There was recently an article in the New York Times on making life lists, a list of things you want to accomplish in your life before you die. I think it probably all started with the book, A Thousand Things To See Before You Die. The article said that many people have a real feeling of accomplishment as they check things off of their list. There is also a movie coming out about two men with cancer who are trying to get everything done that they have ever wanted to do before the end.

I never had a list. I had some things in my life that I wanted to accomplish, rather vaguely.
I wanted to get married-check
I wanted to have children-check
I wanted to be a nurse-check. I never enjoyed working as a nurse but I did it.
I wanted to be divorced-check. Wait, that wasn’t my plan.
I wanted to live in Mexico-check. Wait, I never did and here I am living in France.

So, I got to thinking what would I put on my list? What do I want to do before I die? All I can think of are places I want to see, countries or regions I want to visit that I haven’t been to yet. What does that tell you about me? I know I’m not alone in this and that many people want to travel and see the world. I’d also like the have a house in the States so I could see my family more but this will depend on my winning the lottery. I’d like to publish a book-doesn’t every one?

I don’t want to jump out of an airplane, bungie jump, eat strange things, or have a new occupation.

I want to enjoy life, enjoy each day and try to live in the moment. As you get older, and boy am I getting older, simple things become a pleasure. I try to go out every day and look at the sun set. That is something that doesn’t require money, just a little time to be set aside, and my soul is refreshed.

He doesn’t have a list and I have to say he looks very content.

A chapel I love near la Tour d’Aigues

I’ve got some exciting travel plans coming up and I hope you will follow me as I post about them even though many of you come here to read about France.

First I am going to England for about a week and I will be blogging about that. I’m so thrilled to be going there. It is such a lovely country.

Next, after we return from England, we will almost immediately head out for the States. We are doing something new to us, a home exchange. I was contacted by a very nice reader of my blog about the possibility of exchanging homes and when I heard where she and her husband live, it was a no brainer. Yes, dear reader (I love this phrase. I have read it on other blogs and like to use it), I am going to be blogging from Pebble Beach, California, one of the most beautiful areas in the world. We are going to be there for six weeks and then go on to Texas to see those of the family who won’t be coming to visit us while we are in California.

So my postings may not be as plentiful but I’m planning to try and keep up to date. I will have my trusty camera with me and will take many photos and I have a few things up my sleeve, or should I say on my hard drive, about life in Paris that I will post on. Emily, my home exchange person, may be writing a few things about their time in Provence which I will post and you can see Provence through some fresh eyes.

My favorite thing to do is travel so I am really looking forward to the next two months. Please come along.

You wouldn’t think building a cabana in your yard would be that big a deal, would you? Well there can be difficulties. Maurice, being the honest soul that he is, sent a letter to the mayor and the Luberon officials telling them of our plans of building the cabana. This is a big deal here as everything has to conform to some Luberon National Park standards. For instance, we couldn’t do our porch the way that we wanted to and our fire place chimney couldn’t be on an outside wall. Your house has to have that Luberon look. So Maurice went right ahead and had our cabana built without waiting for permission. It seems to be pretty standard around here-it seems to me that most people build just about what they want to. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff the Savoyards have done to their house, some things that I wouldn’t think would be alllowed, such as a wooden porch. But, I digress. After the cabana was finished we received a letter from the official of the Luberon Association. He said our cabana did not conform to Luberon standards. He listed several reasons for this. It was kind of scary as we learned that it was possible that we would have to tear the whole thing down. Maurice finally went and talked to the mayor who is basically the one who could make us do so but he told Maurice he didn’t need to, thank God.

Reflection of a sunset in our pool-next to the cabana

A friend told me that they got permission to build a cabana-they call them pool houses here. A cabana is a log cabin, I found out. Instead of an open covered structure like ours, they built a little guest house and added a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Luckily, none of this can be seen from the road. Her neighbors could complain, and if they did, she would have to pull the whole thing down. Once ten years have passed you are safe. Unfortunately for us, you can get a very clear view of the cabana from the road up above us so it is hard to do anything without the whole village knowing about it.

Whenever there are clouds, I always get outside to see the show being put on by the sun as it sets.

What is interesting to me is that not one but two neighbors have stopped by and told us how much they like our cabana, and would we mind if they copied it. It’s not the common type seen around here, I guess. We always say sure but warn them about what they need to do to conform to the Luberon standards.

Well, it was only for one day, but we did have a little excursion down to the coast. The Cotes d’Azure is famous for a reason. I still give a little gasp of surprise as we go over a hill and the Mediterranian Sea comes into view. It has to be one of the most lovely coastlines in the world. Maurice’s sister and her family were staying in a family resort type place, rather like Club Med I imagine, but more simple. After lunch we took a boat to an island to walk around.

As you can see, the name of the Island is Porquerolles. I had never heard of it either. It is near the city of Hyeres, also unknown to me until I moved to this region. There are no cars allowed on the island although the hotels had a few. Mostly there were tourists and tourists on bikes.

Not your normal taxi

This is the “beach”. Many of the beaches are rocky like this, although there were a couple of places with sand here.

A view of one end of the beach. This is the wide part. At one area there was barely enough room to walk by the people lying on their towels, catching the sun.

The island is covered with the parasol pine tree. I love their shapes. We have three in our yard but they won’t be looking like this for a hundred years or so.

A view of the sea a little inland. I did some sort of rookie mistake and there is a dark shadow on the top left of the photo as I must have held something in my hand that entered the lens.

So we had a great time. Maurice’s sister is alot of fun and, interestingly, she is one of those French women who don’t get fat but she eats with alot of control having no wine, skipping the salad and cheese and only having a small amount of dessert. Her two grown daughters were there and totally blew away the theory that French women don’t get fat. They were very Rubinesque, and voluptuous. I fit somewhere in the middle, rather on the road to being “juicy” myself.

Everyone has interesting neighbors, I dare say, and I think we do as well. One house, two down the hill from us, was bought by a family from the Savoy region of France in the Alps. They bought it from an artist who had tried to build it himself with the help of friends but in the end ran out of money and probably realized he was in over his head. He had once, on first meeting Maurice, told him that our foundation had been laid too quickly and would become defective which really made Maurice feel insulted. I didn’t understand the conversation really well so I’m not sure why Maurice felt this way but he did.

So when the Savoyards bought the house we weren’t surprised when all of the sudden there was all sorts of work going on. The husband of the couple was some sort of contractor so knew what he was doing. It looked like they had to do some sort of major work under the house in the foundation-ha, Mr. Artist-and we saw work going on every single week-end. The Savoyards didn’t live there full time but just made the long trip every Friday night leaving on Sunday night. Then it looked like that work was done and they were on to all sort of other things, adding a pool, then a retractable pool dome, a very elegant, wooden water collection tank which put ours to shame. Every Saturday morning we would wake up to the sound of a cement mixer going, or digging being done, hammering sounds in the air. It went on just about every week-end for over a year. Maurice would look at me when we heard the sound of industry going on and say, “The Savoyards are here.” What in the world was there left to do? I’m hoping to someday get invited inside to see what they did as I did have a brief glimpse of what the artist did at the beginning.

I had wanted to invite the Savoyards to our party so we could get to know them but, suddenly, they have stopped coming and several strangers have appeared in their place and we think that perhaps they have been working so hard getting the house in shape so that they could rent it out. We haven’t seen them at all this August which is unusual.

Maurice tells me that when he invited the neighbor who was involved in building our pool and who lives directly down the hill next to the Savoyards and mentioned that he had hoped to invite them to our party the pool man said he was glad they couldn’t come. He was tired of being awakened every weekend morning to the noise of contruction work, especially since his wife is so ill. And, the worst part, is that about 6 months ago the pool man was burning a pile of wood and debris and the fire got away from him. This is very easy to happen here as the wood can get very dry, there is often heat, and sudden gusts of wind are very common. The Savoyards saw what was happening from their deck and laughed as they watched him try to get the fire in control. In fact, he had to call the fire department for help which leads to a big fine so it pays to be very careful. The next morning the Savoyards were at his house telling him that his fire had damaged their pool cover dome and wanting him to get it fixed. Maybe if they had helped this wouldn’t have happened. Anyway, interesting, huh? Maybe one of these days we will meet them and maybe one day I will see the inside of their home, but I doubt it.

PS-the photos have nothing to do with what I have written. They are just some random shots of this and that. The first photo is the porch of a friend.

Wednesday of this week was a religious holiday in France, Assumption Day. Our little village held a little party serving some munchies and aperitifs to celebrate the holiday.

There were alot of people there that I had never seen before. There are many homes around in the countryside that surrounds the actual village and it looked like many at the party were outsiders, so to speak. In fact, we often feel like outsiders at these parties as we aren’t in the actually village which is one reason why I had the block party recently.

Our village does have a crumbling chateau above it. There is a gite in the village which is a sort of dorm for hikers and bikers who come in large numbers to this region. There is no boulangerie, no store, nothing here. There is no longer any school although there was one at one time and the party was held in the little courtyard in front of it. In fact, the school was used in a scene of a popular older French movie called, The Glory of My Father. Someone actually now lives in the upper rooms of the school.

It was nice to see our neighbors who had come to our block party. Several people who live in the actual village said hello to me as they recognize me from my trudges up and down the hill and the road I take takes me through the village. Any time we have talked with someone they always point that out. So, it wasn’t the most exciting party I have ever been to but sort of nice to get a slice of life view of village life and I had a very good aperitif that I must try to dupicate. It consisted of some sort of sweet white wine and and almond flavoring. It was very tasty. They had some good guacamole too-that always surprises me in France.