Two Excursions And A Book
The first excursion of the year organised by the Amitié Mollanaise was a trip to Les Baux, a small old village on a hill to the south which used to have a quarry just below it. The quarry is now a large hall with very thick rectangular pillars and all surfaces rendered smooth for light displays. The light displays are themed, the theme when I visited being Egypt. The constantly moving images over the different surfaces were quite striking but became boring after a while. Visits are intended to last an hour and that seemed about the right amount of time. No doubt because of the coach loads of visitors to see the light display the old village has been given over almost entirely to tourist attractions: cafes, restaurants and shops selling artisan products and mementos. I found that disappointing but probably inevitable.
On the way back we stopped at an olive farm, the riskily named Le Moulin de la Couille, the Bollock Mill. The olive oil produced there was certainly very good but, at 27 euros a litre, moe than I was willing to pay. I buy a supermarket oil for cooking at a quarter of that price and a fruity Spanish oil for salads in the Buis market for less than half that. The stall in the Buis market has a dozen different oils from which to choose and that should cater for most tastes. Perhaps not if you are an expert aficionado…….but I am not.
Then, this week, I decided to hold the English conversation class at the allotments along with drinks and muchies that everyone brought along. It was a very enjoyable, relaxed get-together for which I supplied an allotment vocabulary. We took a tour around the allotments before getting down to the serious business of eating and drinking. Josephine, a wild plant forager, made a pesto on the spot for us all to sample. I think everyone was pleased with the evening; photos are below.
I have had two book projects in mind as there is nothing printed you can buy that is of interest or helpful if you visit Mollans. One is to reproduce a history of Mollans that was created and printed some 10 years ago, for which I did the English translation. However several people were involved and the rights to reproduce it are complicated. So I have put that on the back burner for now. If it were to be done it really needed doing immediately to catch the summer tourist trade and that doesn’t seem possible. My other project is to write and produce a book myself for visitors to Mollans. That is progressing and friend Claudine has undertaken to translate my English text into French. So it will be in both languages and should be finished and on sale early next year at, I hope, a modest price.
