We’ve just come home from watching the Bastille Day fireworks over the local lake and it was beautful. There’s something about fireworks, as I looked around at all the people sitting near us, everyone had a smile on their face.
But the other highlight had to be when Benji flicked on the tele this morning to watch the ‘defile’ – the annual Bastille Day parade of French forces along the Champs-Elysees before the French president.
Those boys of the Brigade de Sapeurs-Pompiers de Paris (the Parisian fire service) put on quite a show…
Thought you’d like a peek inside one of these things.
My husband thinks I should give guided tours of them as I know where ALL of them are. They’re not quite as picture-perfect as you’d imagine from the outside but they do the job. But at 30 centimes a pop they could be cleaner! It was a huge shock to arrive in France and find out I had to pay for these visits. If I had a penny for every…
I asked Benji what the ‘WC’ stood for and he replied ‘wateerrrr closette’. Oh right. So the French have stolen from us for once.
The outside looks slightly similar to this – the image on the cover of my old French textbook from school, “Un Deux Trois 1”.
The cover of "Un Deux Trois 1", R. Girod, P.O. Holmberg, A.Klum, 1981. Little did I know at the age of twelve that I would actually NEED French!! - won't tell you what we scribbled on the inside either...
While I’m on talking about wildflowers, I thought I’d share these pics of the poppies (‘coquelicots’) and broom (‘genets’), in full bloom here, that never fail to delight me.
The roads and vineyards are all lined with these these gorgeous flowers and their strong red and yellow tones. And the smell of the broom is just incredible!
I hadn’t really appreciated the season of Spring until now, living here in France. The contrast of each season is quite dramatic and very different to my hometown of Adelaide. After the cold and harshness of winter (am I glad that we have central heating – something unheard of for me in Oz!) nature in Spring just bursts to life with colour and energy. Even the locals seem to get excited and step up a notch in energy.
Maybe it’s also living in the countryside that allows me to appreciate all this magic and colour.
magnificent 'Genet' - Broompoppies growing amongst the dry stone wallsroute to the neighbouring village with the Montagnes Noir behindan old capitelle (stone hut)...and poppiespoppies and broompoppies, vineyarda Minervois wine cellarbeautiful broom
One of the great things about living where we do, is the access to good produce. The Mediterranean climate allows for almost anything to be grown, and more and more I’m trying to buy locally from people I get to know at the local village markets.
The Olonzac market, one of the biggest in our area, is held every Tuesday morning until about 1pm. You can find almost anything: fruit, vegies, pastries, breads, meats, fish, flowers, fresh coffee, cheeses, olives, local honey, wine, ready-made asian dishes from the guy with his own personal dvd collection on loop in his van (Lilas’ favourite)… those hard to find ingredients for ‘exotic’ cuisine such as lemongrass, coriander and chilies and then there’s your zippers, hats, bras, oversized undies, slippers, kitchen utensils, Indian dresses, incense, second-hand books, army surplus clothing, jewellery… it’s endless.
the usual and some exotic surprises at the market
This market is growing in size each year and in full Summer has traffic jams of people, carts and pushers down the bottleneck streets – you should try pushing a pusher through this mass…
There’s Pierre with his bread. You can spot him from a mile off, with his old van and black wool beret. He’s like a character from a film – and his organic bread is of the old, sourdough rustic style. He takes his time, nearly always a big smile on his face and an open pot of honey on his table to spread on his breakfast ‘pain’. And there’s always his thermos of hot coffee and tin mug ready for dipping. Pierre’s bread is the sort that you can keep for a week – not at all your light, airy baguette, but a full, wholesome loaf that is just divine toasted with butter and Vegemite.
Pierre and les pains
Just up from Pierre is Laetitia, the young girl who a lot of the year has only her free-range eggs to sell. She has a tiny stand but always many people jostling around her. Throughout the year she sells apples, onions, potatoes, and in full summer has mountains of cheap tomatoes, nectarines, grapes, peaches and a queue leading back for miles. You have to be quick – her tomatoes can sell out by 9.30am.
Laetitia’s free-range eggs
Towards the roundabout on your left are the people selling THAT saucisson (salami)… ‘Mont Charvin’. The one that costs an arm and a leg, full of beautiful chunks of bright green pistachios. It’s a small investment buying even just one of their products, but once you’ve tasted the difference, you can’t buy supermarket salami again. In general I buy a lot less saucisson now, but boy do we enjoy the ’50 centimes slices’ when they’re around. By chance, I got to meet Jacques, the maker of this wonderful product the other day. I was thrilled to be able to tell him how much we loved his ‘salted meats’ and hear his story of how he and his brother-in-law, once butchers in Paris, settled down south and built a company from scratch offering a range of products made in the Savoie region of France, using no additives or preservatives.
Jacques slicing a sample from the selection of ‘salaisons’ -salted meats
But before I stop by the saucisson stand, I head quickly for Valerie’s before she runs out of vegetables…
I’m Australian, Benjamin is French and we live in a remote, rural area in the south of France. He is the vigneron, I am his wife and he makes wine that I love to drink.
Our daughter attends school in the local village (we call her the ‘Aussie frog’) and it almost feels like Little House on the Prairie except she wears jeans!
We’ve been living here for the most part since 1998, making and working in wine. It is wine that led us here and wine that keeps us here. Our life is inextricably linked to it and why I’ll probably be talking a lot about it here! …And I guess living where we are, food may get a mention too!!
To outsiders it’s a quiet and very isolated life, if you compare it to the razzle dazzle of a city but delve deeper and, like anywhere, you’ll find a lovely hum of people busy in all sorts of interesting actvities. People from all walks of life – the locals born and bred here, French people from other parts seeking change and a growing community of ‘etrangers’ are all enjoying the wonderful landscape and quality of life that this region offers.
Influences and arguments fly in all directions. In this mix, food and wine are two major elements of the day and what connects us. There is an almost ritual-like approach to making or serving food and wine that I hadn’t encountered before living with a Frenchie in this area. I can’t think of a better way of getting to know all these people either! A few good wines and good food always seems to help my fledgling French.
I may not be sharing any images of the Eiffel tower, baguettes in hand, candlelight dinners overlooking the Seine – or frilly French knickers for that matter (who said all Frenchman were romantics?)… but a no-frills account of what we get up to here in this part of France. I’m not going to spend 365 days eating only foie gras and camembert either, but I will make a good go of drinking Benjamin’s wine – and a lot of others, cooking and sampling foods and sharing these experiences with you.
The jolie things I see around here…
Welcome to our home, warts and all, happy that you might visit!
Kat
p.s. I know I promised no snowdome scenes of idyllic life, but there are some beautiful sights around here that I’d love to share that are unmistakably ‘French’. Sometimes you do actually get those ‘ooh la la ‘ moments that take your breath away . This occurs almost daily for me here and it helps keep the homesickness at bay!
The Vigneron's Wife 