In September 2007 we published an article on former Aucklander Amanda Taylor-Ace and her home in St Maximim, France. (Read story here). Amanda is living her dream, entertaining friends and guests at her 18th century mansion and enjoying the ambience of her small French village. It appears this lifestyle is not just Amanda’s dream – a month after we published the article we received an email from reader Suzy Kietzmann. Suzy had taken destiny into her own hands and called Amanda – which led to an invitation to house-sit in France for a few months! She set off in November and has been writing a blog diary for the NZ House & Garden website so that we can all get a slice of the good French life. See below for the final entry of her French adventure.
Last post
17 July 2008
Forgive me readers, for it has been four months since my last confession – but I have a very good excuse. It is now seven and a half months since we set foot in France. We have had floods (and floods and floods) of rain, chilling snow (well once anyway), some wind and now, heat – with a vengeance.
Summer is well and truly upon us and, as I sit here writing in my "salon", the thermometer reads 29ºC inside, in the shade... and that’s cool. Last week we melted in 40ºC and any activity outside involved profuse sweating – a marvellous weight-loss plan, don't you think?! Anyway, I refuse to bemoan the heat. I've had real summer withdrawals, having left New Zealand right at the end of winter and arriving in France at the very beginning of another. So it’s summer, glorious summer, at last.
My partner, the one I came to France with, and I have parted company. We both agreed our journey together had ended and we are now pursuing our own dreams, coincidentally both based here in Uzès. He is busy continuing his marine engineering passion around the world, and I’m carrying on with my life, with my daughter Poppy and a lovely new partner.
We met, as you do, in a fleeting moment and that was it. Head over heels in love, inseparable love. Poppy and I now share this man's life; he is a Frenchman and a professor at the local lycée (public secondary school). We have a glorious (tiny) apartment on the top of a 200-year-old building, with a terrace that overlooks the famous Place aux Herbes – the town’s beautiful main square. We plan to live here permanently.
Life is very uncomplicated, very French. Our favoured mode of transport is legs and we have a plethora of eateries, charcuteries (pork delicatessens) and pâtisseries at our doorstep. My days are filled with sun, delicious food, delicious wine, French classes and second-hand market browsing as I try to be as French as I possibly can.
I could have not imagined, in my wildest, most optimistic dreams, that I would be living this life – this fabulous life of love and beauty, culture and frustration here in France. So, after all these months, the lesson I’ve learned is this: follow that dream – it may just lead you there!
Au revoir,
Suzie
15 March 2008
I’ve been in heaven this week. After our usual Saturday morning fix at the splendid market in Place aux Herbes, Uzes, and as the spring sun shone its 24 degrees upon us, we ventured towards Avignon, some twenty-six kilometres away. There, nestled against the curve of a hill beside the Rhone, lies the picturesque village of Villeneuve-les-Avignon.
Cradled beneath a le tour Philippe le Bel castle, its tiny streets wind their way through impossibly narrow spaces revealing an almost unimaginable charm. And on Saturday mornings this village hosts the most to-die-for market; I couldn't insult it by calling it a flea market, but essentially that’s exactly what it is - albeit with a twist.
We met some friends there, colourful characters and friends of mine host, and began the morning. You see, you not only come to Villeneuve-les-Avignon to experience the best antiques market Provence has to offer, you come to enjoy the food and wine. More specifically, the oysters served with Picpoul, a delicious white wine made, I’m certain, exclusively with oyster eating in mind.
Sitting on funny chairs at wobbly tables under the limbs of massive tree branches heaving with bud, we were serenaded by a positively delectable twenty-something Frenchman playing classical guitar. Needless to say, I was totally enchanted. I consumed my share of raw oysters before, nonchalantly - with a kind of “yawn-yawn seen it all before” air (whereas in actual fact I was almost hyperventilating at the visual delights before me) - venturing from stall to stall to gaze upon the fascinating mix of objets d'art, tat and treasure.
Thank you God for my life! To say we had the most marvellous day is an understatement - this event is one I have scheduled into my calendar every Saturday for the rest of my natural life.
A bientot!
13 February 2008
The cafe Terroir located in Place aux Herbes , the place from which I wrote the blog. Never has a simple cafe creme tasted so good in such glorious surroundings!!!!
I can feel it in my bones. And in my wardrobe. Today is the first day for ages that I have been able to leave the house without one of my fashionably chic large and snug manteaus [a loose cloak]. It’s 10.30am on a fine Thursday morning and as I sit here at Café Terroir (pictured above) in the Place aux Herbes, Uzes, I am very aware of the tranquillity and serenity of the place. Come Saturday morning, this entire square transforms into a wonderful spectacle of people purposefully going about their shopping for the upcoming week of gastronomique delights. For here at the weekly Saturday market you can purchase absolutely anything; anything that has ever been eaten before in the history of the universe.
One of the simpler stalls boasts a large rotisserie where plump birds are being spit-roasted, their luscious juices dripping down to a tray below where mountains of little pommes de terre [potatoes] are being cooked to perfection, dripping in this delicious fatty, juicy, positively finger-licking-good saucy stuff. So, the idea is you buy your golden roasted bird, they serve it to you on a little tray, together with one, two or three huge scoops of the potatoes. Et voila! Bon appetit. But for those more advanced in their tastes, there are the volumes and volumes of cheeses, all seemingly hand-made by absolute artisans, pates, terrines, fishes, meats, saussicons etc. I even saw a huge basket of kina! And some in the café were tucking into them like there was no tomorrow! Give me a croque-monsieur [a grilled ham and cheese sandwich] any day!
The French seem to be true romantics. One of the busiest stalls is the flower lady. Currently tulips in every imaginable colour fill hundreds of buckets, alongside ranunculus, mimosa and, of course, roses, although they seem out of place in their perfection for this peasant-style market. Upon making your selection, the flowers are taken and wrapped in crisp white paper and tied with a bow. Not a crinkle of cellophane in sight.
And it’s not just the flowers that get this kind of royal treatment. Purchase a mille-feuille [flaky pastry slice] at the boulangerie and it will be handed over the counter to you in a box, tied with a beautiful bow. That alone is enough to make me want to buy something there every single day (well I think that it’s a good enough excuse!).
Another little anomaly is the way the French patiently queue. As I purchased my daily pastry (actually today it was a little petite sugary biscuit) I stood in line – eight people ahead of me, six behind – for the sole shop assistant who’s always smiling, always courteous with a “bonjour madame/monsieur” to every customer as though they were her first for the day. And you queue outside the shop as it is so little only two people can fit inside at a time, nobody looks impatient or at their watches or sighs or looks in the slightest bit bothered. I think we could all learn a lesson here in courtesy and patience. It must work for them, because it’s the same every day.
And you should try their oreillettes. Heaven on earth.
Ah, the good life! Bientot.
30 January
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As you may have gathered, one of my most favourite activities is rummaging through brocantes (antique shops), flea markets or simply in someone’s cupboard under the stairs – there’s usually a good find, if you’re lucky. Each Sunday in Uzes, the carpark is full of people and their stuff. Stuff that they hope to sell, and sometimes at fairly silly prices. Now and again, however, you find yourself a bargain… I’ve come home with one or two lately. My first was a gorgeous dressmaker’s dummy – you know the kind that sits on a stand on a stick and you put it in your boudoir and drape your boas and things around |
it? Well I found one of those, decoupaged in 1920’s Vogue magazine pages. It’s old and rumpty and I just love it. However getting these precious finds home to New Zealand is a practicality not often thought of by me… I prefer to cross that bridge when I come to it! As I presented my stunning find to Tony, he positively rolled his eyes in disbelief and asked how much they had paid me to take it away! There’s no accounting for taste, I say.
My next lucky find was a huge, totally over the top gilt mirror, (see below) which I have (temporarily) positioned behind the dining room table in the salon at le petit maison. At the staggeringly cheap price of 30e (NZ$60), how could I refuse? The fact that another woman there was about to buy it did not hasten my desire to own it. As for getting it home to NZ… I’ll think of something!
I’ve even bought a couple of winter coats at one of these car boot type markets. My first, bought some weeks ago, is best described thus: ugg boots coat style – ie the suede bits are on the outside and the shaggy bits are on the inside. Nearly down to my ankles, it is a must here for this time of year and keeps you so cozy you could forget about wearing anything underneath (I wouldn’t do it though; legs are not good enough!). A steal at 5e (NZ$10). The other coat is a fabulous black number (what else, I hear you mutter) with three big tacky gold buttons – but, as it’s made in Belgium, I figured that alone transformed tacky into haute-couture. I swan ‘round the market in my purchase, feeling a million euros and wondering if the former owner has regretted selling it, on account that it looks so good on me! I broke the bank on this one and spent 80e (NZ$160) but who can place a price on fashion!
Poppy and Tony have not been without some French couture either. I positively made Tony buy a sleek pair of brown suede loafers (he’ll hate me for describing them this way), a few shirts and some sexy (he’s got great ankles and yes, they do look sexy!) socks.
Poppy also looks the part with her ¾ purple velvet pants, French winter coat and suede shoes. Now if only we could actually afford to go out to the kind of places you wear such fineries, we’d be laughing!
Must away, more parchment (paint) to splash around before Amanda’s return in a couple of weeks.
A bientot
21 January
We have just experienced one of those typical French traditions – ‘le extravaganza de truffe' or, the ridiculously silly truffle sniffing and ferreting celebration. Now don't get me wrong, I love a bit of tradition – all for it I am – but there comes a point where tradition overrides common sense and this must be one such occasion. The entire village of Uzes is transformed into a mini forest, complete with especially-trucked-in-sand (I would have loved to have seen the truck squeezing its way down the tiny lanes delivering the sand). The idea is that if you are very rich, bored and/or a little odd, you come to Uzes at this time of the year to partake in the sillybrations. The sand is 'walled-in' and little branches and twigs are stomped into the sand, reminiscent of mighty oaks. Hmmmm. Then, proud truffle-sniffing dog owners stride around the ring, enticing their mutt to sniff one out, so to speak. Something obviously got lost in translation because most of them piddled one out instead. However, the commentator, in total and utter seriousness, never gave even the slightest hint of despair – he prattled on and on and eventually one or two of the dogs delivered the goods, so to speak, and they were duly rewarded with a tit-bit – probably truffle-flavoured doggie choc drops. It seems that everything you could imagine can be infused, impregnated or ingested with truffle. At 1000 euros per kg, I couldn't think of one single reason to want to drink a chocolate aperitif, flavoured with shavings of truffle... or am I missing something?
 Left: thumb-nail sized truffles. Right: Poppy with our lunch ingredients
We were treated to a lovely lunch by our friend John who purchased half a dozen eggs and a thumb-nail truffle which he transformed into truffle scrambled eggs. At NZ$36, it was fair to say it was absolutely average (sorry John). We couldn't really get the taste of it.
Setting for lunch
But the smell – aah the smell. Now that's another story. Think sheep’s bottom and you've got it. Another fascinating thing was the 3000 egg omelette being prepared in a 4m-wide pan suspended over a huge fire by a tractor and stirred by six sweating and expiring enthusiastic French chefs. And when the time came to dump the three kilos of diced truffles into the pan, the awed crowd gasped and I could hear sighs of wanting and quite a few ooh-la-la's! An hour later they were still sloshing the concoction round and round and one of the chefs even plunged his hand into the steaming stuff to see, I can only guess, how hot it was. For six euros you could have sampled it, but the sweat to egg ratio was a little unbalanced and I declined the urge. Please don't misunderstand my appreciation of the day; we were all quite fascinated at the entire 'show' and wouldn't have missed it for the world. Oh, and the sun was shining that day and we basked in 21 degrees.
14 January - Part one
It’s the beginning of the new year and it feels like we’ve had the whole year already! Yes, we’ve experienced the best (and the worst) of France over the past few weeks. On a magical day before Christmas, it snowed. It snowed for nearly the whole day and this event hasn’t happened in this part of France for three years, so it was magical indeed. The fact that the streets and houses and every single little village was festooned with Christmas lights and decorations was highlighted with falling snow. And as it fell and I walked through the streets of Uzes, our local village, I smiled to myself and thought it couldn’t get much better than this. The snowfall forced the market to close and every little bar and café was full of awed shoppers - me included. By the next day it had all but melted but Poppy had managed to play in it and construct a little snowman, carrot et al!
Our hostess Amanda is now safely back in New Zealand lying on a boat somewhere up north as we deal with our preferred winter in Southern France. Speaking of Amanda, she’s just been on the phone, gloating about how HOT it’s been in NZ – best summer on record etc etc and that the yacht she’s been lounging on had a broken propeller so they had to return to land. Honestly and truly, I felt so sorry that her sunny days had been curtailed (I lie). Particularly that those on the boat with the broken propeller only caught thirteen crays plus their quota of other saline delicacies. But I’m munching on my buttery brioche and I don’t give a damn!
Our great Nelson friends Joe and Trish arrived early December to spend a couple of days with us on their way through Europe. Joe, a truly loveable Irish/American/Kiwi, was first up with hat and coat, ready for the ritualistic expedition to the artisan boulangerie. With espresso consumed, he would return with enough pastry delights to feed a small nation; we didn’t complain. And it goes without saying that the excess baggage Joe will be taking home with him won’t be in his suitcase! It’s very easy having guests who want to sample and savour everything and anything so we had lots of sorties here and there, always coupled with a fine lunch and some “interesting” wine. It doesn’t take long to work out that you get exactly what you pay for, and it’s especially true with wine, as we have experienced! As it is at home, it is in France…
One of our trips took us to Arles, home to Van Gough for a brief period, and it was stupendous. We climbed to the top of the tower in the old arena to view the orangey tiled rooftops of the city and I was fascinated by the closeness, the oldness and the rumptiness of it all. Beautiful.
Another of our destinations, the Pont du Gard, was constructed over 2000 years ago and so magnificent it really did make you stop in your tracks. Flanked by 1100-year-old olive trees, it was a strangely symbolic combination. Something very dead and something very living… it does make you think about the insignificance of man.
 Pont du Gard
14 January - Part two
Having safely boarded the train for Nice, Joe and Trish set off for the next leg of their journey and we were left with the daunting task of determining what gastronomic treats we would cook for our upcoming Christmas festivities. The huge supermarket here, Carrefour, is made up thus: one-third cheese, one-third fish, poultry and meat etc and one-third wine. So, trolley groaning with our chosen delights – including escargots, gooey cheeses, epinards, a glorious looking piece of something we thought resembled a boned and rolled chicken stuffed with marrons and champignons, sorbets, chocolates, and wine, wine and more wine – we embarked on the nightmarish task of the checkout queue. Be warned: this is not a nation of hurriers – standing patiently in long queues, especially in the supermarket where the customer in front of you has discovered they have left their wallet at home (in England), is not unexpected. So as you stand there, not understanding what’s going on as you don’t speak the language – with said in-front-of-you-customer now vanished, probably back to England, to get wallet – you contemplate your options. Abandon trolley and run and starve, or sit it out and hope that you get served before you die of malnutrition, hyperthermia or both. I’m glad the adage “patience is a virtue” was part of my mother’s large repertoire!
It goes without saying that Christmas is considered a very special time in France for children. However, it is the new year that is celebrated by us oldies and it is not uncommon to book yourself into the pamper parlours ready for your night of expensive celebrations, usually at a restaurant at a “miniscule” cost – somewhere in the region of €100 per head, plus wine… We made our own plans!
The Christmas meal is celebrated after church (if that’s your thing) at midnight on Christmas Eve and the presents are opened after that. I can’t even make it past 9.30pm, so looks like I’m going to break that tradition.
I forgot to mention that a few days before Christmas, my mother and son arrived for a few weeks of French life. Unfortunately the up-until-then fine weather turned a bit manky and the days were cool, cloudy and drizzly. But it certainly didn’t dampen our spirits and we zoomed around the place in our little Renault visiting some astoundingly beautiful places; Gordes, not far from Avignon, took our breath away as tiny houses, seemingly carved into the hillside, clung there like a lamb to its mother. Authorities have named Gordes “one of the most beautiful villages in France”. Easy to see why.
Down the valley from Gordes is another delight – that of the Abbaye du Senanque. Nestled in a valley surrounded by some of Provence’s famed lavender fields (which come into bloom July/August) lies this Romanesque abbaye which I believe was founded by the Cistercians in 1148. As Poppy said, “that’s even older than you mummy!” Only slightly!
A search on Google will tell and show you all and it was, for me anyway, a very moving experience to be within the hallowed walls of something so old, so respected and so tranquil. I imagined the monks, silent footed and heads bowed, moving from kitchen to dormitory to abbey in positively freezing conditions, probably clothed in nothing more than coarse hessian robes and open sandals, contentedly going about their work of harvesting lavender and milling flour. A life so far removed from anything I could even begin to contemplate.
24 December 2007
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΄Tis the night before Christmas and the bubbly is being poured as we anticipate our first real French feast. We declined the fois gras – we’re all a little culinarily chicken (pardon the pun) – but devoured, albeit s-l-o-w-l-y, the escargots. We finally found the purpose of those lovely little copper pans hiding in the kitchen cupboards with a dozen indentations for what we thought were for eggs; the vessel is for sitting the escargot shell in to prevent the pungent garlic butter oozing out. |
Shutters closed, fire roaring, candles lit, carols carolling, champagne flowing and dinner served – once again, I was in heaven!
As you’ve probably gathered by now, I have decided to experience all the culture thrown at me, and going to church on Christmas Day was an experience in which I wanted to participate, probably more through curiosity than anything else. I dragged my willing mother and slightly less willing children with me to the next village, Flaux. We sat through a beautiful short service, all in French, joining in the carols and not knowing what we were singing but mouthing random words all the same. A couple of beautiful carollers sang and played guitar as we in the congregation shivered and shook from the bottom of our soles. It’s unusual for 900-year-old churches to have carpet or even central heating. Feeling a little more righteous, we set off home for more carbohydrates… croissants and coffee awaited.
Poppy is at school four days a week (from 9am-4.30pm!) and Tony is usually up a ladder somewhere painting, so at every opportunity I jump in the car and just drive in whichever direction takes my fancy – usually headed towards the sun (a little optimistic) and with the faint knowledge of a good café or village market. If I’m really lucky, I find both and that, in my book, is cause for celebration. I recently ventured through Avignon to a little place (sorry I call every place a little place don’t I!) called Isle de la Sorgue – a village bordered by a river with a market winding through and around the village streets. Charming.
Antique linen shop in Isle de la Sourge
There’s the usual assortment of culinary delights; spices, saucisson, fromage artisan boulangeries, huille, every imaginable kind of fruit and vegetable – many I’ve never seen before and wouldn’t even begin to know how to cook (so I don’t). A real bonus was one particular stallholder announcing “gratuit sniff de truffle”. Not something you hear often, but I had a fairly good idea what he was joyfully inviting us to do - so I did. He ceremoniously unscrewed the lid of his prized jar of fungus and promptly stuck it right under my nose, inviting a good sniff. Which I did. If you ask me what it smelled like, I would have to just like a sheep’s bottom (I’ve had some experience on a sheep farm). Not entirely unpleasant, more musty and dead-ish, if you know what I mean. At €49 for three thumb-nail sized pieces, I declined the offer of making a purchase. But from the size of his stall, he wasn’t planning on many sales anyway. So I left, both of us kind of fulfilled. He’d got his lid off, so to speak, and I got a sniff. Win win!
18 December 2007
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Without wanting to sound corny, arriving at Amanda’s in St Maximin was, well, like coming home to an old friend. Her spontaneous laughter greeted us before she did and from that moment on it was pretty obvious we were all going to get on like a house on fire.
We woke in Nimes that morning, refreshed, and enjoyed our first petit-dejeuner (a couple of croissants, crispy warm, and a couple of hunks of the sweetest baguette you’ve ever tasted). Poppy was in carbohydrate heaven! | The main house here in St Maximin, known fondly as Maison de Maitresse. Quite a sombre looking building in winter, complete with 3 floors of marble staircase inside.
We gathered our baggage and managed to locate a taxi driver who agreed on 50e (NZ$100) to drive us in his tiny Mercedes hatch to St Max. Lord only knows how, but all our bags managed to jam into the tiny boot and we were soon happily on our way. I was relegated to the front seat and, having been told by numerous well-meaning friends to try, try, and try again to speak the language, I managed to put a couple of conjugating verbs and prepositions together and had a (very one-sided) conversation… well so I thought. I probably said something like, “Your car has lovely bikini trousers”. Anyway, we had an hour or so’s journey in front of us so I seized my captive (not to mention tortured) audience and babbled incoherently.
The scenery as we headed out of Nimes was truly beautiful – I can’t tell you specifically why, it just was. The road was narrow and I felt myself lean into the taxi driver as we rounded left corners. Strangely, he didn’t seem to mind. No sooner had we left than we were there, lost in the wee narrow streets of St Maximin. It’s hard to believe these tiny gaps, no bigger than the width of one car, were ‘real’ two-lane roads. Your front door opens right into the path of oncoming traffic. Charming. Trivial regulations on such matters don’t seem to feature in French beauracy, and the country seems to survive fine without them.
Enter Amanda. Gorgeous, welcoming, laughing Amanda. Hugs and kisses later and we were viewing our residence for the next few months. Le Petit Maison has a tiny but functional kitchen, a dining room – the hub of the house, two bathrooms and three bedrooms with an eclectic mix of furniture. A small door in the foyer leads to Amanda’s cave – a truly beguiling space full of stuff that sparkles and fluffs and twirls and shimmers. Poppy, again, was in heaven. Directly in front of the fabulous pool is petite studio – had I ever been to Greece I could assure you it looked truly Grecian, but I haven’t and therefore I can’t so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Right next door, sharing external walls, is the grand house – the Maison de Maitresse. More about that later.
Amanda had intimated that she hoped we would do a spot of redecorating for her. Ah, always up for that particular challenge and I could immediately see endless possibilities – already I was throwing my signature parchment (sorry girls) over the walls and floors. Amanda was open to anything. However, I promised her domain would be well and truly left alone.
More digressing. France does that. So, no sooner had we arrived and had a quick recci than we were off to the local eaterie for a fabulous lunch-time feast costing the princely sum of 9e. We were joined by two of Amanda’s many and fabulous friends, a very flamboyant couple of chaps who embraced us and had us in fits of laughter recounting their interesting lives and all that that entails. We stumbled home, having eaten some of the most delicious food I have ever experienced, and collapsed into bed to prepare ourselves for more entertainment that evening. Must get a copy of the liver cleansing diet. I may not actually read it, but I know I will feel better for just having it there.
Travel Pics
A spectacular arena built by the romans where they now hold bull fights. i'm sure i spotted some blood splatters!!!!
7 December 2007
Bonjour!
We’ve made it. It was a bit of an epic journey getting here, but nothing too dramatic to report. Although the plane-to-train bit was a little exhausting…
Let me just draw you a picture: three weary kiwis (one no bigger than a large baguette), six pieces of weighty luggage (all 90kgs of it), and four capable arms and hands. That’s right – the hand-to-bag ratio was short. Two too short. The 8km drag race to the train station, which involved turnstiles barely wide enough to squeeze through, was followed by approximately 100 steps down to the platform. Yep. No lift. No escalator. Just our trusted legs and arms. And our trusted arms and legs were weary and tired to boot. Due to the weight of said bags, my arms now resemble those fruit strings I reluctantly put in Poppy’s lunch box and my fashionably long-sleeved jerseys are now elbow length. Oh well, I’m sure short-sleeves will be fashion-de-rigour next season!
You live with the misconception that you can get by with your modicum of French and cope simply using your bonjours and au-reviors but God forbid anyone actually answers you – when they do I’m totally lost for words. Literally. But I’ve devised a cunning plan to get me out of these embarrassing situations and it seems to work. I try and explain that my hearing aid is turned off and my lip-reading skills are useless. Of course, I have to try and explain this in French, so basically I’m right back to where I started! Think I’ll stick to pointing, much to my mother’s chagrin.
I digress. So, there we are, seated on the train to our next transit at Gar du Lyon. A short ride later and we are disembarking, looking around for our TGV departure platform. Eventually located, and feeling the end was near (in a good way of course), we mount more stairs and collapse on the seats and Poppy, a travelling star to this point, falls fast asleep as we enjoy our first café-au-lait en France (give me a Kiwi coffee any day). Unfortunately sleep wasn’t such a good idea, coz as Poppy slumbered there – finally peaceful without being told to “hurry up Pops”, “faster Pops”, “don’t pat the puppy Pops” – my partner Tony, on scrutinizing the local map, noticed it would be much faster for us to disembark at Nimes instead of Montpellier as our tickets suggested. So we wake Poppy and gather our 487 pieces of baggage, which by this point is strewn through two carriages, and begin the tricky task of descending the stairs in a rocket train at speeds of 190km per hour around hairpin bends carrying a sleeping 20kg five-year-old (who did not want to be doing this!). To say we were having fun and loving the experience at this particular point in time is a little exaggerated.
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Nimes, at last. Safely together, clutching our possessions on the platform, we begin our find-a-hotel-at-night-in-a-foreign-country-without-a-booking search. Ah ha. As luck would have it, there, right opposite Gar du Nimes, was our little pension – a hotel that doubled as a murder-mystery theatre (pictured left). We didn’t know this at the point of confirming our stay, during which we heard someone “being murdered” and at which point I felt I would prefer to be at the Sheraton or anywhere else but the “murder hotel”. When the proprietor realised what I was thinking, he positively cracked up and |
invited the actors, the murderers and the murderees to come and explain. They were doing an unusual scene involving togas and swords… I didn’t ask!
We dumped our stuff in room numero dix, up three flights of stairs (no lift – I lied when I said our luck had changed), freshened up and headed out in gay Nimes to find a suitable eatery. This is France; they are everywhere. You can’t be precious about the smoke-free atmosphere thing here – everyone smokes, mostly cigars. At times it’s hard to see. We opted for a charming little bar called Cheval du Blanc where we just sat in exhausted awe of it all. The people, the smells, the sights and, most of all, the deliciously sexy tones of men and women exchanging pleasantries. This must be how it is in heaven.
Having satiated our desires, we saunter back to hotel murder and I found myself asleep, dreaming in French, in France.
A bientot!
Travel Pics
Left - a lunch we had at Chez Taylor-Ace. Right - a beautiful antique shop in Uzes
19 November 2007
I'm sitting outside one of my favourite Nelson cafes. It’s before 10am and the sun is doing its darndest to thaw the lingering chill that we just can't seem to shake, even though it’s mid-November. As I sit here soaking in the sun, it occurs to me that very shortly I'll be swathed in layers of Made-in-NZ merino thermals, buffeted by the mistral, that winter wind that visits France this time of year. But, I figure, you can't have everything – it’s France after all, wind or no wind!
Tony, my lovely partner, has been away for the past month, bobbing around on the sea off Perth somewhere, so all the tedious tasks in preparation have been carefully executed by moi. Actually, not everything – I still have to find a temporary home for our beloved cat Tiger. Next job on the list…
We've done a mock pack, Poppy and me. My enormous expanding luggage (colour coordinated for the continent) resembles an architectural monument of winter coordinates in black, black, black and more black! The hardest decision is not what to take, it’s what not to take. So, erring on the side of caution, I decide on just three pairs of boots and two winter coats (long, short; black, beige). These alone devour over half my baggage allowance so I'll throw them into Tony's bag - he likes to travel light and is only taking five pairs of thermals, one pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and that's about it. Did I mention the thermals? Like me, he hates being cold.
Poppy on the other hand, is onto it. She simply upended one of her toy-boxes into her cabin bag. Its contents are little puzzling – headless dog, lid off milk bottle etc. I guess they are important toys to a five-year- old. Oh, I did notice a couple of Clarice Bean books. She's very smart you know.
It's been a tremendously exciting few months preparing for this life-changing event and I'm filled with a mix of curious and wild excitement and terrifying fear. If you'd had a life-long dream that was about to be realised, then I know you'll appreciate where I'm coming from.
We've all been practising our French and we each carry our little Lonely Planet common phrase book with us. I've memorised some of the more useful phrases I may need on this adventure: “Ou sont les toilettes?” (“Where's the loo?”), “Tu es de quel signe?” (“What star-sign are you”) and, possibly the most indispensable one, "Madame Aubergine a pose un papillon sur ma renault et les poulets m'ont ramene dans un panier a salade", (“Mrs Eggplant put a butterfly on my Renault and the chickens came and took me away in a salad basket”). Hmmm, I think this one will be very useful…
Conversation bientot!
1st November 2007
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I'm off. I’ve dreamed it, lived it, believed and felt it for twenty-five of my fifty years. And now I'm doing it. I'm off to fulfill my life-long desire, my ultimate, screaming-with-hysterical-joy dream of going to live (for a while anyway) in France. Oh my God. If it was a dream I would know it because I would be awake and not surrounded by French literature and dictionaries in French and passports and stuff. And if I had actually died, as I thought I had at first, then the cat would be dead too 'cos no one would be feeding her (on account of my being dead, obviously), and |
there would be some kind of odour and the dishes would have piled up. But they haven't and the cat is still very much alive, so I must be; going to bloody France. Oh My God!!!
It all started with an innocent flick through the September issue of NZ House & Garden and stumbling upon an article on a couple of women domiciled, for the most part, in southern France – Provence to be exact. You've probably heard of it. Next to credit, it's my all-time favourite word. Well, that and credit AND holiday. So anyway, as I read through this article for the 312th time, I came to the screamingly obvious conclusion that I too should be living in France, in Provence.
As fate would have it, I happened to be holding the phone and the international directory number of 0172 seemed to automatically dial itself and within seconds I was having verbiage with Amanda, one of the subjects of the article. Good grief, I was thinking. After all, she was relatively famous and I was just my four-year-old daughter’s mother, the one that feeds the cat and dreams of going to live in France. And, as if that wasn't enough fabulousness for the moment, she was so nice and chatty and friendly and genuinely-wanting-to-be-my-friend kind of warm that, at the end of our conversation, she offered her friend’s email address and suggested I write to her explaining my dream and that she, this friend, may have some ideas. I hadn't even put the phone down before I had penned an email to this friend of hers, outlining this dream of mine, this all-consuming, think-about-it-every-day dream - the one about living in France.
About a week later, a reply came. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for its content. I would have been lying down if it had - and that would have saved me falling… on the cat. “Thanks for your entertaining (God what had I said?) email. Unfortunately I am busy over the summer, but you may like to consider coming to stay in my house (it’s a mansion) for the winter and, in lieu of rent (that's when I fell, on the cat) you could do some jobs around the place for me”. Good bloody grief. I wasn't sure if I should dial 111, the SPCA or open a bottle of something. I played it safe and went to the loo. That's always the best thing to do in situations like this. I was in shock. Total delirious, hysterical, maniacal shock. She gave me her skype address (that computer phone thingie that’s free) and suggested I call her shortly.
I pulled myself together and, with newly applied lipstick (after all, I had to look my best to talk to someone in France didn't I) I rang her and had a totally friendly, funny and frank (I didn't mean to do that) conversation for the next forty minutes, which, by my account, makes me almost French. It was real - she was real, very real, and her offer to me and my lovely partner and my lovelier four-year-old daughter (yes, I had her at the geriatric age of 45) of living for four or five months in her piece of paradise in Provence, France, was also very, very real.
Issue: Online Only
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