So let's just skip ahead and admit we finalized the purchase of my lovely little house a full year ago and I've blogged only one single time since -- although I'll likely go back and share some of the lessons learned in the first year. Frankly, there was so much to do when we first moved in that there wasn't really much time left for sitting in front of a laptop and clicking away. And then, of course, there was a year-long battle with France Telecom and its evil ISP sister Orange.fr. so that I couldn't even get online to blog if I'd wanted to. It is worth mentioning before moving on the extreme pleasure of having my sister, brother-in-law Saint Peter and long-suffering son with me the first time I inserted an ancient key in a rusty lock that was finally all mine. And on that first, fabulous trip they all earned the right to call the house their own by painting, helping me scrub a century of grime off the living room tile floor and moving furniture from one room to another, and back again.
Now though, a year later, I'm doing exactly as planned -- traveling back and forth between Austin and Provence and enjoying every delicious moment of village life when I'm there.
One of the joys of my village is the verdant, vine-filled countryside all around that presents constant opportunities for hiking and little adventures. The village overlooks a long broad valley filled with vines, that runs all the way to massive Mt. Ventoux. Not far away are the dramatic peaks of the Dentelles de Montmirail, where great hiking trails begin and end in the wine village of Gigondas.
Or you can just walk a few minutes to where the pavement ends and take a walk in the vines. Any excuse will do. Yesterday, the excuse was Ravi.
My friend Patricia -- a size 0 blonde who is as kind as she is lovely -- runs a luxurious B&B a minute from my house. Behind the main house she used to keep her pet donkey, Ravi ("delighted" in French). This worked pretty well for awhile, but a couple of summers back, Ravi decided he'd had quite enough of the pen, was lonely and thought the vines beyond the fence looked especially appetizing, indeed. Over several months, he kept inventing new ways to escape, and Patricia would spot him at the top of a distant hill munching grapevines and thoroughly enjoying the outing. Rounding Ravi up inevitably involved an hour or more of Patricia chasing him up one row and down the other. Great fun.... for Ravi.
So last year Ravi was sent to live a few miles away at a rudimentary stable owned by Pierre-David, a jovial, retired boulanger who has packed on a few pound in his later years but whose youth was spent as a horseback acrobat in the circus. Patricia walks a couple of miles through the vines to see Ravi several times a week and she sometimes invites me to go along.
The circus and horses were Pierre-David's two great loves, but when you are French and come from a long line of bakers, there's really not a lot to discuss. For 40 years, Pierre-David baked baguettes in the village of Tullette. His reward in retirement is a one-room shack at the end of a dirt road where he has built pens and can indulge his love of animals -- and escape his wife and daughter in town. Ravi has a spacious pen and seems to like the arrangement. He's well fed. He has friends -- beside Pierre-David, there's an ancient, molting mule, a Clydesdale pony with a missing ear and a passel of rescued hunting dogs. Pierre-David seems equally content. Inside his shack, displayed floor-to-ceiling on the dark wooden walls are technicolor pin-ups of naked women from Penthouse and Playboy, a cluttered card table and a refrigerator stocked with Cote du Rhone Rose, all the essentials.
Ravi was delighted to see us and even more delighted with the hard baguettes and carrots we brought for his snack. Pierre-David was delighted to have guests with whom to share a bottle of wine and a sunset. Patricia was content hugging the neck of Ravi and whispering endearments in his furry ears. And I was delighted there was a full moon for the walk back through the vines after all the wine and amusement.
(Painting of donkey -- a little darker than Ravi but in the same spirit -- by Debra Sisson.)
