told to be careful around my lavender plants as they often make nests near them in the ground. I have to go and cut off the flowers in September or so and will have to be vigilant to not get attacked.

French Whirlwinds

The time I had dreaded came. It was the 10 days we were to take care of Maurice’s grandchildren at our house in Provence. They are fraternal twins named Tom and Lola and are age 7. And, of course, they only speak French. Usually I do very well with children, especially if they speak English, but I wasn’t as sure with these two. When I am at their home in Paris they are forced to kiss me and say Bonjour and after that pretty much ignore me. When they were much younger they would hold my hand as we walked down the street and do their French chattering. They have grown up in a world of adults with constant attention and they travel a great deal and I was just one more face among many and not a very interesting one at that. At least that was my feeling. Sometimes when they had a friend at their house I would get more attention as the friend would want to practice a few English words with me. I was the token American.
So, I wasn’t expecting much. But from the start at their arrival at our house they seemed happy to see me, friendly and open, interested in everything. I’m not sure where this came from but they became, to me, normal kids more easy to handle. Of course, I often had to take them to Maurice for translation saying, “Tell me what they are trying to tell me,” but we rubbed along pretty well.
Many French don’t like the really sweet desserts Americans do so I wasn’t sure what to bake wondering if things would remain uneaten. I made a good old batch of American brownies thinking I would eat the darn things myself if no one was interested. At first Lola sort of turned her nose up at them because they weren’t dark chocolate and ate some French cookies instead. Tom dived right in after the first bite and ate three with a glass of milk. The next day I walked over and the whole pan was empty. I ended up having to make a dessert of some sort, usually brownies, every day. Well actually, I didn’t have to but it was something I could do that they enjoyed that didn’t involve my speaking French.
Luckily we have a pool and the two spent most of every day in it swimming, jumping and floating on rafts just like my American grandkids. A little neighbor boy came over one day and they had a ball. They kept getting cold though as a breeze was blowing and dressed and undressed four times, alternating going down to a little area under a tree where they are building a fort of some sort or, unable to resist the blue water, jumping back in the pool.
Lola undressed right in front of this little boy. I started trying to remember when I was made to undress in private, getting that puritanical side of me deeply ingrained. Lola was totally unselfconscious, used to being naked in front of Tom and they still often took baths together. I wondered when that would stop. I imagined sometime around the age of puberty. The little boy was an only child and I noticed that he did get a good look at Lola but she didn’t care. Maurice told me this is just how they raise their young. I’m sure this is where the topless swimming starts as well. I still remember being horrified when we caught my daughter at about age 5 or so playing “doctor” with a little neighbor boy. We were sure this would lead to some kind of perversion or something. It is just interesting seeing the differences in how children are raised and what is instilled in them.
I don’t know if it is because Tom and Lola travel so much or because their parents travel alot and they are either left with relatives or a baby sitter or with just one parent but they are very good at entertaining themselves. They never beg to watch TV although they will sit and watch cartoons or a movie if we turn on the TV. They never say, “We’re bored,” as I have heard my grandkids or my kids growing up whining. I remember saying it to my mother as well. In their home in Paris they would often escape for hours at a time to play in their rooms. Here in Provence they just keep busy every minute. I never have to find something for them to do. I had bought to huge boxes of Crayons for them to use and I have never seen such huge looks of surprise and pleasure as when I gave each of them one. They colored for hours. They had brought a few small toys and sometimes quietly played in their room upstairs.
Of course they got into tiffs being normal children. If they sat together in the back seat one or the other of them would start touching the other or put their foot in the other’s lap. I usually separated them and ended up sitting in the back myself just to prevent minor scrimages. Basically, they seemed like really good friends with each other not needing time alone like I did when growing up with my sister. I have noticed if Lola gets tired and, although she doesn’t say it, maybe a little bored, that she starts picking on Tom. At first I didn’t notice that Tom was doing the same thing. He was more sneaky about it. Maurice didn’t do anything when they started fighting. He has major explosions becoming a drill sargent when they are eating wanting them to sit still, eat all of their food, just being really picky at all that is going on around eating but when they hit or kick each other he doesn’t do anything saying that they can learn to handle it on their own. I can’t stand doing that. Lola pushed Tom down some steps and then hit him in spite of my many “arretes” so I finally had a meltdown and spanked her. She looked at me with her big blue eyes full of tears and I felt like an ogre but Maurice said that now she would respect me and mind me when I said no. I think spanking wouldn’t be necessary if she would just stop when I said so. She has a very strong will, that girl.
I don’t know if they packed their own clothing or not but Tom only came with the pair of shoes he was wearing, hightop red tennis shoes now back in fashion, as well as a few summer clothes. Lola came with four pairs of shoes, all in hues of pink, a pair of flip flops, some walking sandals, some tennis shoes and a pair of slippers for bedtime, and four pairs of pajamas as well. She had all sorts of cute clothes that she wore with flair, a different outfit each day, and bought a plastic zip up container with many clips and rubber rings for her hair. She requested a different style every morning and I did brades, two loose pony tails on each side-but low, as requested- right behind each ear, or half pony tails. She was growing her bangs out and it drove me nuts when she ate with pieces of food ending up in her hair so I was constantly pinning them back. Tom was easy with a wash and go hair style and he also had some cute clothes which he wore with what I saw as style.
They both ate very well. I notice that alot of American children seem to have eating problems refusing to eat this or that. I’ve been with families where the child wasn’t required to eat vegetables or meat and only had bread and butter for the meal followed by ice cream for dessert. Some meals become real battlegrounds with the parents begging the kids to eat. Tom and Lola aren’t big on vegetables but will eat tomatoes and most kinds of potatoes. Their mother gives them vegetable soup, pureed, often to get them to eat them. If they like what is served, such as fish or steak, they eat very well. Lola loves cheese and saucisson and always has some goat cheese at the end of meals. Tom doesn’t like the smell of cheese and seldom touches it. They love fruit and consume large amounts of peaches and apricots for dessert. Lola must have her peaches peeled but Tom doesn’t care. About 4 PM they want a tea and this is when they have something sweet, such as my brownies, with milk. Breakfast is usually toast or crepes with jam and they require bowls, not glasses, of milk to dip them in like I used to do with Oreos. Their toast has to be cut into three pieces too, as I found out the first morning. They also use Nutrella on their toast, something made of hazel nuts but tasting like chocolate. It tastes pretty good but it is a really strange consistency clinging to spoons, plates, hands and faces with a stubborness of industrial glue.
So, I felt like I was doing fairly well with Maurice’s grandchildren when I got the bad news. Maurice has to go to a funeral out of town and I would be left with Tom and Lola, by myself, for hours. One thing I always said to Maurice was that he could never leave me alone with them. I just can’t understand most of what they say and they sure don’t understand my bad French or English. That which I feared had come upon me. It was a long 6 hours but, at the end, exhausted though I was, I think we did fairly well together. First I let them help me bake some brownies. The only problem with this was that they got to lick the bowl, not me.
Tom found a piece of tile left in our yard that wasn’t cleaned up after construction of our house and was very excited which got Lola excited too so I went out with them out into the yard and we became archeologists looking for pieces of tile and interesting rocks. I had found a couple of fossils in some hills nearby and showed them to the kids and then Lola found a similar one in our yard. I’ve always had an interest in rocks and fossils so we had a great time. Then I turned the hose on so they could wash their treasures, provided plastic sacks to keep them in and it was time for lunch. They did some swimming and then started getting a little restless so I did a horrible thing. I turned on the TV and let them watch cartoons for over an hour. I thought about teaching them a card game but thought it might to hard for me to explain and for them to understand. I survived-I need a T-shirt saying that.
The next morning we took them to a vide grenier, a sort of large flea market, that occur all over Provence in the summer. We found some junk, old toys that had been played with, and for less than 5 Euros they had something to play with that was new to them. Tom was especially impressed with the market loving looking through the junk.
Early one morning Maurice and I drove with the kids to a hill that can be seen from our house and from which, with binoculars, we can see our house nestled near our little village. At night from our back yard you can see headlights of cars as they go over the top of the hill and head down. We had gone once to locate the road and when we got out to walk to the top of a little hill I found some fossils, mostly the ones made by shells. It was intriguing, and a little creepy, to me to envision the entire valley covered with ocean water. There is only one place on this hill where I have found fossils and Tom and Lola had a ball finding their own. They both brought back big sacks of them. I’m not sure if they will be able to take them all with them in their suitcases, but maybe a few.
I found that housework multiplied when they came. Toys were all over the place, clothes left where they were removed to put on bathing suits and floors were crunchy with debris left over from snacks. I was sweeping the floor twice a day because I can’t stand to walk on a floor that is dirty but I gave up on our sliding glass door out to the pool. It is really heavy and hard to open and they had to put their hands on the glass to get it open. I love having clean windows especially when looking out at a view but it is hard work to keep them that way. I decided it wasn’t worth the energy of cleaning the door everyday and let it go until they left. I felt like all I did, besides referee fights, was cook and wash dishes. I couldn’t just open a can of ravioli like I used to with my kids for lunch. Grilled cheese sandwiches weren’t an option, so I was always making full meals like fish and rice or lasagna. The easiest thing I found to cook was spaghetti but I couldn’t fix that every day. They were too young to make their own meals and- this makes me mad- I was the one who ended up cooking all of the meals. Maurice did most of their breakfasts-big deal-but I was the designated cook the rest of the time.
Finally, the ten days were up and we drove the twins down to Cannes to stay with the next set of Grandparents. The house was tidy, the floor not sticky or crunchy, my windows were free of hand prints, I was cooking and cleaning less-peace reigned. But, you know what, I missed the little buggers. They had endeared themselves to me. I plan to have more activities available next summer as I’m sure we will be taking care of them again for a while in the summer. I also plan to find some new sources of fossils as that was so much fun for all of us. And, maybe, this time when I show up at their apartment in Paris I will get a more natural and loving welcome.

Exploring Provence

Provence is known for its many villages, vineyards and lavander. We have been doing a lot of exploring here, never out of places to visit. In the winter I find the whole area to be a little depressing as most of the villages are shut up tight, streets bare, shutters closed and just a few hardy souls out and about. The mistral is really cold and miserable when it blows in the winter and when I looked out the window and see the trees bending and swaying in it, I would rather stay home and putter around than get out in the wind chill. I don’t necessarily like towns crowded with tourists but there is a lot to be said for cheery villages basking in the sun with the streets lively with people looking around and tables full in front of every cafe and restaurant.
The nearest village to us is called Grambois. It, along with the little school in our village, was used for a delightful French film done some years ago. It is really fun to watch and see the changes that have occurred since its making. Grambois is on top of a hill, as many are here, and at the top can be found a little square where the mairie, a little church and a tabac. That’s about it but it does offer more than our own little village which has exactly nothing unless you count the mayor’s mother who sometimes sells the bounty of her son’s crops such as white asparagus or cherries. There is an type of gite, dormitory style for all of the hikers and bikers who come up this way which is something, I guess. We stayed there once when our house was being built and it is on the rustic side.
And there is a wonderful building in fading periwinkle and pink which was once an Auberge as a sign barely discernible attests slowly fading away on the side of the building. I saw a photo of it when it was open with ladies in long dresses sitting in front. I would love to see inside sometime. I’ve been told that someone does live there.
The next closest town is la Tour d’Aigues (aigues being provencal for water). Tour is tower in French and there was one here centuries ago but it is long gone replaced by a chateau. It is a beautiful thing, though ruined, built of glowing golden stone by an Italian architect who put lovely features such as little stars pressed into parts of the walls, graceful towers and windows, just a delightful surprise as you turn the corner into town and it awaits you. It is a hollow shell now due to a fire set during the revolution which reached all corners of France, even quiet little towns such as this. Inside, in the office to buy tickets for a tour, there is a print of the chateau in the 17th century and it was incredible with a curved roof on the central tower looking rather oriental to me. It was much larger than in now appears. It is amazing to me that all of these little kingdoms existed at one time with chateaux and rulers running them like small countries. And then they sank into decline which saved many of the villages from being developed in the horrible ways in the following years leaving narrow roads and various buildings on top of a hill giving Provence that special look that it has. I see wonderful doorways around the narrow streets here using pieces from the chateau to make interesting and historic entries. Concerts are done in the interior of the chateau in the summers where a little stage and seating has been set up. It was just such an occasion when we attended a jazz concert at night. The music was great but sitting there in the dark with the chateau silhouetted against the sky and then great lighting being done, lighting up various parts of the wall in red, lavender or gold, made it truly memorable occasion.
Ansouis is not too far from la Tour d’Aigues although you must drive through la Motte d’Aigues and Pepin d’Aigues to get there. A regal castle is at the top of this village with a royal flag flying if the owners are at home. The owners are actual decendants of a long past royal family, many of whom I assume were beheaded, as this is one village in France which does not celebrate Bastille Day on July 14th. There is a rather splendid little chapel behind the church, small and ancient with a colorful statue of Joan of Arc inside. Once I entered to find a little old man banging on a drum, his version of a hymn to God, I thought.
Cucuron lies not much further up the road. Maurice says this is a very strange name for a village as it is a name similar to an American calling someone “Dummy” or the like. The reason for the naming is lost somewhere is the distant past as far as I have been able to discover. We hadn’t actually gone into this village at first as the road just circled the base but one day we parked the car and started walking around the narrow village streets for a Christmas brocante and found it to be a really charming town. A very unique rectangle shaped pond from the 17th century sits in the town surrounded by ancient plane trees a wonderful site for markets and such with the shade provided. We discovered a little restaurant called l’Arbor du Mai and found that on the 3rd Saturday of May, a little procession is done in town to celebrate the deliverance from a plague (this sure seemed to happen a lot of ancient times). A large tree is cut down, carried on the shoulders of 20 or so young men with a little boy riding on top. The tree is then secured against the side of the church and a smaller tree is also tied to the side of the little cafe. It is really great when old traditions and beliefs are still celebrated. There are so many here that still surprise me being an old Protestant. I knew there were a lot of Saint’s days in the States but they seem to have many more here that are actually celebrated.
Everyone seems to have heard about Gordes, once a center for olive oil the production of which was lost when a severe winter destroyed all the trees, now it has become an art colony. Every single building there is built of stones and the streets are all covered in them. They must be on top of a bumper crop of rocks. It is fun to roam up and down the streets and there is an interesting underground portion to the city as well. The Germans once bombed the place during WWII as it was used by the Resistance to watch the movement of German troops. You see why when you are high up on a vantage point and can see for miles.
Just a few miles away lies Roussillon where Ochre was once mined, the dirt and hills in the surrounding area running from golden, to ochre, to rust in color. You can buy bags of the various colors to mix with paint or a special substance to paint your walls in tints to bring Roussillon to mind whenever you catch a glimpse of your wall later. The town itself is very picturesque and interesting to explore, full of fun tourists shops such as a wine shop with a deep cool cellar downstairs, an artist selling her wonderful paintings in a shop located in the same building she lives in. I love her little pocket garden glimpsed in the back of her shop and saw a painting of that same garden on her wall.
To the north of us, in the area of France called Haute Provence, is where the high quality lavender is planted. There aren’t miles and miles of this fragrant herb growing as you see with wheat or the like, but unexpected plots springing up here and there and it is great when the fragrance of it all enters the car as you drive past. Some plots are well tended as the lavender grows in rows with no weeds seen and gravel lying between each row. Some have all run together and weeds are everywhere. When I stopped once to take a photo I saw that a couple of plants had been totally denuded of their flowers and there were several holes in the ground where someone had helped themselves to a few plants. Big fat furry bees abound, along with colorful butterflies, in the fields where this herb grows. About the middle of July the stems holding the flowers are cut, usually by machine, but some by hand for tourists to take photos of. A few festivals are held with many lavender products being sold-soap, lotion, oil, dried bouquets and even several types of foods. We have some lavender growing in our yard and I ventured out amongst the bees and butterflies to cut my own bouquets. It is such a clean smell, a delight to the senses when you pass a group of those lavender stalks in vase on a table.
Another village, once a powerful kingdom, and a great surprise when we first visited it, is Forcalquier. As you approach it you see an impressive building on top of the hill, once a fortress, now a chapel. On Mondays, not the usual day ever in France, is a fabulous huge market, the largest I have ever seen. Lots of food can be found but mostly clothing, table clothes with place mats and napkins, and lots of soaps and other types of Provencal items. One couple selling olive oil products had a soap shaped into squares from somewhere in the Middle East. When I heard her mention, as she told us about it, eczema, I bought some for my son seeing if it would help him. Up the hill from the market are some nice streets and places to eat. Just a really nice village to visit.