A Year in Provence

 

A First full Year in Provence                                                                                                        March 12-2020

A Year in Provence is a 1989 best-selling memoir by Peter Mayle a London advertising executive, about his experiences in Provence. Peter Mayle lived in Menerbes, a beautiful town in the Luberon about 20 minutes from our place in Villars. Today, March 12 marks my own first full Year in Provence which started as an escape for the rapidly developing Covid-19 sanitary crisis and intended to be for a couple of weeks maybe 2 months and boy, do we know better! Much has been written about the pandemic, so I leave that to the 17 million experts in Holland and the 67 million experts here in France, as they differ quite drastically.

Living in le confinement, or lockdown was for us a way to really experience the place we bought 5 years ago and meant to be our ‘’permanent’’ place once I retire…retiring I don’t really like that word. The last 12 months has slowed down numerous important matters but also accelerated many things, including living and working here full time and become part of the local scenery and experiencing la ‘’Vie Provençal’’. Just realizing how the nature evolves, the vineyards develop from vines in March to full bunches of grapes in late August, the cherry blossoming in April and tasting the best cherries ever, the gorgeous red poppies in May and the stunning lavender fields in May and June. Busy farmers with their tractors picking the grapes in September and in November we are tasting the first samples of rose at le Puy Marquis also Le Moulin Julien releases the 2020 batch of extra virgin olive oil. It’s really a magnificent experience. Mid-March we start to see and hear birds and noticed a few bees. The hunting season is almost over which is a relieve for our lab Bella, hunting is serious stuff here and deer, boar, hare, pheasant, rabbits and lots more really must pay attention for these funny dressed orange guys! Its remarkable to notice the power and beauty of the light here in the Luberon, its such a defined yellowish color usually before dusk, it’s simply impossible to catch this by a camera. I must say I became more aware and conscious about the nature and its beauty, a true eye opener for me.

Since January I joined a small group of local cyclists for Sunday morning rides which is a sportive and linguistic challenge as the true Provencal dialect is spoken at its peak. Climbing those at times steep mountains is challenging but grasping their local conversations aint easy either.  On a beautiful but cold Sunday morning ride with my local ami-cycliste heading for le Plateau d'Albion and after we past Lioux, I asked, "alors Didier" do you pronounce this as Liou or Lioux, his answer in the very local provencal language ‘’we pronounce every letter and we usually add a few more’’. Thought this was important to know, n'est pas, then Parisians he said always talk about the LU BE ron, whilst for the locals it's Luberon, or Luberonne.

For those familiar with Peter Mayle’s bestseller we have our own experience with deliveries, installers, repairmen, the local goat cheese artisan, restaurateurs, the pizza guy at le marche in Apt, boulanger Jean-Paul (I’m not his biggest fan!), le gendarme and of course the mayor’s office. The mayor decided 2 years ago to change our street name and house number, I have yet to meet a local to understand why this was so necessary but they for sure forgot to involve Google, Waze and the likes, so imagine for almost all delivery, essentials in 2020, numerous phone calls from drivers need to take place before they show up. Be aware we are not talking about a major town; the population of Villars is about 800 people! One lesson learned, being frustrated and upset is the wrong approach here and bad for your health, after all this isn’t Amsterdam, Paris or New York, everything happens here in its own rhythm and pace but in the end it will get done, at least mostly! In these 12 months we collected quite a few experiences. Good conversational stuff for around the pool, at the dinner table or the fireplace whenever you are here!

Our Year in Provence, unplanned in 2020/21 was an extraordinary experience despite the fact that we couldn’t meet our kids, family and friends as often as the years before, le Bar des Amis and others are still closed and neighboring cities like Aix and Avignon are basically ghost towns. For starters reading (again) a Year is Provence is fun (ignore the movie/tv series) and hopefully we see many of our Family & Friends as one thing is for sure, we look forward to spending many more years here.                              A tres bientot, Cor & Inge