Speechaway

 

Home, sweet home ....

6th September

Sunny Provence- When in France do as the French do!

Eating cheese and bread, drinking wine, visiting old villages and browsing in the markets, playing petanque (boules), lounging by the pool, taking two hours for lunch, having a siesta: this is our new lifestyle and it is … oh, so hard to take!!!!!

We arrived in the village of Dauphin in Les Alpes de Haute-Provence almost two weeks ago and are feeling well settled. We have a very comfortable three bedroom gite and have been warmly welcomed by the owners, Frederic and Sandrine Sugier. Prior to our visit, they had never let the gite for longer than two weeks so we must be a bit of an oddity. Natalie has commenced school and has adjusted well. Her teacher tells us that she very quiet and we have assured her that we get similar reports from her Australian teachers so it is not something to be too concerned about. She tells us that Natalie understands a lot of what she says and, if not, she translates it to English. Natalie tells us that she is able to play with the girls but is not able to talk to them. The girls have been very friendly and seem delighted to have Natalie amongst them. Like in Australia the boys and girls don’t seem to play together much at this age. The parents have also been very friendly and standing at the school gate feels very similar to Bulimba State School (just on a smaller scale). The teachers come out at the end of the day and have a chat and unlike Dominic’s school days in France it is quite informal. The teachers are even known by their Christian names! We have been asked to give a presentation on Australia, once to the children in very simple English and once to the parents in French so this will be a little project for us.

The village of Dauphin is situated on the top of a steep hill which we climb two to three times a day to drop off or pick up Natalie (hopefully this will counteract the cheese, bread and wine and our tummies won’t get too big!). As you may have gathered our house is at the foot of the hill and from our backyard we have a beautiful view of the village. Dauphin is a tiny (population: 900) and very quiet village which has been given the mark of “village of character”. It has a church dating from the twelfth century and last night we attended a concert in the church. It was presented by the Chamber Orchestra of Bratislavia in Slovakia who are doing a tour in France. They played Mozart, Vivaldi and Rossini amongst others and it was truly “magnifique”.

Our gite is on the Sugier’s very large property and they have a pool which has been put to very good use on the hot days we have been experiencing. The Sugier’s are beekeepers and run a business producing honey. The other day Frederic took us to his factory and explained to us the process of honey making. He is a gregarious gentleman and is full of jokes and good humour.

A week after our arrival in Provence we welcomed our friends Mary and Cameron (from Wentworth Pde, Brisbane) for a few days. While they were with us, we visited the Gorges du Verdon and the surrounding lake and villages. The scenery was spectacular and we plan a return visit to take a pedal boat on the lake and gorge (no more white water!). It was lovely to be amongst Australians again, even if only for a few days, and it was great to show our friends a bit of the Provencal countryside and help them experience the Provencal lifestyle (refer to paragraph 1).

Today we decided to take advantage of the continuing warm weather and visited the French Riviera! Cassis is a very pretty coastal town which should be about an hour’s drive away but took us over two hours as the navigator (Alison) missed the motorway exit and we found ourselves in Marseille and had to negotiate our way out through a tortuous route (fortunately well-signed)and dreadful traffic. The Mediterranean scenery was worth the effort and we spent a pleasant day exploring the coastline, settling for a swim at La Ciotat. The beach was very narrow, the sand was grey, the water was full of seaweed but was very refreshing and we came to the conclusion that Australian beaches are the best in the world (not that we are biased at all!).

We now await the arrival of Dominic’s mother in one week and some more Australian friends in the couple of weeks following that. Otherwise, we plan to continue to enjoy and discover the pleasures of living in this part of Provence.