Shooting the Breeze

Saturday started off with me wrapping up my reading of MFK Fisher's "Two Towns in Provence", a compilation of two smaller works, one about living in Aix-en-Provence with her two young daughters for a couple of years from 1959-61, written in 1964, and the other written in the mid-70's as she made what I think may have been a farewell visit to Marseille, and recalled all her earlier trips there (starting in 1929!). Some of her adventures and travails make my apprenticeship with the Picasso seem quite insignificant, so I have decided to calm down about it and have had a couple of very smooth driving days as a consequence. Plus I now have the downhill hairpins on the bike to preoccupy me.

We set off on a relatively easy ride to circle the Dentelles (which if I didn't describe them before in my fatigue at having scaled them every which way are a chain of steep hills/mountains named because of the lacy protuberances of eroded limestone). First we took the lovely smooth wide road to Bedoin and gawked briefly at all the cyclists again as we road through and on to Crillon-le-Brave, then Caromb and Beaumes-de-Venise, where we had coffee at one of those somewhat dodgy men's bars we like (but ate croissants from the patisserie), and then headed to Vacqueyras. There had, to this point, been some swirling gusting winds that were a little alarming on the bike and you had to really lean into them to maintain your line of travel, but it was unclear what direction they were blowing. As we took the turn to Vacqueyras and headed north, however, it became crystal clear that the wind was the famous Mistral blowing chilliliy straight down the Rhone. It felt like we hit a wall. We did not struggle on that much longer, and I am sure both of us recalled having just passed a large cave de degustation when we turned around and headed back to it, where several small samples were had and I discovered the ingenious packaging of three litres of olive oil in a bag in a box so that it will never get stale/rancid. Of course I did not buy any there and then but will return later, or keep an eye out for it elsewhere. The picture of the flags indicates (perhaps) the strength of the wind, which we were told was a "mild" one, and which can last one or several days.

The verdict on the ride -- half was great -- half was so-so, and a short amount was awful. We had no time to dwell on the shortcomings of that day's cycling, because it was already past 2 pm and we had to have lunch (pasta with a tomato sauce and fresh goat cheese ricotta and basil), and shower, and make an appetizer and get dressed for the concert at 4:00p pm. FIrst for the concert.

All the performers, ranging in age from about 7 to 75, are the offspring of one family of five siblings (three boys and two girls), all of whom live in Les Alazards (the little hamlet down the end of our road where Paul and June built the new house). The two sisters (the 75 year olds) alternated playing the organ with another gentleman. They are unmarried and live together in the house across from some friends of Pat's. Their brothers are musical (but married) although they did not themselves participate in the event. The whole thing was masterminded and controlled by the wife of one of the brothers, who teaches at the Conservatory in Avignon and plays a pretty mean glockenspiel. There were three aspiring cellists, who took turns. A couple of older boys on guitars. One clarinet, one flute, two violinists, several keyboardists, including a wee blond fellow who had to sit on a rolled up blanket on a chair in order that his hands would be in the correct position above the keyboard (and whose mother seemed quite nervous as he played and an older cousin turned the pages of his sheet music). It was all quite fun, and then all we English folk had a cocktail party, where there was lots of rose and white and red wine and fresh-pressed juices from people's own grapes and their home-cured olives and Pat's brine-cured sweet cherries (delicious) and crackers and croquettes I made from leftover chicken-leek risotto and served with olive jam. Most people left, and then those of us who remained had more wine and ate all the cheese from our fridge and Pat's and that "brick of gold" fig loaf that we had been hoarding at the back of the bread box, and we looked at all the photos Glenn and I have taken and there was a lot of good conversation. One lovely couple (Nick and Ellen) are quite interesting -- she is an archivist at Duke and he is a mediator dealing with criminal justice cases in North Carolina, and in England. We are all regrouping agin on Tuesday evening on June and Paul's lovely terrace (from which you can see a beautiful sunset) for a dinner Glenn and I will make. It will be for my birthday and for his departure (the following morning at 6 am!) and for Paul and June's departure to an art exhibit near Cannes where he is installing his carbon footprints (large footprints that have been scattered about the driveway and walked over by all of us for some days now).

It was an excellent day, although I did not manage to get very far along in the pistou I am making (only the chicken stock).