Provence

June 22, 2002

We are in Provence. Can you say HOT?! My God. I am stunned by the heat. I think I will be OK living here but I have to stay in the shade and not do manual labor in the sun. The first day we got here it was around 3 in the afternoon and we drove up immediately to our land. Maurice wanted to mark approximately where the house will be on our property. We found out that we had to have that area cleared so the architect can get on the land and do his measurements. We decided to save a little money, actually quite a bit of money, and do it ourselves. After about an hour I was feeling a little sick. There is a fountain up in the little village of Vitrolles so after we drank all of a big plastic bottle of Orangina I went up and got some cold water. We got the general area marked off and the next morning while it was cool, and it does get really nice and cool here once the sun goes down, we got ourselves back on the land and started sawing down trees with a chain saw that we rented or clipping them down with a big cutter and dragging everything to big piles here and there. The saw stopped working so Maurice went back into town while I made my way around the land cutting big branches off bushes and little trees so Maurice could get to them with the saw.

The land is covered with these yellow flowered bushes, "genets".

I was there a couple of hours and it started getting really hot so I stayed in the shade as much as I could and drank lots of water. There is some kind of neighbor hound dog that barked the entire time. I don't know if he heard me clumping around or if this is his MI. Down below a donkey occasionally brayed. What bothered me the most were the flies. I sprayed Off all over me and it didn't faze them. I finally started making a "magic circle"of it around me every ten minutes or so and it helped. We are going to have to find a way to get rid of them without wiping out the entire bird population. I'm sure they are going to be a problem.

Finally, Maurice arrived with reinforcements with his son, Benjamin, and a friend named, interestingly, Mathieu. They had brought some cheeseburgers with them from McDonalds which I haven't had in years. That was the best tasting hamburger I have ever had . I think I was really hungry-obviously. I only lasted another hour. They finished in about 4 more hours. So, we got it finished so the architect could do his thing. We will see the plans in a few days. After I got home I discovered huge bites all over my legs. I suspect they are what we call chiggers in the States. Man, do they itch. Ah, the glamour of being a land owner.

The grapes are just starting to grow in Provence

The next day was June 22nd which is St. Jean Day and it is a big holiday, or fete, with the French. I gather that it is a celebration of the beginning of summer. There were fireworks which we saw in a small village of Villelaure where our friend Jean Marie and Danielle live. They are kind enough to put us up when we are in the area AND they have a pool. The fireworks were short but really nice. Then a large bonfire was lit and after it was down to a small size people took turns jumping over it, I guess for good luck-kids mostly. At the end summer, St. Michel Day, there is another celebration. In the past, and I guess now, all of the hay, etc. is put in for the winter and the fire symbolizes this. All of these Saint days have all sorts of traditions that are thousands of years old. Neat. It was a real community happening. I don't know what will be done in our village. It is so small, probably nothing much.

The lavender is starting to bloom. It is harvested in July.

I liked this pot.

July 16, 2002

While we were gone, Maurice had a man come into our property and mow down everything. It really looked bare. He did leave large trees and the olive trees that are growing here and there. We didn't realize how large our property was until we saw all of the brush cut down. There are two levels and we will build the house on the upper level to get the view. We are thinking that we will plant some olive trees down below so we can some day have our own olive oil and also plant a vegetable garden. I'm wondering what will be living in the wild that will want to eat our garden besides the thousands of white snails I see covering the ground. Maybe deer and boar.

One view where house will be. Note runoff from a rain storm in front.

Our house will be here.

Afterwards we had lunch under some trees at a nearby little village called Peypin dÁgues and decided to walk around a little and see what was there. We saw a collection of boar tails and feet on a door and when I went to take photos a man next door started talking to us. He turned out to be Irish, married to a New Zealander. They were doing some renovation of a small place which turned out to be owned by an American from NYC. He was a very nice talkative person and told me there was an American/English club that meets in Avignon and that they are living all over this area. He and his wife are vegetarians and bought a place that they plan to run entirely on solar power. We were wondering about their papers and what kind of status they have in France.

I think the guy in this house hunts.

I got to wondering just what area is encompassed under the name of Provence. There are areas like where we will be in the Luberon National Park, and there is the Cote d'Azure, and Vaucluse. All of this is part of Provence which is just a division of France. Of course, the wine is all carefully classified as to where it is grown. It can be Cote de Provence or Cote de Luberon.

We didn't get a chance to look at the lavender which must be getting near harvest time, although sometimes it isn't done until September depending on the weather. There were fields of sunflowers here and there with all of their faces facing the same way as they followed the sun.

A field of sunflowers

All of these sunflowers are facing the sun, thus the name.

October 20th, 2002

We made a trip to the Luberon for several reasons. First, we had a party for Maurice's 60th birthday and we wanted to have it in a neat little room below the Marie in the village above our property. The room contains a huge stone wheel that used to be pulled by a horse to press olives and then two smaller presses to get even more oil out. There was a date on a stone that said 1899. We had 20 friends and relatives who came and we ate and drank and talked from around 11 in the morning until 9 that night. It was lots of fun.

The olive press

It is nice to see Provence in the Autumn. The vines are covered in either orange or brown leaves and bare of grapes except for a few dark clusters here and there. We passed some workers in a vineyard picking what I guess were the last grapes of the season and then we saw a man pulling a wagon full of purples grapes behind him on his tractor. I wish I had been in the right place with my camera out when he passed.The weather is really cool, almost getting to freezing every morning. It rained the first day we were here and then was windy but the last two days were sunny and beautiful with sun and blue skies.

View of our village from the other side

The main reason we came here was to sign the final papers for our property. We put it in my name due to the Napoleon code which basically screws the(usually)surviving widow giving half of the property to children, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc. So this protects me a little. Anyway, I am now a property owner in France. We met in the office of the notaire which was full of 5 men, me and Maurice. It went a lot more quickly than the first time we did the initial papers. The cute dog, Pastiche was there, too.

We spent a whole day with the man who will be our construction manager. He seems like he pays attention to detail, which is a good thing when building a house. We had to do the fun things such as decide how many electrical outlets we wanted and where we wanted them, the color of the outside of our house, placement of lights, etc. At the end we were supposed to have enough energy to pick out tile for the floor and bathrooms. I hope we like what we picked. I don't think it's too late to change any of our choices. Of course, some of the things we choose will add to the cost of our house. The actual construction will begin next month - at last.

This morning we went to what is called a gite for breakfast with some of Maurice's relatives. It was such a nice place full of antiques with thick walls and timbered ceilings. I loved the yard that spread out under trees with a great stone terrace and flowers everywhere. I really would like to achieve the same feel and look in our yard. I think it will take years to get it that way.

Front door of gite

View of fall leaves outside window at gite

Maurice will be making lots of trips here to check on the house and he found a place to stay in while in the area. It's nice but had no exhaust for the bathroom and it smells mildewy to me. Also, there are spider webs every where on the ceilings, something I always considered bad housekeeping, and a resident spider living above the shower. I think it was a do it yourself addition. But, when we were visiting the nice gite, I notice the lack of exhaust fans in the bathroom I saw and there was a huge spider on the wall above the dining room. Maybe this is life in the country. Spiders give me the creeps so I will have to be vigilant.

Pile of pressed grapes outside a co-operative

Nov 4th

Back to Provence. They had actually started digging the foundation for our property. There was only one problem-it was in the wrong place. The guys starting the foundation had some old plans or something. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence when something goes wrong on the very first step of building the house. We met on the property with 5 guys who remeasured and now have the right location marked. I left Provence and came back via the TGV to Paris and Maurice stayed there to supervise-this was on a Tuesday- and then found out that they won't be doing anything further until next Tuesday so he could have come back with me but is still there by himself. Just a taste of future fun with building. The famous mistral was blowing a lot while we were there. It really gave the temperature a wind chill factor, especially if it was also raining.

This is where the house will be only 8 feet further in.

Of course, we did some exploring while there and Maurice did the Luberon marathon. It just about killed him as it is a very hilly area, but he finished.

One of the vineyards in autumn leaves that he ran by in the marathon.

A castle in Ansouis that is still lived in by an ancient family

I loved the gold of the fruit, the rust of the leaves against the blue sky.

November 16, 2002

Maurice has been in Provence to supervise what is going on, or not going on, on our property. There is a huge mountain now, from the further digging. He was told if it rained that they wouldn't dig. Of course, it rained the day after he came to Paris for a long weekend so they still have some left to do but they should start pouring some cement for the foundation on Tuesday. The weather report looks like it will be clear for a few days, but rain is in the forecast towards Thursday or so.

The last day I was in Provence, while the men were remeasuring, I was sitting in the car to get out of the cold mistral. I had seen, earlier in the day, some animal droppings. I was thinking maybe they were from the boar that are found in the mountains around here but Maurice said it looked like sheep to him. So, as I sat there, I thought I could hear some angry shouting in the distance, then a dog barking, then sheep bleating. I looked around and a river of sheep was making their way up the road past our property. There were perhaps 200 of them being herded by a sheep herder and his dog. I had my camera and immediately jumped out to take photos. I don't know how often it is done, or for how long or what season, but during this time the herder was moving the sheep twice a day from one place to another. It made me realize that this part of France is still very rural.

Here are a few of them on the edge of our property.

December 15th

Maurice went back to Provence for a few days to check the progress. There was some and it appears that the clearing and digging that has to be done was finished. It has been an unusually wet fall and so work has basically stopped. They won't start, I guess, until the land dries out some. They also want more money because there were a lot of rocks, something I think should have been factored in at the beginning as they build in Provence all of the time.

View of our property from the road.

View looking towards the road-note the standing water.

Pile of dirt from clearing. Look at all of the rocks.

February12, 2003

Maurice took the TGV out to Provence for a day. They have finally done some work. Nothing was done for 2 months due to extremely wet weather. Since they started doing the digging in the wrong place we just don't trust them. It looks about the same to me, as far as the beginning foundation works go, as what I have seen in the States.

Front of property where the land has been extended (on the right)

view of foundation and blocks that are going to be used

this will be the garage

View from up above looking towards the road

March 20th

The weather has continued to be beautiful in Provence and they are really making headway on the house. A neighbor sent us some digital photos and there are actually walls. Maurice is going down this weekend to check it all out.

This is the back of the house which faces the great view.

This is the front door and the garage.

View from up the hill.

April 11th

Our neighbor sent us more photos. They actually have the roof on! Maurice and I plan to go to Provence next week or so and check it all out. We are going to have to figure out a way to get there more often. At first we thought of having Maurice live there at a gite but with all of the delays it's a good thing we didn't. Now that things are picking up, we may have to do it.

View from the back of the house showing the roof.

June 20th

We made a trip down to Provence with my sister, Dianne, and her sister in law, Lynne, to take a look at our property and to show them a little of Provence. Of course, it is the hottest it has been in France since 1942 so it is hard to get out and walk around. We stayed in a gite with a swimming pool which helped, along with the 2 electric fans I lugged along. Cherry trees are loaded with cherries, sun flowers are blooming and the skies were blue.

Napoleon cherries-as they call them here

Love the yellow flowers against the blue sky

We found this guy in a church in Ansous banging away on his drum

A beautiful patio where we had lunch-Les Florets in Gigondas

I liked this chair hanging on a wall in Lourmarin

I would put in some photos of progress on our house but the outside looks exactly the same. We weren't able to see the inside because it was locked up as tight as a drum. No workers were there, we couldn't get the supervisor to answer our cell phone and, I learned, we aren't entitled to the key to our house until they are totally finished. This seems very strange to me. Who knows what is going on inside? The last time we were inside the kitchen counter would have stuck out into the doorway if we hadn't caught the error, and the chimney leaned. I am having more and more doubts about this company. Too late now.

A Feel In Provence

My sister, Dianne, and her sister-in-law, Lynne, came to visit us in Paris. We decided,while theywere here, to also show them Provence. France was in the midst of a horrible hot spellwith tempertures breaking records last set in 1942. It was very uncomfortable in Parisand I knew that Provence would be even more miserable so, as we were packing the car I dragged out two electric fans much to my husband’s dismay.

He could picture hordes of French people laughing at us as we carried them into the “gite” where we were going to be staying. He wanted me to leave them behind but I’ve been in France a couple of years now and I wouldn’t do it. Sure, the walls are all thick, yes, they have shutters on the windows to close during the hot sunny part of the day. I don’t care. I have been in these thick-walled, shuttered buildings and when it is over 100 degrees outside, it is hot and uncomfortable inside and I haven’t found an air-conditioned gite yet.

Off we went to Provence. It was scorchingly hot. Walking the beautiful narrow lanes of medieval towns was bearable only if one stayed on the shady side of the street. Entering the charming little shops was like stepping into a small kitchen with the oven left on. We were stunned by the heat and couldn’t wait to get back to our gite and float in the swimming pool like happy frogs on lily pads.

Gites are places throughout France rather like a bed and breakfast. Sometimes there are little cottages, or sometimes you sleep in the same house as the owners. Breakfasts and dinners are provided. We had found our gite when some of my husband’s relatives stayed there on a visit. It was a charming 200 year old house with thick walls (of course), fire places, antiques everywhere and a resident dog.

The owner was a single man who ran around, served us breakfast, and did a lot of the yard work outside in the huge garden and patio yet to my housekeeping eyes it didn’t look as clean as it could be. It needed dusting. It needed someone up on a ladder getting rid of spider webs. It needed someone to throw out those piles of magazines, newspapers and paperwork.

The kitchen especially needed some serious attention. I knew he had women come in to help him clean but I bet they only made beds, washed dishes, linens and maybe mopped floors. Maybe. Well, sometimes, when something is old and charming in France, you just overlook a few things.

The last night we were there we learned that the owner, Jean-Marie, was in a band that played jazz, but only New Orleans Jazz. He never played or listened to anything else. He played a CD of his band during our dinner, and it sounded very good and professional to me. My sister, Dianne, is a professional singer. I used to sing harmony with her many years ago in a strictly amateur way here and there, mostly in the car on long trips. To show you the level of our ability, our father called us The Canary Sisters. This is not a compliment. He said the same thing about two elderly sisters in our childhood church who sang twice as loud as everyone else, very off key, and held notes two beats longer than everyone, their quavering voices hitting our eardrums like birds hitting a glass window.

Anyway we decided that Jean-Marie could play the piano he had upstairs and we would sing. By that time we had all been well lubricated by some very good local Luberon red that we had enjoyed outside on the patio under the stars with our dinner.

Upstairs we headed to the piano. There was a base fiddle and a set of drums sitting next to the piano too and here’s where I discovered a talent, previously unknown to me, of playing drums. It was a gift, like playing the piano by ear. Who knew?

So this Jean-Marie starts playing the piano. He was very good plunking out a great jazz song. My sister and I started to sing. We had a really hard time staying on key. Or, we were singing on key, but Jean-Marie wasn’t playing in the same key. Finally, Karen and I just started singing and let him play whatever it was he was playing. We had a great time. But watching the video my husband took the next day we discovered that Jean-Marie had played the exact same thing for each song! It was probably the only New Orleans Jazz song on piano that he knew. We were singing some Rock, a little country. Together it mixed like water and oil, but we didn’t know it at the time. We just kept on going.

Afterwards, we went out to look at the fabulous sky with the stars easily seen out in the Provençal countryside with no city light pollution to spoil the view. I easily spotted the Big Dipper but there were so many other stars up there, I couldn’t identify anything else.

Then Jean-Marie went over to Dianne to help her "find a constellation". That’s when he tried to – and I can hardly believe I’m writing this – he “copped a feel”, a phrase which took me a good ten minutes to explain to my French husband.

My sister didn’t say anything, just stepped away. When I looked over she had her arm around Lynne’s shoulders. My husband was furious when he found out about it later saying it was a very inappropriate thing to do not only to a guest, but in front of us.

I wonder if ole Jean-Marie was hoping Dianne would join him in bed later, a bed, I am sure (after seeing his gite), was probably crawling with ticks.

But all in all it was still a great trip. And I was right about the fans.

July27th

Maurice made a quick down to Provence supposedly to see the finished work on the electicity and plumbing.

Do it look like the electricity is done to you?

Or the plumbing? This will be the guest bathroom.

They have almost finished the tile and from the photos I see I like the floor tile. I had a real blank on what I had chosen for our bathroom and was glad to see it wasn't a screaming blue.

Tile around tub in our bathroom

View from kitchen area toward living room.

Stair with wood trim and tile.

Closer view of living room-note small Luberon style windows. There is a sliding glass door to the left.

View of what will be kitchen/dining room from the Living Room.

I learned that the kitchen cupboards, sink, etc, are not included in the cost of the house. We have to do all of that ourselves. We found a company in Pertuis, the nearest town with stores like that, and picked out cabinets, appliances and counter top. As with the key, the kitchen cannot be installed until they are totally finished with the house. The outside of the house is still not plastered. I assume this is the last thing they do.

Maurice has met with a lady to help us landscape our yard, with porches and long term planning for planting of bushes and trees. I would like a lot of trees to give shade but they make such a mess in the swimming pool so that will take a lot of planning. I have to have some wysteria growing somewhere, so that was incorporated. It is looking like we MIGHT be in our house by October. Of course, in France they don't work in August for the most part so that has to be taken into consideration.

September 13-16, 2003

Maurice drove the car to Provence and I met him about a week later by taking the TGV into AIX, a great and fast way to travel. The weather is beautiful in Provence, with the heat having finally died down, and the temperatures were usually in the low 80's during the day with wonderful cool nights in the 50's. Because of the high temperatures this summer, the harvesting of the grapes is taking place a good month ahead of the usual time and the roads are crammed with huge machines that cut the grapes off the vines or little tractors pulling loads of grapes to the commune where they will be made into wine. Sometimes I could see dark purple grapes still hanging on the vines, perhaps waiting for a special type of wine that requires sweeter grapes. One night we also went out to spot Mars, low in the southern sky, closer than it has been in thousands of years. It glowed red and large in the dark skies, easily seen without any city lights to compete.

Church in nearby village of Grambois

Mary casting a shadow

This man sold wine from the region at a tasting market

This man sold local honey

View of a cat in front of his colorful home in our village

Not good news on the house front. We have reached a disagreement with the supervisor of our house and he states we must finishing paying 95% of the cost of the house even though the house is only about 80% finished. He and Maurice got in a huge argument and I don't know when the house will be finished. At one time he told us the middle of September. According to our contract he doesn't have to finish until December so I don't know what that means as far as when we will be able to move in. None of the plumbing fixtures are in, nor the cooling/heatingsystem, the heating units on the walls in the bathroom. We can't get the kitchen installed until they have reached a certain point in the construction. I realized walking around that we will have to buy all of the light fixtures and install mirrors and lights above them in both bathrooms, so we spent some time looking at those in stores. I'm really not happy with how the tile looks in the bathrooms. They just leave the edge bare, without any finishing tile along the raw edge. It looks really crappy but I am told that's it, that's how they always do it. Also, there is no light in the entrance, inside the front door. When I pointed this out, he pointed to a plug and said to get a lamp. Sigh.

front door

unfinished shower (we have to buy and install the glass door, too)

fireplace will be on this wall

guest bathtub

Outside where they are starting to apply the plaster which comes tinted, it's not painted

October 26th

We were at the house about 3 weeks before our so called reception when I noticed there was no light fixtures and I realized that this was something we had never picked out. We had only selected the location of light fixtures. There were bare wires hanging from the ceilings where, at least, we could screw in light bulbs so we wouldn’t be sitting in the dark. I noticed that there wasn’t a light of any kind in the entry way. I asked Stephane where it was and was told there wasn’t one. He pointed to the electical outlet on the wall. This was where we would plug in our lamp. I blew up and said it was ridiculous. How can you have a dark entry way without any light? Both he and Maurice looked at me like I was crazy and over reacting-this after their many arguments.
I found other things to be missing: no heating vents into the separate rooms holding the toilets so in the winter the toilet seats are freezing. I assume they think that because you won’t (hopefully) be in the room for very long that no heating or cooling are required. There is a little window in each room which makes it even colder in the winter. The laundry room didn’t have a vent, either, but I was to find that the dryer made it a very warm room. The closets were empty of any shelves or poles to hang clothes on.
I wasn’t a happy camper and I wasn’t even in the house yet.

November 1st

Finally we were told that it was time for our reception. I was working and unable to go and was frankly rather relieved that I wouldn’t be there to hear the exchanges between Maurice and Stephane. Stephane had been calling and demanding the last 5% due on the house. Maurice said no. It was the only hold he would have over this building company if things weren’t right. He had called a former customer of our builder and they had said they were extremely sorry that they had paid the final 5% as there were things that needed fixing and no one was arriving to take care of it. Maurice also told Stephane that he was bringing a professional to check out the house on the day of the reception and was told that the professional would not be allowed inside. I never did find out why-what could he have to hide? Maurice left to go down to Provence not really knowing if he would get the key or not. He had demanded that the heating/cooling unit be installed the day of the reception and they acted like he was ridiculous to ask such a thing.
It finally all worked out. There were furious arguments, the inspector was not allowed inside the house as we had been told, the heating/cooling unit had been installed, we even had plumbing fixtures.
Maurice called me that night exhausted. He had the key. He had taken a load of things down to Provence in the event he would actually get possession. There wasn’t full electricty the first night and he slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. At least there was running water.
It was a week before I was able to get down to Provence. In that time Maurice had purchased two twin beds that would be used upstairs in the guest room and the kitchen had been installed. It had been so long since we had ordered it that I didn’t even remember what it looked like. I was very pleased when I walked in and saw a nice modern kitchen with light yellow cabinets. The only problem that I could see was that the refrigerator was too large. Maurice wanted me to have an American refrigerator, one with an ice maker, and it stuck out to far too allow a little island to be turned the way we had planned so it was turned long ways. The kitchen still needed tile but looked bright and cheerful.
What dismayed me was looking at all of the walls and knowing we would have to paint them. As is often the case, at least in my life, when you get a bid on painting, it is so high that you decide to save the money and do it yourself. I stood there looking at the high wall where the stairs went up. It would need some sort of scafolding to paint it. I felt overwhelmed just looking at all we had to do.
The house was a strange mix of quality and cheapness. We had a high tech heater in the bedroom, the type you can hang towels on but the cabinet in the bathroom was made of cheap, unpainted wood and were obviously poor quality. We basically had a shell for a house. It was about a stripped down as it could be and they hadn’t done a lot of things such as pick up all of the debry outside consisting of broken tiles, huge wooden holders for various things, and chunks of cinder block. All of the land was left raw and unlevel. We didn’t even have a slope into our garage instead there was about a four inch area between the garage floor and the ground.
I had some furniture being shipped from Texas which had been in storage for two years. For some reason it had been shipped to England, not Marsailles as is the usual port for things entering France. Because of this we were sitting in an empty house. It should have taken six weeks to get our furniture, instead it was going to be at least three months. At least we had the twin beds. A kind friend gave us two ratty plastic chairs to sit in or we would have been eating on the floor. We went out several times to try and purchase a table and chairs but couldn’t find what we wanted.
And so, the next few weeks were to be nothing but preping the walls- sanding and then two coats of a special paint- followed with two coats of regular paint. By the time I finished the living room and dining room I felt like I had painted the Great Wall of China. My neck and shoulders ached, my knees hurt from climbing up and down a ladder. Maurice and I got up every morning shuffling and moaning like 90 year old people. It is great to look at a room you have freshly painted yourself-there is a real feeling of accomplishment. Our bedroom and bathroom would be next, then the entryway, those darn stairs and two bedrooms upstairs with that bathroom. At least we didn’t have a deadline to worry about unlike our neighbors in a house just being finished up above us. They had to be out of their apartment at the end of the month and we could see them and family members feverishly painting all day and late into the night. Their builder let them have a key and do whatever they wanted before their reception.
Our typical day consisted of painting until two or so in the afternoon, driving into town to buy a growing list of things we needed, driving home, eating and going to bed. Of course, we were hemorrhaging money. We needed everything-from shelves and poles for the closets, to towel racks, towels, light fixtures, and on and on. It is amazing how much it takes to set up a house. I didn’t want to buy too much as I had to see what was coming from Texas. After two years, I only have vague memories of what was in storage. It will be like Christmas when I start opening all of the boxes.

Early morning view from the back porch.

New fireplace with top unpainted

New kitchen, no table to sit at.

Bright blue front door with junk in front.

Front of house from up above.

Back of house

Flies, Appliances, and A Trip To The Doctor

The first thing I notice when I walked into our new house was flies. I hate flies. I assumed that most people did. The next time we went to the store we got some little plastic devises that supposedly kept flies out of the room but they didn’t work. When, once again at a store, almost a daily occurence, I spotted a fly swatter, I bought it. Nothing like the tried and true. It is called a tapette a mouche here in France. I was going to tap the flies all right. Maurice laughed when he saw it and was a little puzzled by my vigilance in killing them. He has a sort of live and let live attitude but it drives me nuts when I see two flies having, possibly, what looks like sex on top of something I am going to eat. I feel like they are dirty. Maurice was raised on a farm deep in the country so maybe he just got used to them.
I’m going to have to get used to life in Provence with flies. They are just a factor here. I think Australia has the same problem. I remember seeing people watching the Australian tennis open wearing these strange hats with corks hanging from strings attached to the brim. Supposedly, this keeps the flies off of your face. I may have to look into this.
I wish I had had a little more input into choosing our appliances. I have to admit I wasn’t paying attention when Maurice was looking at cateloges choosing things for our house. Everything he picked out requires a PhD to operate. Maurice has an enginering degree but, when it comes to operating say, our oven, it doesn’t seem to help much. If I had an instruction manual in English I think I could figure it all out but, alas, I don’t. The oven has three little round switches that you turn, or push, or do both at the same time. To turn off the oven you push one of these buttons twice. Twirling the same knob brings up various things like pizza or roast and the oven is supposed to cook it at the correct temperature but we couldn’t get it to work. It only gives you fifteen seconds to set everything or it turns off and you have to start all over again. It does have a neat feature of beeping when the oven had preheated to the correct temperature. I’m sure I will eventually figure it out but I think I will be using my microwave a lot in the meantime. It is an older model and, even though all of the writing on it is in French, I have mastered using it.
The refrigerator is huge, especially by French standards. It sticks out about a foot past the wall sturdily announcing its presence. It makes ice cubes or crushed ice, it dispenses cold water, temperatures can be changed at various areas inside and there is a strange door on the outside which can be opened to retrieve, I believe, often sought items, such as milk or bottled water. All sorts of buttons glow on the outside, giving the kitchen a green glow when the kitchen is dark.
Then there is the washing machine and dryer. It didn’t take me long to figure out the washer but the dryer was another matter. It doesn’t have a vent tube going to the outside as I am used to, but it does some sort of condensation number. I managed to dry the first load all right, although it took me three times to finally get everything dry. The second load led to an irritating bell ringing. This was when I discovered that a water container has to be emptied or the dryer won’t work. The filter has to be empty, too. Maurice and I struggled for over 30 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong. It was like a baby that keeps crying after it has been fed and changed-what else can you do? I got so irritated I told Maurice that I was moving back to the States where appliances are easy to operate. I think we finally got it figured out but I think I will be doing most of our drying on a clothes rack. It is easier and much cheaper. I’m not a fan of scratchy towels but maybe I can soften them up with a Cling Free sheet-a wonderful American invention-after they dry on a rack to the texture of plaster board..
One morning we got up ready to start painting the bedroom. Maurice moved a small portable television and the next thing I know he is clutching his back in pain. He can hardly walk, limping around all bent over. We decide he needs some medication so I drive him down to the nearest town with a pharmacy and some doctors. Luckily for us, the doctor was next door to the pharmacy and, better yet, she was there and seeing patients. After a thirty minute wait, she took Maurice in, did a check up and gave him an injection of a muscle relaxant and a anti inflammatory. We were sent home with four days worth of medications and syringes for me to give Maurice his injection. The medicine didn’t touch his pain, even with some mild analgesics she prescribed. We called her later that day to tell her his was still in great pain and she made him go through the night that way. She said he had to wait for 24 hours before anything different was tried. Poor Maurice didn’t sleep at all that night as he had to sit on the side of the bed to control the pain. The next morning she prescribed some stronger pain pills that didn’t seem to do much more.
All of this leads me to think that Maurice has more than a pulled muscle. My own diagnosis is that he has a pinched nerve. I’m hoping it won’t require surgery. So, I started painting the bedroom by myself, one coat a day while Maurice sat in a chair unable to even walk without pain. I had a little pain myself at the end of the day but nothing that a little aspirin didn’t take care of.
I had one day left before I had to return to Paris and only one coat to go to finish the bedroom and, you know what? I couldn’t do it. Just the thought of painting the whole room one more time sent me into a depression. I cleaned the stairs really well, instead, getting it ready to apply varnish to the wood. Maurice decided the wood needed more sanding which, of course, negates the cleaning I had just done. I could see the sun shining on a floor I had just mopped and could see streaks and dust. Somehow I wasn’t getting all of the dirt up. It didn’t help that it rained and that a man came to install a TV satellite dish and tracked mud all over the floors. The fire place is made out of some sort of stone having little fossils in it and it has to be brushed with a wire brush which causes a fine powder to fall to the floor. I finally just had a melt down looking at it all. I felt overwhelmed and like no matter what I did it had to be done again the next day. I think eight hours a day of working on the house was too much and I decided that from now on a few hours a day would have to be sufficient and that my standards for cleanliness would have to be lowered. I poured myself a large glass of wine, took a nice hot bath and let Maurice cook dinner. I am working on not trying to get it all done at once, and being all right with that.

Water

November is a rainy month in Provence. It rained so much last year in November that the laying of our foundation was delayed for months and, once again, this year November was proving to be wet. Every morning we woke up to gray skies and pouring rain. I understand this is one of the reasons vineyards do so well here with the combination of heavy autumn rains and hot dry summers with the sun baking the roots under the rocky soil, leading to juciy grapes and the famous wine. There was a lot of flooding in the south of France with Montpellier getting more rain in two days than it usually did in two months. Marseille had massive flooding as well with loss of lives.
At least, being situtated on a hill, we didn’t have to worry about water flowing into the house as I had seen on TV. We were elevated enough that most water should just flow under us and around us. We had several worries, however. Our neighbor up the hill above us had just installed one of those prefabricated swimming pools and with all of the rain I could picture it sliding down into our yard if the soil and large rocks didn’t hold it. Maybe we wouldn’t have to build our own swimming pool after all-we could just use theirs and landscape around it. But, in the end, it held.
We badly need rain gutters. When we open or close the shutters every morning and evening the water falls from the roof to our heads. Also, water makes its way into our garage, even with a newly built water drainage system around our house. A small lake forms in front of our house, but at least we can now get into our garage so we don’t have to trudge through the mud to enter our house. We have a river of water running down one side of our house going where the swimming pool will eventually be. I foresee a lot of work needing to be done to redirect the water flow and I’m sure it won’t be cheap.
I started noticing that the toilet wasn’t flushing well. Finally, one morning, it didn’t flush at all, but dumped water on the floor. The plumber came out later in the day, removed the toilet, tinkered around and then said he would have to come back the next day with a roto-rooter type device. It had been pouring all day and he had tracked large amounts of mud and rocks into the house. He had also gone into our bathroom and done some work under the sink. The place was a mess. We did a minimal clean up and had to brush our teeth in the kitchen sink. Luckily, the toilet upstairs seemed to be working fine. Maurice was really upset that this was happening but I told him that, in my experience anyway, there were often some sort of debris in the plumbing pipes dropped there during work on the house. I’d had to have plumbers out to a new house in the States as well.
The plumber returned the next day and did his thing with the rotto-rooter, making a huge mess once again. I hadn’t done the acid wash needed on the bathroom floor tiles yet as I had just finished painting the bathroom and was really glad as I think I would have had to have done it all over again. I still needed to paint one more coat of paint in the water closet and was glad that hadn’t been done either when I saw his black handprints on the wall. He was really a slob. He told Maurice that we should have elevated our house more-that that was one of the problems with the toilet. I guess he meant that we needed more gravity for it all to work well. The toilet seems to work alright after he left, but I have a feeling the problem wasn’t really taken care of. He told us that if what he did didn’t work, he would have to pull up some of the tile and dig some holes to get to the pipes. Now that’s depressing.
The next morning, after the plumber’s visit, I could see the toilet having the same problem it did before any work was done. At night I can hear a double glurging sound, glurg-glurg, and I imagine some sort of underground, snake-like animal slowly dying, emiting it’s death rales. We called the plumber, as well as the house supervisor, to try and get someone out to solve the problem but were told he was fully booked for the entire week. I’m wondering if they know what is going to be involved, know that it will be expensive and don’t want to bother. I imagine we will have to get a plumber on our own to take care of the problem.
I realize, reading this, that it sounds like all I do is complain. There are some really great things about the house. It is a great size, the light from the windows is incredible and I can refresh my spirit at any time by looking at the fantastic view. The area we are in abounds with charming villages and a ride down a winding country road is a delight. We have fun visiting various vineyards and buying local wine, often for less per bottle than we would pay for a glass of wine back in Paris.
If I could only flush the toilet without worrying if it was going to work, I would be one happy woman.

I liked this bush against the dark sky

February 10th, 2004

Maurice did the tile in our kitchen. It looked nice with just plain yellow walls but the tiles really add a nice touch and a splash of color.

Just starting

Maurice putting the tile in place.

The back splash is finished.

The finished job, nice and bright.

They have started putting in the walls for the porch in back. They can't finish until what is here is filled with dirt and then the pool is dug. We haven't heard from the pool guy. He was supposed to start in November, then January, then today. Not looking good.

The beginning.

March 26th, 2004

Part of diary written a few months a few month ago:

Landscaping

Because of the four foot drop out our back door and back porch we realized that we had to hire a landscaper. It was going to be a huge job requiring porches and steps all over the place. Our property was actually divided into two sections with half of it a good 15 feet below our house. Someday I wanted to have some olive trees planted there as well as a vegetable garden and we would need some sort of steps to get down there. We were also going to have a swimming pool installed to help us make it through the long hot Provencal summers. Several people suggested that the pool be put down below. I admit that it might look better but I didn’t want it to be a big production to get to the pool with a safari just to go swimming. I wanted it to feel like it was part of the landscaping attached to the house.
A landscaper was recommended to us by the girlfriend of one of our new neighbors, this being a guy, an artist, who was building his house himself. I had gone in and looked around and really liked the design of it. He and Maurice didn’t hit it off very well, though. The first thing he said when meeting us was that they had built our house too quickly, that the foundation wasn’t going to be good. We found out he was going through a divorce so maybe that made him crabby.
It turned out that the landscaper was a woman wearing ankle high work boots with socks, short shorts, a muscle t-shirt and a really great tan. She did a lot of hiking in the area and she looked like she was in incredible shape and her hand shake was one of those that had me checking for broken bones afterwards. We liked the plans she came up with and she was very affordable so we hired her. She was going to trim some of the big trees around our house, replant some old olive trees growing here and there and get some porches built.
The people who would be putting in the pool were concerned with the stability of the soil and dug several holes here and there to check it all out. If it wasn’t stable enough, some sort of support beams would have to be installed to support the pool so it wouldn’t go sliding down the mountain. This, of course, would add greatly to the cost of the pool.
Another thing that was new to me was the way the various porches would be built. I assumed they would just pour some cement and that would be it but, again, if we wanted cement immediately we would have to have support beams adding to the cost. What they do is build the walls of the porches, fill them with dirt and then top that with small pebbles. Then, a year later, it can all be covered with cement or some sort of paving stones. Already I can envision people tracking the small stones into the house or pool.
The first time it rained we had a lake in front of the house. Because of the pile of debry and rocky conditions, we couldn’t even get in our garage so that will have to be taken care of too. It was depressing to look out the window and see all that had to be done. I had to keep in mind that a year from now it would probably all look great.
We were told to go to a nursery and look at some plants. I was expecting to see all sorts of varieties that I had never seen before but they all looked like plants I was used to in the States, plants such as photinia and oleander. One tree I really like in this area is the Parasol Pine. They have such a wonderful sillhouette, especially as you are driving into the Cote d’Azure. I like the way several of them join together looking like a cumulous cloud on the horizon. I mentioned them to our landscaper but she wasn’t too happy about them. She wants the landscape to look natural with the same vegetation already growing on the surrounding hills. I think I’m going to stand my ground, though. It is going to be our yard, not hers. Cherry trees do really well in Provence and I would love to have at least one planted by our house too. Wysteria grows everywhere in France and we are going to have what they call a tunnel, a curved frame, that the wysteria can grow up and over providing shade and a lovely sweet fragrance when the purple flowers are in bloom.
I had pictured quite a few trees in our yard but trees and swimming pools don’t mix, not if you don’t want to spend most of the day skimming out leaves and blooms out of the water. We are trying to come up with creative ways to have trees, along with the relief of shade, as well as a pool. We may just have to have manmade shade for the most part, at least near the area of the yard near the pool.

I thought I'd put in a few photos of the pool building. They are only about half done. It is done differently from what I have seen in the States. They put heavy gavel on the bottom, then the rebars. The bottom of the pool is covered with cement and the sides will be added later. It looks like a lot more work is involved to me.

Outline of where pool will be.

Tractor delicately starting to dig the hole.

Two of these pipes go at the end of the pool to support it-fear it may slide downhill.

Gravel base

Photo taken from window of worker taking a siesta after lunch.

Rebar on top of gravel.

Cement base. The pool will be built up to top of bars seen on the side.

April 10, 2004

I haven't seen the progress of the pool in a month, or the landscaping. It doesn't look like too much was done to me bu Maurice says someone is out to do something just about every day. The landscaping moves slowly as they are waiting for some large equipement to be moved that is in the way of a tractor. They have partially filled two little "porches" which will then be covered with gravel and some lavendar and rosemary has been planted on a hill going down to the second level of land and needs to be watered each day. It seems to me that there is a lot more busy work done on the pool than needs to be but I'm no expert.

View of pool from porch-dirt will be put put to the top of the walls.

Front of house where some more planting will be done.

View of two porches partially filled.

View of house from below.

Pool from behind.

Inside of pool.

June 7th, 2004

I am writing this from the States. The pool was supposed to be finished before we left for a trip to the States but, true to form, this didn't happen. A week before we left to return to France they finished the pool and today is the day the pool is full with water and the filter is started. We just spent time with my son , Brian, in Texas and I watched as he swept down the pool, checked the chemicals, added shock and chlorine and backwashed. It is coming back to me how much work a pool is. Well, too late to back out now. A few pictures follow that our nice neighbor sent us.

Pool from up above.

Shot of interior of pool with the electrical cord for the light still not attached correctl.

View of the latest work on the area behind our house.

June 23rd

We are now working furiously on getting our landscape together now that we can actually get out and work in the yard. It is too hot to plant anything, though. A man came out and worked for one day and built some nice steps made of stone and dirt and we decided, since he wasn't returning, to finish the job ourselves. It was very hard physical labor carrying large rocks up the hill side and moving dirt and gravel around in a wheel barrow. Fortunately, there is no shortage of rocks. I have to get out early to work as the heat gets to me sending me indoors around 10:30 or so. Maurice can stay out all day and is starting to resemble a gypsy from somewhere in his family line.

View from our living room of the great yellow blossoms outside.

We have to get large rocks up this slope. The steps up will be the wood seen. Note my slave.

View from below of door to pool filter and some of the steps we've done.

Maurice cooling off in the now usable pool-still too cool for me.

Pool cover when we aren't there-required now by law.