Road Trip 1

At Les Embiez, blue water

We left home Friday morning, the 12th, and arrived in Six-Fours (Le Brusc) early enough to start the catch-up conversation right from shutting the car door. Early enough to get the things from the car before the evening storm hit. Early enough to enjoy a fresh soup that G. had made that afternoon along with a light cake that reminded me of angel-food cake in all but the form. The events in Algeria were the main topic and that led to nostalgia as we opened Google Earth to find the site of the demonstrations, these days, and where the apartment was and where the lycée was.
Saturday morning we went for a long walk from Le Brusc to Les Embiez and back to the beach and the still excellent Italian restaurant, La Spiaggia. From there, it was just as easy to walk back to the house as it was to go back to where the car was parked. It was a beautiful day; the water, every shade of blue.
Sunday, the four of us went over to C & Y's for a homemade couscous -- copious and good. We didn't get up from the table until 4 and didn't leave until almost 7. Catching up used to mean how's the health and what are the children up to. Now, we add what are the grandchildren up to, so it really takes time, but that's the fun conversation -- who's in her 4th year of medical studies, who's already a working engineer, who's liking dentistry; who's studying law and who, finance; who's becoming an aircraft technician and who's in IT --- and then, ours, who are still in nursery, primary, and middle school.

A bit of the garden with the
fish pond and waterfalls

We left on Monday morning to visit T, Paul's American friend from before my time, who lives in Avignon. That's where we usually visit her, but not this year. Her wonderful parents, whom we loved seeing when we visited her, died last year. T has bought a house in Le Vigan, in the Cevennes. It's well located and, for T, it's a fantastic find. It's a house with lots of rooms and even some vacation rental apartments. And the house has enough space for her Feldenkrais workshops. In addition to the house, there are 21 hectares of garden and forest. She's still in the process of getting everything to her taste.
Le Vigan used to be the silk capital of France. T's house is where they had the mulberry trees and they dried the cocoons. Across the road is the factory where they made the fabric. It's not a big town, but it's very much alive. The Cevennes mountains are also known for apples and chestnuts. We had lunch on Monday at a little bistro that was open and then went back to the house for the appointment with an ironsmith to discuss some of the work to be done. It was that evening that we turned on the TV to hear what President Macron had to say. Instead, we discovered Notre Dame in flames. When the studio journalist's questions to the on-site journalists became ridiculous, inciting speculation, and the images were repetitive, we turned it off.
On Tuesday, after dropping our car off at a local garage because one of the tires had lost a lot of air and we thought it might need replacing, T drove us around the countryside. However, we ended up back in Le Vigan for an excellent lunch at La Lusette. Frankly, this is within walking distance from the house! At the end of the afternoon, we went back to the garage, where the mechanic informed us the tire was fine; the problem was in the valve. He charged only €10 for the time he spent taking the tire off, testing it, and putting it back. Then, we spent some more time discussing what car T should buy -- one that would not grate every pothole and would be easy to repair - a Dacia.

First little trip of the summer

Last week I went to a little AARO board gathering at Châtelet. As I was walking down the Rue de Rivoli, I saw that one of the old Samaritaine buildings had already been demolished, so I decided to take a picture of one that had not. It's just a souvenir. I'm not sure how many will be demolished in the end. This one shows off the Art Nouveau architecture really well.
This other photo, copied from the Wikipedia page, shows the Seine-side building, the landmark building.The store closed 10 years ago, because, supposedly, the landmark staircase and the new building code could not be reconciled. When they closed the store, the remodeling was supposed to be done and there were promises about it not being a permanent closure, but it was. The advertising slogan for the Samaritaine was, "On trouve tout à la Samaritaine" (You can find everything at the Samaritaine) and it was true. I enjoyed shopping there. Now, the buildings are either abandoned or rented out to individual shops. You can see that the one in the top picture has a Sephora shop on the ground floor.
The next day, we headed down to Avignon for what has become an annual visit with T. -- always a pleasant stop either on our way to or from our visit to family in Six-Fours-les-Plages. We spent two nights in Avignon this time and visited Roussillon on Thursday. It was exactly a year ago I had spent a few nights at Roussillon while the Pickars were renting a house nearby. I didn't get to walk along the ochre trail last year and wanted to do it, so we did it this year. It was a hot day, but we got to Roussillon fairly early and had finished the trail by 11:00. There were not too many people -- mid-week and not yet July -- but as we walked back through the town to the car, it was starting to get crowded. We drove off to Bonnieux for lunch and, there, the crowds had not yet started to invade this village. All these villages around Roussillon are tourist magnets in summer. They became popular with the French, when actors like Brigitte Bardot would have homes there in the 60s, and popular with Americans after Peter Mayle came out with A Year in Provence. We had an original lunch at "La Table de Sylvie" in the shade of the terrace overlooking the valley. For the return to Avignon, we continued south to the Durance river and followed the river westward to Avignon.

Friday, we headed to Six-Fours, but it was early and we stopped at Les-Baux-de-Provence to see the new show at the Carrières de Lumières. This year, it's the Renaissance -- Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphaël. I didn't care for the musical accompaniment, but the show is excellent. I especially liked the way they showed the sculptures as if they were carved into the quarry. And the way they made the floor of the quarry look like Italian church floors, or the ceiling like the Sistine Chapel.
We ended our trip with a delightful stay with P and G. We caught up on all the children's and grandchildren's doings. I even sunbathed and got in a bit of swimming.
Yes, we are aware of what's going on in the world, but right now, I don't want to write about that. We're on the verge of a heatwave, here, and I'm getting off this heat-producing machine.

Short visit to Six-Fours and an Afternoon Tea

Last week (it's getting scary how time goes so fast) Paul, Anne and I went to visit Paul's mother. It was about time! We hadn't been down to see her since Christmas 18 months ago! For just three of us, taking the TGV was not only the most practical, but also the cheapest solution. We switched to a local train at Marseilles. Gillette met us at the Oullioules-Sanary station and took us home for a scrumptious lunch. After lunch, we went over to see Marguerite.
Paul's mother is going on 99 and is in great shape. She's re-reading Clavell's Tai-pan, inspired by our stop in Hong Kong. She also remembers seeing the TV series The Thorn Birds, set in Australia. Her DVD player is kaput, and we all have problems speaking on the phone with her, so Saturday we went shopping. We also went up to the apartment to try to dust and clean a bit so that she can go for a visit, soon. I don't think it's a good idea -- there's just too much dust.
In addition to a new DVD machine and a set of phones, we picked up a few new DVDs for her, including The Thorn Birds. She loves watching DVDs and interesting TV shows so she prefers staying in her room for that rather than the TV room. We showed her the pictures from our trip, of course, and loaded up her digital picture frame with recent pictures. Generally, we had a fine visit.
It was also nice visiting with Pierre and Gillette. The house is settled. The weather wasn't great, though; they've been having lots of rain, so the garden looks wonderful. We ate well (every meal Gillette prepares is a feast, even if it's "just soup and leftovers". She has a knack for dressing it all up to be elegant.
We did go out for lunch all together on Friday. Marguerite is always glad to get out once in a while.
We left on Saturday, after lunch. Having arrived in time for lunch on Wednesday, we truly felt that we had spent four days - four visits with Paul's mother, at least - down there. If we had driven, we would have lost 2 whole days on the road.
Yesterday, I went over to the Genelins' for afternoon tea. It was a pleasant visit; Charly and Christine were there (from the Ile de France walks group) along with others from WICE and the anglo community. Michael's book is just out! Siren of the Waters (Michael Genelin's web site) All I managed to read was the jacket; the heroine is from Prague (I think) and her investigation takes her all over Europe. It's a mystery, just the kind of book I always pick up. In my haste, I ordered it from the Amazon.fr site, so it might take some time for me to actually get it. Susan Genelin is an artist and the apartment has some wonderful paintings she did during their stay in Jerusalem (during his job as consultant to the Palestinian Authority on criminal justice) and some more recent views of Paris. There's a great one of the trees all lined up in the Bois de Vincennes.
Michael was very excited about his book. In fact, his advance copy had arrived just before we showed up, earlier in the afternoon. So, the book was the center of conversation -- closely shared with the end of the Democratic Party candidate selection! There seemed to be a fairly clear division of Clinton and Obama supporters and I didn't sense any McCain fans, at all. What I really loved, though, was watching the non-American faces among us. Because of Michael's past life as prosecutor, we also collectively reviewed the R. Kennedy assassination, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the Sal Mineo case, which Michael handled.
On the personal front - I mowed the grass again. It's something that does come up every couple of weeks. The thing is that I'm mowing the moss, not the grass. It's time to dig the whole thing up and start over! And, I saw the Dr. yesterday and he is going squeeze a spot onto his schedule for an operation early in July. Hope this is the end of the series. Also still hope I can make a trip to the States in August.