Two Villages in Provence

I reread Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence while I was home sick Wednesday, and I'm sure I got more out of it this time, having been to Provence and the Luberon region of France, albeit 20 years after Mayle purchased and renovated his old stone farmhouse there.   The villages of Provence and the Luberon have become increasingly popular over the years and are favored vacation destinations of both foreign tourists and the French on holiday, especially in August when we were there.  We stayed with a friend, Anne Marie, in the village of Cadenet, about 5 minutes from the more well-known and touristy Lourmarin.  The apartment where we headquartered was a recent construction, no thick stone walls of an old farmhouse like Mayle's.  It is hot in summer.  There is no air conditioning, just the ubiquitous blue wooden shutters thrown open, no screens on the windows with curtains blowing freely in the breezes that, thankfully, cool everything down in the evenings. 

Like all of Provence, life is lived outside in the summer.   We enjoyed seasonal, Provencal foods as we ate crispy pizzas with veggie and anchovy toppings, fresh cheeses from the local market, tiny finger potatoes and succulent heirloom tomatoes in our salads, rich olive tapenades and local sausages.  Our hostess' courtyard was the perfect setting for our meals and relaxing afterwards.

The outdoor dining area in Cadenet

Hanging out at Anne Marie's

Anne Marie rousted us out of bed one morning so we could visit one of the most popular local markets in near-by Lourmarin.  The streets were packed with cars when we arrived, but I found French drivers can always create a parking place.  Soon we were among the throngs at the market, sampling the food and buying souvenirs for friends and family.

Loumarin market crowd

The sunset was lovely from Anne Marie's garden as we came to the end of another lovely, exhausting day in France.

A Stroll Through a Walled City in the French Alps

Our trip to France last August was so full of memorable places and people that it's hard to select just a few photos to capture it.  Right now I'm focusing on the places we visited that depict different parts of the country.

First, a few more photos of Serres, this time showing the old Roman walled section of the village:

Walking through the walled part of old Serres

Apartments in the walled section of Serres

Love the blue shutters that are seen everywhere in France

Curb Appeal in old Serres

Old Catholic Church in Serres

Tattoo artist in her shop in old section of Serres

We visited Marseilles just long enough to see the Mediterrean and dine overlooking the sea:

Lone floater in the sea

Ricky and Teresa dining at 3 star restaurant overlooking the Mediterrean. 

You probably feel like you're trapped watching someone's slide show of their vacation, but at least here it's easy to excuse yourself and go back to what you were doing.  I think Paris and Provence, and to some extent Marseilles, get so much of the attention when discussing France that it's important to see some of the other parts of the country, especially the more remote French Alps where Serres is located. 

I'm home sick today, as opposed to being homesick for France yesterday.  While I'm recovering from one of those 24 hour bugs, I'm going to take a break from my Once Upon a Time reading (Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife), the mysteries I always have going (Murder Most Frothy, a coffeehouse mystery by Cleo Coyle, that I downloaded to my Kindle) and retreat to my cottage with Peter Mayle and share his adventures in Provence.

Competing Forces

I'm one of those people who always seem to have approach-avoidance forces competing for attenton in my life.  This time of year, it's "travel forces."  I long for a vacation, but in my mind I can't decide if it's a stay-cation I want, just puttering about the yard cleaning up unkempt areas and planting flowers, with plenty of time off for good behavior to read and relax, or if I want to hit the road!

I'm sure I'll get back to the Virginia mountains sometime this summer to visit my family, and we have an Edgerton family trip to the beach planned for June.  Over the next few months, I'll have time for catching up with family, beach combing, reading and looking at the ocean views, but I also find myself homesick for Europe right now--for our family and friends there and the gorgeous vistas.

My mind is wandering back to the French High Alps and our hideaway built into the mountain under our friend Cris' house. Or, to the Czech Republic where my niece and her family live.  Today I share some of the photos of our adventures in France last summer.

Dappled path heading down to our "grotto" living quarters under Cris' house

Our hideaway under Cris' house--entrance to the  right behind the ivy

Outdoor eating area in Cris' garden

Serres from above

Buesh River below Cris' house, where everyone swims in the summer

This has offered a glimpse of Serres, the village in the High Alps, where our friend Cris and her family live.  It was our jumping off place for our trip to France last summer, although we traipsed from one end of the country to the other.  Tomorrow I'll show a few pictures from other places we visited in France.  It's relaxing to return to France, if only in photos. 

Thanks to my husband, Ricky, who is a great photographer!

Once Upon a Time

I read on my friend Jennie's website, A Garden Carried in the Pocket, about a reading adventure for spring called "Once Upon a Time." 

The author of the blog, Stainless Steel Droppings, has for six years issued a challenge to fellow bloggers to read or watch TV/movies that are classified in one of the following four broad categories: Fairy Tale, Folklore, Fantasy and Mythology, including sub-genres and blending of genres listed above.  The challenge  allows for minimal (one book only) participation or more in-depth involvement--reading a book in each of the categories. 

You had to sign up to officially participate in the challenge and there were deadlines and rules that, as a new blogger, I was unaware of, so I don't think I am a "real" participant in the challenge.  However, as the natural world outside my window emerges from winter dormancy in magical spring fashion, it seems to me like a good time to re-explore the world of fantasy reading.  And, of course, there are unread books languishing on my book shelves that fit these criteria. 

I decided to start with Robin McKinley's 2000 retelling of Sleeping Beauty, Spindle's End, and I'm so glad I did.  Once I slogged through lengthy descriptions of the magic properties of the fictional country where the tale is set, I was hooked.   The plot is intricate, magical, yet believable.   The characters are multi-layered and their daily lives interesting, successfully woven into the complex web of  the evil spell always hovering over the princess and the entire kingdom.  Princess Rosie, along with her adopted family, Katriona and her Aunt, and Rosie's best friend, Peony, are strong female characters--Rosie and her protectors aren't helpless victims waiting for prince charming to save them.  McKinley's evocative narrative moves seamlessly and inevitably toward the action-filled climax on the princess' 21st birthday.   The plot twists and surprises that Newberry Award winning author, McKinley, interweaves into the story make it more satisfying than the original fairy tale.

Because Rosie has a special affinity for the animal kingdom, I had to include the gorgeous "Once Upon a Time" artwork, by Melissa Nucera, in this blog. 

 I'm especially enjoying my multi-tasking this spring as I sit in my small exercise room in front of my Highland cottage, lined by windows facing the patio, ride my recumbent stationery bike, and read or look at what's going on outside.  So, I'm now looking through my book shelves to discover more unread books that will help me meet my spring reading challenge.

The Perks of Being President

The only thing I'm President of is the Highland Restoration Association, an organization that for 35 years has worked to revitalize the historic Highland area.  I work extremely hard at this unpaid position, but there are some perks to the gig--I get to see inside and outside some incredible Highland properties and meet the awesome people living in our neighborhood!

We are currently working on a Highland Garden Tour scheduled for May 18.  Seven neighborhood gardens will be featured, and it is going to be a memorable and fun-filled event--it's this year's version of the Highland Experience.  For two Sundays now, the committee has toured potential garden sites and occasionally gotten to tour inside the houses with the gardens.  Last Sunday I got my wits about me and snapped a few quick shots with my IPhone. 

Tour participants will not be touring the homes during our May event--so here's a sneak look inside one of the homes constructed in an old fire station, plus a couple views from tour gardens as the home owners work to get their outdoor spaces ready for the tour.

Anyone want to slide down the fire pole?

Fire hose faucet

Glass Bar Made from Fire Ladder

Opulent Master Bedroom

Now a preview of a couple gardens tucked away from sight in Highland.

Border Garden in process

Secluded Garden Hideaway

Bottle Tree

Ink in My Veins

Gil Stephenson


Gil Stephenson was my great-grandfather.  According to the book, Hello Towns, by Sherwood Anderson, Gil was a child factory worker in the era shortly after the civil war, and he continued to work hard all his life.  Eventually Gil founded a newspaper, the Marion Democrat, in his and my hometown of Marion, Virginia.   Gil set the type and ran the newspaper with the help of his wife and children.    He eventually sold the paper to Sherwood Anderson, the well-known 20th century American author, who had married a woman from Marion, moved to the Virginia mountains and was looking for something to do.

After he sold the paper, Gil stayed on as a typesetter, working first with Sherwood Anderson, then Sherwood's son.  Gil had ink in his veins and typesetting was his trade. 


My great-uncle Joe helped his dad set type and then continued to work at the newspaper in some capacityfor decades, through numerous owners and newspaper name changes. 



Joe Stephenson

My great-aunt Cleo was one of the older women who served as neighborhood correspondents and turned in copy each week about the social happenings in town. Her typewriter is now in my library.

Working at this newspaper was my first job when I finished high school.  I was the Features Editor of our high school paper, and my mother encouraged me to apply for a job as a summer intern at this "real" newspaper.  It was a small town weekly then, and I covered the meetings of the town council, the county board of supervisors, and the school board unless it was an important meeting, then my editor would go. I also got to write feature articles, which were my favorites. However, I didn't like the tragedies and begged off covering a drowning at the near-by lake. I probably wasn't really a good reporter back then, lacking a certain aggressiveness in going after a story, but all my life I have loved newspapers, reporters and writing.

I didn't want to read local author and former newspaperwoman Judy Christie's Green series books for a long time.  I knew they were set in a fictitious town of Green in northwest Louisiana and were part of the religious fiction genre, but that's all I knew about them.  Despite these doubts, I downloaded Gone to Green on my Kindle just for the "cultural capital."  Locally everyone was talking about the books, yet I knew next to nothing about them.  Well, Christie had me at the milieu.  Once I discovered the book was about a young woman, Lois Barker, who inherited a small town newspaper, I was hooked.  So far I've only read the first book in the series but I plan to continue.  I can't help myself--I have ink in my veins!

A Year of Reading from my Library

My goal this year is to only read from my extensive, existing personal library.  I'm running out of room for books and might be persuaded to pass along a book to a friend once I've read it.  I can't seem to part easily with a book I haven't read because as soon as I do, I'll want to read it.

I do have several exceptions to this edict of only reading books I already own--it doesn't count if someone gives or loans me a book, or if someone gives me gift card for a new book, or if I download a book on my Kindle.  After all, the Kindle was a gift and it would be rude not to use it.

Today's book review falls in the latter category--I downloaded it on my Kindle, but it is an "old" book, published originally in 2009.  Number 3 in the humorous mystery series by Lisa Lutz, an Edgar Award nominated author, this book has all the characteristics of a Spellman mystery--no bodies pile up in this series but misunderstandings and subterfuge abound.

Isabel "Izzy" Spellman has taken a hiatus from the family's detective agency, but it hasn't ended her investigating because the Spellman family can't stop investigating each other.  Brother David is acting weird, Sister Rae is undeniably a weird teenager, but has suddenly turned studious while she relentlessly tries to get back in the good graces of her best friend, police inspector, Henry Stone.  Izzie is being blackmailed, she has lost her job as a bartender and is working freelance on a case while she decides whether to rejoin the family's investigation agency.  And so this crazy mystery goes lurching along to its predictable ending, but the fun isn't in the mystery but the characters and their strange, but somehow believable, behavior. 

A little bit of the Spellman family keeps me satisfied for quite awhile, plus the numerous footnotes used by the author are difficult to deal with on the Kindle.  Tomorrow another Kindle read brings me closer to home.

Rain Day

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, my paying job is Supervisor of an Early Head Start program in Caddo Parish.  I  was hired to write the federal grant that landed the program for our area, and I have stayed on board to supervise the program.  It has been a challenging and rewarding experience. Our center serves low income children, 2 months to 3 years of age.   We have our share of adventures up on the Cooper Road, the location of our main center and my primary office.

Today is a rainy day in NW Louisiana, but it assumed "Rain Day" significance when our CEO called the Early Head Start Center and told us to have the parents pick up the children early because of the threatening weather all around us.  The students and staff had already been outside this morning to experience the rain before the weather got stormy, then they spent time seated in the hall during nap time because of the tornado threat, while the administrative staff looked at weather reports on TV, computers and listened to NOAA radio. 

It took a couple hours but all parents were finally contacted and showed up to pick up their little ones.
 

I love my Early Head Start office on MLK Drive.  Photo on left shows the area that one of our dads plowed in front of our storage building where we will plant our Early Head Start garden.  Last year we had a bumper crop of okra and cherry tomatoes.  This year we are expanding our selection.  We also have birds that build nests on the ledge outside one of our back doors every spring.  This year's nest is made of mud.

Bird's nest on the left and dancin' under the awning in the rain on the right. 

Stuff Ricky Makes

Ricky asked me if I had mentioned on my blog how clever he is.  I had to admit I had not, but reminded him this was only my second posting and I am still creating this blog even as I try to post fascinating tidbits about our life in Highland.  So this post is dedicated to Ricky.  The belief among Ricky's friends and family (and I'm quoting), "Ricky can do anything."  They tell the story about Ricky fixing a friend's car by blowing on it.  I don't know if Ricky can do anything, but he is very handy.  Ricky used to be a farrier (he shoed or, if you prefer, shod horses), and he still enjoys doing a bit of blacksmithing and welding.  Thus, our trip to East Texas a few weeks ago to pick up a load of used horseshoes.  He's been working, so I'm going to include a few photos of his recent creations.

This is the second of the horseshoe tables Ricky has made for the patio.  Our friend Karmann gave him a slab of marble for this one, and he was off and running.  Note the possum that wanted to get in the photo (in the background to left of table).  I told you we have possums that think they are cats.

View of table without the possum.  Ricky actually modified the table a little bit since this photo but you get the idea. 

Pictured below are examples of the forged plant hangers that Ricky makes with the horseshoes.  They are bent into unique shapes and are ready to hold our hanging planters.  In the background of  one of the photos is an example of one of Ricky's wind chimes (red cylinder), made from something he repurposed--I'm just not sure what it was.

I leave you with one last view of our patio in the summer--a patio Ricky built using old bricks that were left in this yard when we bought the house.  The fountain Ricky created from rocks from the old flower garden borders is featured against the trellis that he constructed.  Note the orange table top that Ricky made and affixed to some table legs that a friend dragged out of the trash and gave them to us.  An affinity for trash to treasures is definitely a characteristic of a true Highland resident, and all of these quirky items make our backyard quintessentially Highland and demonstrate that Ricky is either very clever or very quirky or perhaps both.

Our Life in Highland

Before you get to the cottage hidden in our backyard, you see our big white house, a modified four-square architecturally-speaking, but looking a bit like a farmhouse set down in the city in some great Monopoly game played decades ago. 

The backyard porch and patio leading to the cottage--this is the perfect place for sitting outside, eating lunch and relaxing.  And that is exactly what my husband, Ricky, and I did today.  Creating this blog was frying my brain and I needed to detox with nature.  This is one of my favorite spots to relax and escape the world for a little while.  I love to sit on the porch in the mornings, drink coffee and write, before I go to work.  I am joined by numerous cats and the occasional possum.

In addition to supervising the Early Head Start program here in Shreveport, the city in Northwest Louisiana where I live, I am President of the Highland Restoration Association, the organization working to preserve and revitilize our historic neighborhood.  I also laughingly claim to operate the neighborhood Feral Feline Feeding Station because we feed many stray cats and take as many as we can to our local low cost spay and neuter clinic to be fixed. 

In between all of this, I read and read and read. 

 

I love my library!