Lucky Me
My son, Carl,
returned to England last Friday, taking with him one of the masks
provided to me by the village authorities. I have to hope he will
use it and be sensible about contact in the UK. In many ways it was
good having him here but 4 months is quite a long time, he doesn’t
speak French, my friends are much older than him (and mostly French)
and he was missing his friends in England. It has been a question of
choosing an appropriate time for his return to that madhouse of a
country and last Friday seemed to be it. I hope that was a good
decision.
This evening, having
played (and won!) three games of boules I sat out in the Cafe des
Sports and thought how lucky I am to be here. The evening mercifully
lowered the temperature (it has been very hot and dry here for a
month now – August weather and we are not in August yet) so I had a
couple of beers with friends before coming home to attack the
watering necessary front and back to keep plants alive. I feel I
have everything I want, everything I could reasonably ask for, here
and now I also have my house back to myself. Carl did a few jobs
that would have been difficult for me while he was here so the house
and outside are in better shape than they would otherwise have been.
One thing that
lockdown did was to focus my mind (and Carl’s then) on cooking;
what else, other than gardening was there to do? Hopefully my
friends invited to eat will reap the benefits. I use a lot of herbs
and spices in cooking and have a herb patch outside my front door
with mint, parsley, oregano, winter savory and sage in it. The
parsley has run to seed but is easily obtainable all year round in
shops and the same goes for the mint. But the hot weather has
allowed me to dry a lot of sage and winter savory for later use.
Rosemary is perennial and ubiquitous here and so are bay trees so
that sees me set up for winter cooking. Fresh coriander can be a
problem but Algerians and Moroccans in the markets in Buis and Vaison
normally have a plentiful supply for just a few cents a bunch. Most
dry spices, other than esoteric Indian and Indonesian ones, are
available in both markets so I’m very adequately supplied.
Given that my life
here consists mostly of socialising with friends, gardening, playing
boules (and whatever else is buzzing through my puzzled mind) I think
that I am very lucky. I don’t lead (can’t afford) a very
luxurious life but don’t feel the need for one, love what I have
and find it affordable. Lucky me.
