Racing the Rain

It's raining hard today and getting cold, but despite the falling temperature and the occasional, terrifying bolt of lightening, men are out all over the valley rushing to bring in the last of the grapes. The usual leisurely pace of life here has a charged undercurrent as everyone races to complete the harvest before the real cold arrives. And this rain is a reminder of the need to hurry. Driving to Vaison-la-Romain, Vinsobres, Nyons, Gigondas, you must budget extra time because there will undoubtedly be a long line of cars following a giant harvester moving between fields. And little tractors in brilliant blue and green, looking like toys belonging to the children of giants, pull wagons loaded with shiny grapes. The life of this entire valley rests on those delicate purple pearls and everyone knows it. So if a few tractors slow you down on your way to work, it seems like a small price to pay.

The word is that the 2009 Cotes du Rhone will be good, but not great. Too dry. Too hot.

These pictures were shot on my bicycle ride a few days ago -- back when people were still stopping for lunch.

A true test of character

I can tell a lot about the character of a French person by the way they react to my pathetic efforts to speak French. There are those who are impatient and the second I open my mouth they roll their eyes and tap their feet. There are the mean ones who, even though they can easily understand what I'm saying, arrange their faces in the strained expression of someone utterly mystified by the mutterings of the village idiot. There are others who view life as a continuous opportunity, so when I ask a question in French they take the opportunity to practice their English. And there are the one I like best, those who are spiritually inclined and feel gratitude in all their human interactions -- they appreciate my effort to speak (and are even more grateful when I stop).

To be fair, although I have an excellent vocabulary, I speak like someone who grew up in Texas and didn't learn to speak the language until she was well into her 30's. Grammatically speaking, I don't. And I often take the long way around, constructing sentences that if translated would be something like, "Could you tell me, please, if it might be possible to travel from here to the next village by car in less than a half an hour?" rather than, "Is it far?" Perhaps I try too hard. This can be fixed.

But there is just really not that much I can do about the accent. I have been practicing lately the phrase for turtleneck as it is getting chilly and I've been buying a few winter clothes. Turtleneck is "col roulé" and this "o-u" sound gives me a headache. I simply cannot hear the subtle difference between "roulé," "rue," and "roue." The result is that sometimes when I try to say "sweater" I actually say "chicken" ("pull" versus "poule"). So if I'm dressed a little funny this winter, you'll know why.

For whom the bell tolls

I have to say, I feel vindicated. This is a very small village and everyone who lives here describes it as très tranquille. In fact, without any shops and only about 125 houses, the loudest thing when I moved in was the sound of the fountain splashing on the small place one house away.

So imagine my surprise when the I arrived last summer to discover the village had fixed the bell in the tower just a few short yards from my front door. Although it appears quite delicate in its little wrought iron frame, this isn't some puny, feminine little tinkle, this is a proud, powerful gong meant to be heard by workers in the vinyards that surround town. This is an explosion-on-the-hour that rattles the windows 24 hours a day. And we're not talking a single ring, either. This bell gongs on the hour, then again three minutes later (in case you were in a coma and missed it the first time) and then gongs a single time on the half-hour to remind you to put in your earplugs and prepare for the next assault. At midnight, you get 24 full gongs -- and each time the bell rings it is preceded by a flurry of extremely loud clicks like a giant deck of cards being shuffled. This is the sound of the electronic controls that keep the clock tower in sync with a satellite circling above. In my opinion, whoever fixed the bell meant for it to be heard on that satellite.

Last summer, I gently brought up the matter of the extreme loudness of the town bell, or cloche, to Madame Leblanc, the mayor. "I was very surprised by the bell," I said nicely. "It certainly is loud." Ignoring my obvious attempt at a faint complaint, she replied, "Yes, everyone is very happy to have the bell back. Everyone missed it." Not everyone.

She then followed up, as everyone does at the mention of the bell, with a rather long history of the importance of the bell in the Middle Ages when no one had watches or clocks and the entire life of the village -- when to rise, when to return from the fields, when to attend mass or a wedding or funeral -- everything was guided by the sounding of the bell. Apparently, people felt tremendous affection for their town bells, great towers were erected to house them and several phrases still in use come from the days when town bells were of such great importance - phrases like "death knell." I'd be a lot more interested in this charming story if I could stay awake to hear it. Unhappily, I'm not getting that much sleep.

But last night, I was invited for drinks with four ladies from the village -- Dominique, Marie-Helene and les deux Eveylin -- and all of them complained about the amazingly loud bell. Marie-Helene, who for 20 years has been coming down from Paris each September to her home here and who lives right next door, said she had finally resorted to ear plugs after five sleepless nights. Evelyn added that she has become used to it, but if she spends a night somewhere else it takes her about a week to stop hearing the chime in the middle of the night. There was a lot of giggling around the subject of the bell, and the more wine Dominque poured the greater the giggling. There was some small attempt to address ways to fix the problem, but in the end everyone agreed that perhaps it was best to just close the windows and hope the winter is long.

September in Provence

Throughout the village, the pavement is littered with the remains of heavy brown figs and the leaves on the trees and vines look exhausted. The air is so soft that it is hard to recall the heat of only a month ago and the days call to you to go for a walk, ride a bike or, as I will do this Sunday, drive over with the windows down to see the work of this marvelous artist Julian Merrow-Smith, who's elegant figs are pictured here.