A Day in Provence Benny Goodman - 20 September 2019
A DAY IN PROVINCE - BENNY GOODMAN
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Cover picture by Léonard Cotte on Unsplash
Copyright © 2019 by Benny Goodman All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
A DAY IN PROVINCE - BENNY GOODMAN
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A curious incident…
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Le Vieil Hôpital
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Petit Déjeuner
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Matin
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Le Déjeuner
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Mont Ventoux
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Après-Midi
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Apèritifs
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Dîner
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Crépuscle
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A curious incident… Somewhere, enclosed within the creamy stone walls of the neighbouring houses, a dog barks. In return, another decides that it too should contribute. And so, in unison, if not in harmony, they yap. What they are yapping about or what provocation to bark they experience, is a complete mystery. Perhaps it is to scare away a tiny testicle tickling black legged scorpion, or they are barking at their own shadows they mistake for an intruder, or for no other reason that they like the sound of their own gruff. Perhaps it is a call and response love song, uniting the otherwise separated star-crossed canine lovers. Perhaps it is merely a gainsay of “Oi, shut up over there!” with “No, you shut up over there!”, but in canine French and in constant repetition and with absolutely no conclusion to the ‘debate’. The sound of barks wafts over the rooftops of Caromb, a Provençal village which has Mont Ventoux as its dominating neighbour. It drifts with the wind, weaving its way among the gutters, chimneys, trees and climbing shrubs. It creeps around the stone corners, bounces off gable ends and wends its way through the tiny one car wide streets and alleyways towards an open old rickety wooden framed window, whose shutters have long gone, but whose rusting metal fixings refuse to detach from their deep set anchorages within the stone wall of Le Vieil Hôpital. Not even the bakers are awake.
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Le Vieil Hôpital
Situated in the medieval part of the village, the ‘Old Hospital’ is an ancient threestory stone construction accessed by a huge wooden door set in a stone arch in the wall leading into an inner shady courtyard. The ancient wooden door is so big that one actually enters through door within a door. Its black hinges should creak, but they rarely have to open. There is not a straight line in the place. Ancient wooden beams hold everything up more in hope than in expectation. Creepers adorn its walls. Fig and almond trees grow in its courtyards and deep down its caves in the basement provide shelter from the baking hot sun of summer, and of course provide a storage area for wine should you be so inclined to do so.
From the inner courtyard on the ground floor one ascends stone steps into a central hallway in which the staircase ascends up three flights in four stages. These steps are a mix of well worn and cracked wood and hard red ceramic tiles. The wooden framed windows sit in the space allocated to them within the walls, but in such a way as to provide light between the frame and the wall, and also providing access to little flying things. This gap between the wall and frame would cause many an Englishman to reach for the filler in order to fend off winter. There is no need for such heroics in Provence.
Air and light are in abundant supply as is the cold and dark should you require it. The walls are covered with old paintings, large and small. The many nooks and crannies will have an ornament. There are ancient dusty books of the sort found in very old bookshops tucked away in dark alleys in University towns. There sits a Buddha, then a Catholic icon of Jesus and miniature musicians in black. This is not Ikea. This is Bohemia reflected back at you by
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the mirrors on the walls. Nothing looks remotely planned. Haphazard is more apt but in such a way as it all works together to provide more than just a pleasing aesthetic sense of wellbeing, unless of course you are averse to ill-fitting doors, windows and dust. Those who like modernist steel, glass and fully functioning fittings will wince. But this place has been here for centuries and should not be given over readily to ‘modernisation’. The taps work, lights turn on and the toilet flushes. There are no skeletons of patients past who died for want of modern medicine and thus of unspeakably hideous diseases, well at least no material skeletons but I suspect many hide in the many closets in the many floors.
This is a house with a story that inhabits every room, and for every stone step leading upwards to its sun terrace, a thousand feet have trod. One does not really own a house like this, one merely borrows it and shares it with ghosts of the past and with myriad tiny creatures and plants that live within it. The heat of the day and the cool of the night make the house breathe as timber creaks, expands and contracts.
The pictures that decorate the walls are many and eclectic. In one room there are 5 black framed sketches of French characters in cartoon form. In another, a line of 5 white framed abstract colours in addition to portraits of 19th century ladies and old sepia photographs of the countryside both provincial, wild and exotic. Thankfully there are no clichés of a copied Monet or a Matisse. There are no Parisian scenes of can-can girls or of the café tables of Montmartre. No Eiffel Tower.
This first-floor window overlooks one of the three courtyards of fig trees, stone ornaments reflecting an Asian taste and a small bistro set of table and chairs. Along its windowsill a creeping plant appears with its red bell shape flowers as adornment. The
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window is open, its two frames swaying gently inwards while its glass is of the quality required to provide a wind stop but no more. It is thinner than translucent lace. How it survives the Mistral is anyone’s guess. As for preventing sound, the window would have first to be closed.
I stand at the window listening to the gainsaying dogs. Opposite stands the wall of the neighbouring house, and the roof, so close I could lean out and nearly touch it, across the tiny passageway that is a ‘street’. Looking up, the stars twinkle down, it is warm. It is about 3 in the morning. I’m half awake and realise that the dream I was having of barking dogs in a Provençal village was indeed not a dream but stark reality. I close the window and miraculously the thinnest of thin glass actually damps down the sound.
There is no other sound to be heard by the somnambulant, or the sleep deprived wine infused homme anglais au pays étranger. The pigeons, starlings, sparrows and martins are in bed; olive farmers’ tractors have been long parked. Even the wind has stopped. Cypress trees stand quite still. Cicadas are absent, the clicking and chirruping are no more. Just the two dogs provide the soundtrack to a sleepy town near the slopes of Mont Ventoux.
There is still a few more hours before sunrise, and the comfort of a return to bed calls. A big glass of cold water and a shrug help one towards the renewed peace of what is left of night time. The small bedroom window is open to let in what ever small amount of breeze, or high pitched buzzing mosquito, should bother to turn up. The breeze will have to flow through the old red rust ironwork railings on the outside of the window to make its presence felt. The window outlooks onto another small shaded enclosed shrub shrouded courtyard of the ‘Le Vieil Hôpital’, ensuring the bedroom is protected from the sunshine and kept cool (ish).
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The sun itself at its allotted hour lights up the sky behind the shoulder of Ventoux, its actual rise hidden from view until it is high enough in the clear blue sky to creep above the land and explode in orange and bright white light to call in a new day. The sky has to be seen. There are not enough English words for ‘blue’ that does it. Not one cloud. Not one. Provence does have clouds of course, often of the thundery sort. Massive, dark, grey threatening, awe inspiring towers of billowing anvil shaped cumulus promising a deluge of biblical proportions, but this morning they have run away over the Vaucluse plateau and the Luberon Hills and hidden themselves to strike at a more opportune moment. They choose such times as when one might be cycling alone across the unsheltered flatlands with the nearest cover over 5 miles away.
But this morning belongs to the sun.
As it does most mornings, the sun drives the country into fecundity and prosperity. It enriches the sap in the olive trees which will in time produce virgin, oil rich fruit in the presses. It gives energy to the sugar producing vines and their black bursting grapes, allows the green and yellow juicy succulent melons and the tomatoes to ripen rich red in the fields. High up in the hills of the Luberon to the south, truffles shelter from the sun in the roots of oak trees only to be discovered by trained pigs, dogs or someone with a stick and an eye for the tell tale signs of hidden gastronomic treasure. The taste of the sun is to be found in the wines of the Cotes du Rhône: Beaume de Venise, Rasteau, Gigondas and Ventoux. Lavender fields bloom in their richness in bright blue row upon row because the sun gives them life.
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Early morning in Caromb in September, the sun gives permission for villagers to stir, for bread to be baked, croissants curled and one last sheet fettling rummage with mademoiselle before breakfast, should one be so inclined.
Petit Déjeuner The second floor of the ‘Old Hospital’ is tiled with square red ceramic ‘parquets’, but these sit upon wooden beams underneath. We have a kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, a chill out room and the sun terrace. The floors provide the early morning soundtrack of creaking as bare feet pad across into the kitchen to put a kettle on. The kitchen windows are opened to the quiet of a new morning, the night-time yapping dogs are silent. Possibly shot, or have had their testicles fed to the wild boars that roam the nearby hills. Our hosts live on the first floor but we do not hear them. No radio, no TV. No shouting neighbours, no roaring traffic. A martin darts past the window cheeping as it does so. A few buzzing insects investigate the interior but on the whole, this morning, they leave us alone. A slight breeze rustles the fig leaves outside.
There are three boulangeries in Caromb. One is closed, perhaps for the owners to be ‘en vacances’. The other two are quite close to each other and are attempting to vie for trade with the cyclists, who will turn up later in the morning, by installing small bistro sets on the pavement and offering a breakfast of coffee, croissant and orange juice for just over two euros.
There is always a queue at the boulangerie, a steady stream of be-shorted, tanned leathery skinned old men, and few women and a child with a lust for the assorted patisseries on sumptuous display. The classic french moustache is often on display with its fancy waxed
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ends twisting skyward. Despite the queue, no one seems in any particular rush which is just as well as there is only one person serving. They enter the shop, issue their “bonjour m’sieudames” and wait patiently in line to peruse the line of baguettes, pain au chocolate, gateaux, pretty little glacé decorated tartlettes and croissants. Just as in England, there is a queue; etiquette and discombobulation can be caused if one should step out of place to peruse the offerings further down the shop.
All over France, from Morlaix in Brittany to Marseille in the South, from La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast to Lille in the north East, in every town, village and city this little ritual is played out daily. There must be three baguettes to every French citizen in the country. It is no ironic mistake of history that Marie Antoinette uttered her ill-advised famous phrase about peasants eating cake because the bread has run out.
Bread is the very core of life in every French household, bought daily and baked so as to remain fresh for only a few hours. There is no hoarding of old baguette for the next day. Take away a Frenchman’s bread and you take away his ‘raison d’etre’, it would be like asking the Cornish to swap a pasty for fresh air and a promise of a Devon cream tea. Napoleon recognised that his army marched on its baguette filled stomach or marched not at all. Bread is the foundation, the starting point, the ground zero of all french cuisine and indeed of all of french life. Without bread there would be no France. It is nourishment, it is symbol. It is the stuff of Revolutions. Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité could not be established in a bread free France. The libertines of the Parisian Pigalle, the truffle hunters of the Luberon hills, the farmers of the Ardèche and the pastis swigging hairy handed sons of labour in every factory town in France could not function with any hint of joie de vivre without it. God himself and
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his angels and demons would be called to account should, heaven forfend, a boulangerie run out of the stuff of life.
So, the morning starts with the trip to get fresh bread and croissants. The temptations of patisseries, roules de saucisses, and quiche that sit in silent supplications to one’s more gluttonous foibles, are foregone. Meanwhile hot water is required for the almost mandatory coffee. The French often take it ‘espresso’ with a sugar cube so that the quick hit of bitterness is equally experienced with a hit of sweet. Delightful. If you wish anything like an English coffee then you have to ask for allongué, cafe creme, café au lait or americano. The default is the small black tar like espresso.
At around 8am, people are beginning to appear. The street is already dusty hot for many English tastes but the locals probably do not notice. Monsieur Farnaud, the Butcher, is up and about sharpening knives, cutting joints and singing to himself about the joys of lamb shoulder marinated in Herbes de Provence, sizzling in a pan. He should have a waxed moustache and a bloodstained apron upon which he wipes his hands after finishing jointing a pig. Sadly, he does not. He resembles an amiable small-town accountant in his black rimmed glasses and polo shirt. he waves to passers-by as they walk home with breakfast baguettes under an arm. He knows most of them by sight as he has dispensed culinary tips along with his cuts of meat. His eyes light up when he is asked about a particular piece and how one should properly cook it. No ordinary butcher, but one who has written the cookbook and knows his onions from his garlic. He freely gives out little morceaux of information about cooking time, what herbs, whether to grill or roast, as if they are precious gems that nonetheless should be owned by all.
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By the time the baguette and croissants have arrived back home, the breakfast table has been laid. Le Vieil Hôpital has a mezzanine breakfast floor made of old creaky planks of wood which allow dust motes to slip down to the floor below as one walks across it. Three sides of it are of the dusty stone of the house while the fourth looks over yet another fig tree courtyard below. Only an old iron railing stops one from falling into it. The roof is that of new beams holding up the tiles above. On one wall hangs a wooden birdcage of nineteenth century design, which at one point probably was home to a canary but is now mere decoration and is home now to peeling paint and dust. A niche in one wall houses a raffia basket and a garland of old lavender. This room has witnessed countless ‘petit dejeuners’ and could no doubt tell some secrets about lovers’ trysts and plans for lunch or cycling routes. The pointing in many a Provençal wall is either dust, new mortar or holes for families of spiders or bats. This breakfast room is no different. Company of a wild nature be it avian, arachnoid or altogether a more sinister mozzie kind is always a possibility.
The circular table and its four wooden chairs are decorated with glasses of orange juice, a steaming cafetière of coffee and a confiture of apricots. In England we would call this latter item ‘jam’. But no. Oh no. This is a source of mellow sweetness fit for the most discerning of palettes. It delivers delight with every little dip of the tongue onto a croissant daubed with its essence. Croissants themselves are little flakey parcels of buttery delight, hand crafted into shape by myriad experienced hands whose owners know the fate of the nation rests in their skilful twists. Flakes and the softness of the baked dough combine in fluffy lightness to awaken the taste buds.
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The markets supply fresh peaches and plums to be combined with cold natural yoghurt for a fruity freshness. The orange and the red colours, signal deliverance of juicy sweetness, which may dribble onto an unguarded chin.
Other platters will include cold charcuterie or cheeses or saucisson and eggs. All will be delivered with a variety of somesuch of baguette. And coffee.
It is an eternal delight to be able to sit at table, laid with tablecloth, proper plates and sunsoaked minutes, to eat a leisurely breakfast. This simple start to the day is often denied to the tube train chasing or motorway driving commuting cog in the bigger machine called work. Many will merely grab a coffee as they stank along a city street to the office as the clock ticks down to their allotted start time, a period which marks their slow descent into wage slavery and death. They will note the weather only in passing to decide if they need protecting from it rather than revelling in it. In many a town or city in the United Kingdom, the weather’s capriciousness results in quickly shared denunciations involving God, the sexual act or the questioning of one’s patrilineal heritage, and the pulling on of heavy mood dampening coats. The clear warm mornings in Provence deliver, as if by right, blue skies and coat denying warmth, which I have read is seen and felt as a personal affront if they do not. Time passes at breakfast like it does anywhere in the world but noting its relative nature, the minutes and seconds lose their meaning. Time is marked by the ringing of church bells, the sun’s position in the sky and how long it takes to empty the plates of croissants.
There is no clock on the breakfast room wall.
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Matin Breakfast is over, which paves the way for another important deliberation: What is for lunch? And where? However, this imponderable will have to wait just a few moments to provide space for the rest of the morning. The sun keeps rising, the shadows shortening, and cats are getting lazier. Cats are not known for their continually long bursts of dog like energy, preferring instead the languidity, characteristic of a feline louche. It knows food will arrive either by its slave’s own hand or it will bob by in front of it in avian or rodent form. There is no need to go around chasing hope and its shadow. Why risk effort when effort comes to you? Indeed, effort is required to find or keep one’s preferred snoozing spot, be that windowsill, garden wall or tree. If a Provençal cat is ever spotted doing something as strenuous to its demeanour as actually walking, one may notice that each paw is carefully placed in front of another almost sloth like in deliberation. There is not a hint of any thought in its head beyond focusing on saving energy for when it might become needed. Should a wall impede progress, a walk around it should suffice but if not then the morning’s saving up of its energy store should allow one jump to the top where no doubt the cat will become overcome with the effort and lie down to sleep in the sunlight dappled shade of a tree. Mice grow fat, safe in the knowledge that food is plentiful, and the cats grow lackadaisical.
As the morning progresses, the sound of vines fizzing with the sound of sugar creation in their big fat black grapes can almost be heard, and definitely imagined. The gnarled black old vine stump crack in the heat as it rises, the leaves whistle and rustle as the wind slips down from the Rhône Valley. The dry-stone encrusted earth that passes for soil is alive with tiny
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insects and miniature dust swirls. Row upon row of green leaved vines stand in field upon field across the landscape. There are no hedges to obscure the view from the road. There is always a ditch. At irregular intervals, cypress trees appear as if to mark the boundaries of the domains. Then suddenly a field of vines gives way to regular spaced olive trees that are similarly hard at work using the sun to imbue their fruit with juice and oil.
Along a quiet dusty country road, you may hear the rumble of an old Citroen 2CV. Long gone from English roads, these relics of a bygone era can still be seen bouncing and creaking their way over farm tracks and stone dusted ‘chemins’. You know this car from its unmistakable shape of an arched roof and a design which harks back to the 1930’s when mechanics was a simpler affair involving nuts, bolts, hinges and trust. The ‘air conditioner’ is an open window or the hinged flap just under the windscreen. The window does not have a sophisticated mechanism, rather it is hinged in its middle and one just flips the bottom half upwards.
Somewhere, a farmer is working hard at keeping the fertility going. The only evidence is a tractor that might noisily appear, rattling its way across the countryside. There is of course weeding and pruning while the harvest is awaited, but as in most agricultural work one does not see vast sweating armies of labourers toiling away in the morning sunshine being fed on soft bread and cold pastis until lunch time. Provence is of course at work, but it is not visible. The evidence of the labour of bakers, butchers and brewers is all around, the work it takes to get the produce to market is not. As if by magic the invisible hand of the artisans come to market in order to satisfy the demands of the discerning shopper. Insurance is being sold, cars are being maintained and the law is being ignored all over the region, but you will
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not see it. You will however see men gathered together in small clusters taking a drink at the bar tabac.
The bar tabac is where one goes to get coffee, a glass of wine or brandy even in the morning, and gossip. They are rarely spaces of artful design. Function takes pride of place over form. Indoor lighting is a ‘on or off ’ matter, harsh strip lights or none at all. They will have tables and chairs outside where one waits to be served, but do not be in any hurry. The owner or waiter will not. The small cluster of local men will most often be found inside, even on a bright day, with perhaps a pastis, and catching up on the racing or football. They talk in a form of French unknown or documented in polite textbooks. They will acknowledge your presence, especially if you utter the mandatory ‘bonjour’ as you enter. This is custom and practice and will seem to be rude if you don’t. The French will greet each other with a handshake and a back throated tobacco encrusted growling noise as much as a Cornish Farmer does on discussing the price of livestock. Strangers on bicycles in weird clothing are more than tolerated especially if one can brighten the day with tales of derring do on famous Tour de France stages being attempted or kilometres undertaken. Each morning at about the same time, the same small cluster of men will arrive at their various appointed minutes in the same bar tabacs to exchange the same pleasantries, rituals and gossip. They have already bought their baguettes and have left the domestic duties to the wives back at home. The scenery outside the window will not have changed except for the seasons, so nor will any of their habits till one of them dies. No women are ever seen at this hour in the bar tabacs. Ever.
A cat may wander across the car free road to sit under a café table, but that is as much actual physical excitement as can be handled. And so it is that life will have to be created in talk. This is where one’s lack of cultural knowledge and the language severely impacts one’s
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enjoyment and connection. The thick patios of Provençal is at times unrecognisable as French in any case. The veracity of the subject under discussion is a small matter. The point of the exercise is the talking itself.
Farmers farm, wine growers hope, chefs source their ingredients. They will do so infused with a variety of liquids. Meanwhile, cyclists cycle often armed with bottles of water and rehydration tablets. The electric bicycle is certainly making a showing, they at first look no different from any other normal nonsporting bike. A clue is often the age of the rider. Grey haired, wiry legged tanned like old leather and the bike kitted up with panniers, yet, the machine goes along with ease even up rather steep hills. It is not uncommon for a younger fitter cyclist to be passed on their way up to a col by a pensioner couple having a wonderful day out in the high hills. Early morning is a good time to go out before the real heat of the day kicks in, but an electric bike might make that less of a necessity.
Yet the most common sight out on the open and empty road is the sports cyclist in full kit. He may be with a small group or is found in ones and twos. It is most often a bloke. Age however is no barrier, with the sight of men the very wrong side of 60 dressed up and belting around the countryside, not uncommon. Beware though that Lycra though popular and extremely useful is not always the most flattering of materials. It is probably better that cyclists move past your eye-line quickly so as to cause least aesthetic offence to the sensitive. It is a strange phenomenon that those with the greatest potential for providing an experience of seeing curvaceous art on wheels flash by, are those least likely to do so. There are of course many young very fit, very athletic male cyclists out on the road that could provide a fleeting glimpse of firm buttock for the ladies, however the padding in most shorts provides that area of the anatomy with the same shape as a bonobo’s bum. Prominent but not pleasing. Very fit,
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athletic ladies in Lycra are very thin on the ground...the field is thus left to men whose obvious affinity with beer is in inverse proportion to their sense and sensibilities in the fashion department. Aerodynamic shape is not easily acquired.
In any case, the options for cycling are myriad in Provence, with Mont Ventoux dominating the skyline wherever one looks as reminder of its Tour de France history.
Le Déjeuner The sun moves towards its place at midday and soon the shops will be closing for their two-hour lunch break. The timing is not exact, it may start at 1230 or 1300 such are the vagaries of the French shopkeeper and artisan. The unwary traveller or arriviste from Paris and London will need to learn quickly that Provençal time, as it is in many other regions, runs to different clocks. To the Anglo Saxon, used to the application of the Protestant work ethic and the efficiency of tyrannical hours and minutes of quartz driven timepieces, this is ineffable.
In 1936 John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay in which he argued that capitalism had already produced enough wealth and material resources that we could all look forward to working for only 15 hours per week. He was right. The world is awash with wealth and assets to ensure every person on the planet could eat decently and have a roof over their head. Working 40 hours over week? Why? But the Provençal had got there first in respect of lunch at least. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, while the French eat. Wage slaves in London grab a sandwich, dropping their crumbs, saliva and assorted bacteria into
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their keyboards. They barely look up to see the sun as the screen screams at them to keep working. Two hours for lunch? How could that possibly be?
Plats du jour. Salades the size of Wales on your plate. Tartare de boeuf, Entrecôte, Magret de Canard, Dos de Cabillaud or pâtes de bolognaise, millanaise or carbonara. Gambas and langoustine and a pichet of vin rouge or rosé served with a small basket of bread to soak up the juices. You need two hours to think about your choice, to choose the wine, to take in the ambience and to chat up the waitress if you are a chap of a certain age and need the ego stroking. Projects get completed, vines harvested, deals get done, even with a two-hour lunch. It is too late for the cold dour Northern European to adopt this habit. They don’t have the climate or the inclination. They have a pension pot to build and blind ambition leading them down blind alleys, all the while life passes them by until it is too late to recognise that life happens today, at lunch time. Even a Mistral wind would not dampen the ardour for a two-hour wine infused mélange in a bistro. No one at age 70 on their death bed would or should confess to wasting time over lunch. God will not be mocked. Pray if you like for forgiveness but if you have spent a lifetime stuffing hurried wet wilted sandwiches into your mouth while stroking the keys then you deserve the 7 circles of hell and a testicle roasting from one of Beelzebub’s cack-handed apprentices.
Lunch should be sacred, indeed a sacrament. Jesus did not bang on about bread and wine for nothing. He was trying to tell us something important. Heal the sick if you must, raise the dead, and perambulate across your nearest stretch of water, but have lunch. Lazarus was already dead, so two hours waiting for Jesus to finish his ‘Porc et Palourdes au Cidre Accompagnes De Flageolets’ and a cheeky pichet of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, would not be much of a hardship. Jesus was adept at turning water into wine and loved a huge dinner for
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5000. There is huge clue as to priorities there. Jesus would love Provence. Well if he is the son of God, he already knows about it. The only surprise was that his incarnation was in the desert among those whose culinary skills amounted to a tagine of beans and a goat. He really should have been born in Bédoin not Bethlehem. The French penchant for wine and whoring would not have seen him crucified but sainted. I think God missed a trick sending Jesus to dine with desert peasants whose idea of high cuisine is a jelly filled, blobby sheep’s eye which winks at you having just had its throat cut. Was God asleep that day?
Perhaps he had missed lunch.
One, perhaps, black mark however, is that the menus themselves can be, dare I say it, a bit… ‘samey’? There is always the plat du jour/formule which varies from place to place. It varies between 12-18 euros and involves a combination of two of the entree/plat/dessert choices. There is usually a list of Salades involving the usual suspects: Paysanne, Niçoise, Caesar. Choose one of these as an entree but unless you are a glutton or have spent the morning scaffolding, leave out the plat. The plats themselves will almost always feature tartare de boeuf, an entrecôte, a magret du canard, and a fish. To relieve the monotony there are always pizza/pasta restaurants. The latter are often a cut above the big standard global pizza emporium.
However. You are in France.
In Aubignan, just 6 kms from Caromb, we stopped for lunch on the way back from visiting the market in Carpentras. Aubignan is an old fortress village with an impressive fortress gate built of solid creamy grey stone. Sadly, that is the only bit of the walls and
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fortress left. Its main street is lined with plane trees affording welcome shade from the midday sun. One restaurant turned us away as it was ‘complet’, a not uncommon experience if you do not reserve a table. That left the ‘pizza restaurant’ across the street. The third choice was to starve. Putting aside the waiting time for any food to actually arrive, about an hour and fifteen minutes, the pizza itself was wafer thin and crispy exceptional. It was after all a pizza restaurant but sometimes the name belies the delivery. Its clientele were a mixture of all of life, bar the infatuated romantic couple - the sort that hold hands at table and stare into each other’s eyes.
The next table was the venue for 4 white shirted men of commerce of some sort. Deals might have been done, projects agreed or merely the football results were discussed. A grey shaggy haired old man ambled in, shuffling towards a seat at table to merely drink coffee and watch the world around him. A bulky middle-aged husband and wife team gamely fought to control the mouthfuls of andouillette with every forkful and by the look of them this was something they have been doing with gusto for quite some time. A tiny hairy rat sort of dog sat dutifully by Madame’s leg hoping no doubt for titbits of sausage, should it fall to the floor. Noticeable by their invisibility were the brightly clad cyclists who throng tables at nearby Bédoin and Malaucène. Aubignan is not on the most popular cycling routes although there is no reason why it should not be.
The minute hand of the clock tower in the centre of town edged towards two o’clock. The restaurant slowly emptied of clients, its tables, now devoid of conversation and fork rattling, sat forlornly. Nearby parked cars, and their now sated occupants, drove off leaving empty spaces all the way up and down. Small businesses would soon re open. Dust resettled. The leaves of the plane trees overhead gently rustled. At irregular intervals a truck or car
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would slowly drive up the street to remind us that traffic does actually exist somewhere. The hum of conversation died away. Lunch was over, but never mind, it will return again tomorrow and there is dinner to look forward to.
The sun rises to its zenith, its heat will now be at its fiercest for a couple of hours. Old houses will creak and expand, new houses will hum with the air conditioning. Little hairy creatures will seek the shade wherever they can find it. Grasshoppers will sing, beetles will scuttle, and butterflies will exalt. The country shuts down and expends as little energy as is required. Siesta makes a good deal of sense if you can afford the time. If the Mistral winds appear, they will make the cypress tree tops dance while the stump oak and olive stand in stark resistance to its deliverances. In the heat of summer, the wind brings hot gusts rather than cool breezes. The afternoon may see a drop in human activity, but nature will be as busy as ever, taking sunlight and converting it into lavender, honey, olive oil and wine.
There is an autoroute far away wending its way down South, and it will be packed with commerce and tourists. It will be hot. Its tar will become sticky and its car locked children tempestuous and impatient. Tempers will be fraying and radiators overheating. Both delivery times and bladders will apply pressure upon the occupants of the traffic. The heat from engines and rising air will distort the vision. Prudent owners of camper vans and caravans will have pulled over at service stations to eat lunch or to sleep. The noise of the autoroute will not extend too far however and across the Rhône valley and into the Luberon or the plateau of the Vaucluse. It will have disappeared as merely a figment of some tepid and fetid imagination. It is symbolic of much of modern ‘civilisation’ - busy, hot, dangerous and somewhat unnecessary - whose participants are unaware of the nightmare they have
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helped create. Mont Ventoux stares down in regal indifference upon the scrabbling irrelevances of man, “look upon my works, ye mighty, and weep.”
Mont Ventoux
Depending upon what you rely on for information, Mont Ventoux is 1909, 1911 or 1912 metres above sea level. The highest point in Cornwall is 420 metres while Ben Nevis is 1345 metres. The extra three metres or so either way is of interest to the perfectionist, cartographers and geologists. Aircraft pilots who rely on accuracy in altitude will have made a serious error in judgment already if they are relying on those 3 meters difference. For in addition to the surface spot height, stands a white telecommunications tower of 50 meters. Ventoux’s height and location provide ample justification for certain of its names including the Giant of Provence. Its limestone and treeless capped summit give it the appearance of snow at all times of the year. Winds of over 90 kms per hour occur for over 240 days! Whatever the actual height, it is the fact of its prominence over the surrounding country that provides its visual and cultural dominance. The Alps are far way to the North East, and can be seen easily from its summit, but from Provence its presence is seen and felt everywhere. Nothing comes close to challenging it.
It is of course a cycling Mecca, a place of sacred pilgrimage for the velophile. But it is a Mecca without the beheadings and the stoning. You are also allowed to drink alcohol although if attempting to ride to the top that is not advisable. Women may also drive, cycle, walk and talk on Ventoux.
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There are three routes to the top, from the towns of Bédoin, Malaucène and Sault. No matter which route you take you will still have to get up to over 1900 meters via unrelenting ascents of often 9-10%. The shortest route and therefore most challenging in terms of ascent, is from Bédoin. This will see you pedalling for 21 kms of nothing but ‘up’.
Bédoin at this time of year is a bustling small town of cafes, restaurants, markets and cycle shops. The clothing of choice is figure hugging Lycra which provides no hiding place for a chap’s ‘saucisson’ nestling between his overdeveloped cycling thighs or sheltering under his overdeveloped paunch. The main street has of course plane trees lining it to provide sun shelter under which legions of the leisurely drink their cafe or pastis either while watching the cyclists or as cyclists prepping for the ascent.
At the top of the street, is a small roundabout which looks chaotic at best as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and small dogs wander about without any regard for the rules of the road or awareness of other road users. Carnage is prevented primarily by an Act of God. A sign points the way to ‘Le Mont Ventoux’ and just beyond the roundabout as the roads stretches out ahead is the zero-kilometre marker from the summit. The keen, fit, young, club cyclists have left early for the top. Depending on attitude and strength, they will get there in two hours or less of solid climbing.
The rest will not.
The busyness of Bédoin is very quickly left behind as the road gets out into countryside flanked by a few houses. Vineyards and olive groves then replace the houses as the road continues for a few kilometres at a very gentle rise. This gives a false sense of
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security. Ventoux makes its presence felt on one’s left, its telecommunications tower beckoning one on. By late morning it is already very warm. In England, we would say it is ‘hot’. Cyclists riding solo or in small groups are a constant sight. At this point the cranks are turning without too much effort but no doubt the knowledgeable will know what is to come. Sweat, determination, pain and a banana are often part of the package required to keep going.
You will see young, fit, slim chaps setting a good pace. There are a few ‘big fat blokes on bikes’ grinding the gears. Women are well represented and are of all ages and sizes. The bikes themselves are the full range of carbon framed racers to the mountain bikes and tourers. The road continues slightly up and is often flanked by trees hiding the top.
Bédoin is at 300 meters, then Sainte-Colombe is at 450 meters There is a village called ‘Le Bruns’ at 500 meters before one takes the St Estève corner at 550 meters. This is a hairpin bend which just ramps up. You are on the D974. You are on the road to the top and nowhere else. At this point the ascent really starts at about 9% and it does not give up until you reach Chalet Reynard at 1400 meters with another 6 kms to go. This lower reach is twisty, narrow and flanked by sharp stoned ditches within a forest of trees. You will not see the top. You will see heaving buttocks, strained faces and an early indication of who will not make it. A few cars race up, a few motorcycles do the same but for the most part are cyclists equipped with hope and water. This section could take you two hours which means in the hottest weather drinking 3 litres. This is not easy to carry on a bike as the average ‘bidon’ is either 500 or 750 mls. The road surface is generally good if cracked and repaired in many places. There is little sound, you are sheltered from the wind which at times makes this feel like a furnace. Despite the fact there are other cyclists, you are really alone with your thought
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and effort. Other people’s struggles are not of any help at all. A few have stopped to drink, one or two are walking. Mostly however the legs keep spinning.
There are no let ups, there are no pit stops. You have to get to Chalet Reynard. If unsupported, then you have to take enough water and pace yourself. Ventoux does not care what you do, it has seen this every day for decades, ever since the first unknown lunatic took it upon themselves to ascend by bike. If it is in benign mood the wind at the top is a merely a breeze. If not, it will pick you up and toss you into the air until it lets go and drops you into either the Mediterranean or the Alps.
Chalet Reynard sits in a small plateau as the road from Sault joins the Bédoin road. It is another broad hairpin and provides a car park and a restaurant/coffee bar. At this point the trees stop and the moonscape of limestone scree begins. The tower can be seen as can the 7 sweeps of bends. There is only 6 kms to go, but it is a fierce 6 kms of exposed road which cuts itself in to the steep mountain side of nearly white fields of stone. It looks like a desert but not of sand. Cyclists will be facing 9-10% ascents all the way. The views across and down to the Rhône valley to the west are absolutely stunning. To one’s right is a wall of white scree slope rising dramatically cutting off all views to the East. The tower comes into view and then disappears again repeatedly as one negotiates the bends.
At the side of the road are yellow and black poles to identify the edge which in summer seem unnecessary but under snow could be vital. If you have made it this far you should reach the top if you just keep going. With just over a kilometre to go the memorial to Tom Simpson will be passed. This is small headstone like memorial often decorated with cyclists’ water bottles as salutes to his ill-fated attempt to win the Ventoux stage of the Tour de
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France in 1967. Tommy was dehydrated and delirious and when he fell off, asked spectators to put him back on his bike. Tragically to no good effect. The legend Eddie Merckx also required oxygen at this stage of the Tour in 1970 having nearly collapsed.
The final bend is a 20% hairpin but short enough to allow a final push for the summit, where you will find stalls seeking sweets, cakes and souvenirs as if you are on Brighton pier. Finally, the tower looms over you. You made it. Along with a hundred other people sightseeing.
Ventoux is legend. It is mountain, it is a personal challenge, it is history. It has romance, death and beauty. It has its fair share of tat and twats in cars thinking it is a road race. It is accessible and also inaccessible at the same time. It is science, geology and geography. It belongs to no one; it belongs to everyone. It is the centre piece of Provence.
Chapeau!
Après-Midi The fiercest of heat, the whiteout of sunlight, the near oppressive ambience make for an afternoon whose only function is to guide one through the interregnum between a wellwatered lunch and dinner punctuated by pastis. The stones in the field between the vines stand quite still. Any pools of water that might have collected from any overnight shower have long evaporated. Lizards bask, snakes somnambulate, sparrows languidly frot between shady perches. Cats have their snooze spots; dogs can’t even be arsed to yap. Bars and restaurants
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proudly announce if they have terrases ombragée - havens of open-air spaces but with shade, to take an aperitif. The Vin de Enzens ‘ombragée’ in Caromb has a view across the countryside towards ‘Les Dentelles de Montmirail’- a jagged saw tooth ridge of an arête on the final limestone and scrub oaked slopes of Ventoux. They shimmer in the afternoon heat. In Villessur-Auzon the ‘La Nesque’ restaurant has an ombragée which should suit anyone with a desire to just relax. Unfortunately, two English gentlemen turn up and are not used to the Provençal version of time, hurried as they are in wanting their orders taken. Twice the proprietors say “j’arrive” but this is not quick enough. Finally, they get up and leave their table in a huff. The French chef and owner are clearly not impressed with their attitude. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out expecting rapid English service in the Provençal afternoon sun. If you try to win Agincourt again on French soil, you will lose.
The afternoon is not for clock watching, it is for surviving preferably with a pastis or a cold beer or even a cold pichet of Rosé. Finish your lunch, find a shady spot - ombragée - and decide if you are going to snooze, people watch or drink beer. Or all three.
There is a point at which it is definitely pastis time. This is not easy to pin down exactly when it is according to the usual methods of timekeeping. One could think of a pastis as marking the march of an hour, or a half hour. Things get complicated because pastis could be drunk mid-morning, as an aperitif to lunch or as an aperitif to dinner, with dinner, after dinner or as a night cap. So, perhaps it is always ‘pastis time’. I like the to think the hot sunlit afternoon is designed for a special pastis at an allotted but undefined hour. This will depend on one’s demeanour, one’s previous forays into the experience or the degree of labour left to be accomplished in the day, should you be in the unfortunate position of having to think about work.
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One’s demeanour should always be open to the suggestion, regardless of actual need, of a pastis. If the question is asked whether a pastis might be required, a small amount of time is allowed for its consideration. Too rapid a response may indicate an over fondness for such liquidity unbecoming to one’s status, unless one is a farm labourer, in pain or English. However, one should not let the question dangle in the air lest the question poser mistakes the assumed hesitation for real hesitation and then might feel that a ‘faux pas’ might have been committed. They may ask themselves if indeed they have gone off half-cocked and misjudged whether it is actually pastis time. To save embarrassment all round I suggest a ‘momentary pause’ before giving the affirmative. Expert pastis drinkers know exactly how long that pause should be. Novices should watch their betters in this regard. The requisite skill will, however, be learned and with practice soon be mastered.
Many French bars bring a glass of pastis already diluted, and with a cube of ice. Others bring a separate pichet of water to give full control over to the customer. If you are making this at home, then it is merely a matter of preference. There is however a sweet spot above which the point of dilution makes the taste turn into a liquorice laced piss. Practice, and you will find your own sweet spot. Pernod is Parisian and is for dilettantes. In the South? Then head for the Marseille produced Ricard or 51. Most Provençals seem to prefer Ricard and drink it like it was mother’s milk or as the English drink tea.
It never tastes quite the same in England, except perhaps in the afternoon heat at a village fete or regatta, although it is the same product. Although I have to say, in the afternoon heat in St Ives Bay, it is perfect. The British taste buds are of course differently trained to the French and are used to stronger punches of whisky, rum and gin. It is a fair bet
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that an expat Frenchman living in London or Glasgow would soon drop the habit in favour of more robust tasting liquor, given the dour climate. However, he should be warned that if taken in the same manner and at the same intervals as a Provençal pastis, this would mark him out as somewhat louche.
As the afternoon slowly progresses, the village bells toll. The sound travels across the valley to inform the populace that something might have happened somewhere to someone at some time, but the exact details are unknown as is the time of the ringing. Normally they would punctuate the quarter hour, but in Caromb such attention to frequency is somewhat lax. The bell rings when whoever is in charge feels like it. It might ring to tell the cafe owner that it is pastis time again. This is as exciting as it gets in the afternoon heat in Caromb. There are no holiday villas, hotels and leisure parks, nothing to suggest that people come here for a holiday. No museum. A crow flies overhead and squawks, a fly buzzes, a delivery van trundles up the main street, the ‘Cours de la République’. A good village funeral will get the populace out, as will a wine market with saucisson. Otherwise the pace of life drifts by in slow motion, with only one’s inner gastronomic physiology as guide to the passing of hours. Sun dials are too flashy and accurate in the afternoon heat.
Apèritifs The cafe awning flutters gently in the hot early evening breeze. Pavement tables are being wiped down and chairs rearranged after each customer. The waiter scurries around asking for orders while clearing up. Two common phrases are “vous avez choisi?” “Je vous écoute” - “you’ve chosen?” and “I hear you”. Sometimes it is merely ‘Monsieur?’. Be patient. Remember you are not standing in a queue at the bar waiting to catch the barman’s eye. You
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have a seat at a table. The drink will come to you. You may catch the blue drifting whiff of a Gauloise or Camel from nearby smokers at nearby tables. Get used to it. This may happen even when food is eaten.
Pastis? Mais oui! Perhaps a bière or a glass of wine? It is after all that time of the day when work starts to fizzle out and the thoughts turn to dinner. Shopkeepers will stay open until 7 (or thereabouts) but the general populace will be closing up for the day. Hard work demands a reward and work, as we know, is a thirsty business.
The French way of drinking beer is very different to the standard pint ordered in an English pub. First you decide if you want ‘pression’- draught beer or a bottle. The latter is easy, you just ask for whatever bottles they stock. As for pression, you then need to decide what size. This ranges from 12cl to 25cl to 30cl to 50cls. Most common is the ‘vingt cinq’, the 25cl, but most Englishmen will consider this not quite a half pint a bit of an insult and will ask for the ‘cinquante’ - the ‘nearly’ pint. Some waiters of course expect this of the Northerner, but some are impressed that this much beer can be drunk. Then you get asked if you want a ‘blond’ or some such. Older gentleman should not get too excited at this point. However, no matter what you order, in bottle or pression, the result is the same: cold, fizzy piss which is somehow quite acceptable when the temperature reaches 30 degrees or more. Forget the varieties of English ales: the IPAs, the Ambers, Porters and Stouts. You will be served fizzing piss in any size glass you care to name. Some may even have a taste to them.
Nearby tables will be adorned with pastis, vingt cinques and wine. And ashtrays. As with many bars and pubs there are always the regulars who in this case seems to arrive every day at the same time. We know this because we arrive every day at the same time. They greet
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each other ceremoniously with the three cheek Provençal kiss. The dress is informal because they have come straight from work. The builder, the plumber, the hairdresser and the decorator. Monsieur Le Décorateur walks in leaving trails of fine dust in his wake and as he kisses Madame La Coiffeuse, fine white patches appear on her cheeks. He sparks up a cigar and in fine fashion orders his pastis. His grey facial hair is of the classic waxed moustache variety to compensate for his balding pate. The talk is in an accent as thick as treacle and no amount of evening classes back home in the UK is going to prepare anyone for dealing with it.
While one sits at table overlooking the largely car less Cours de La République it becomes clear that again nothing much is happening. The odd car might slip by, the hourly bus drops off a teenager, starlings may steal a crumb from the floor. A few people amble by and greetings exchanged. The pace of life is glacial. It will not suit everyone. Thrill seekers need not apply as the most thrilling things experienced at this time of day is watching the ice melt in your pastis, counting the types of bread bought at the nearby boulangerie and thinking about what dinner should be.
Dîner If bread be the foundation upon which France stands, then wine is surely its life blood and Provence provides some of the country’s finest. Yes, we know of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Vines roots like drainage, and river valleys and their slopes make for good vineyards. The Rhône flows down from its source at Lake Geneva and joins the Saône at Lyon. Then it takes a north south line down through Valence, Avignon and Arles before reaching the Mediterranean. Look at the wine shelves in any supermarket or wine outlet and you will spot
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‘Côtes du Rhône’ in abundance. This is an overall description masking the many very different types of wine. Look out also for Chateauneuf du Pape, Côtes du Ventoux, Vacqueyras, Gigondas and Beaumes de Venise. It is a lifetime’s journey of discovery. Caromb in the heart of the appellation of Côtes du Ventoux, is surrounded by vineyards but not much it will be exported.
All of it is delicious.
The joy of wine is its mystery when the cork is popped as you are never certain of the delivery, and it is just not possible to rest on one’s laurels, basing one’s judgment on a particular year or ‘domain’. Although years get reputations, the year’s stock will run out, the weather changes, the grapes will be more or less sugary. That being said, there are some certainties to the taste and smell. A Rioja and a Ventoux are very different and a trained nose will spot them. I suggest however that a good deal of training and practice is undertaken before one emphatically designates a wine its ‘terroir’. I suggest at least 10 years, or even more is put aside for the training, and if you are still not sure keep going until you are. Then after the initial training period you may then indulge in the appreciation phase which could take up the rest of your lifetime.
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The French philosopher Rousseau once argued that “people who know little are great talkers, but men who know wine say little” and “what wisdom can you find greater than wine?”
Karl Marx opined that “Hitherto, philosophers have sought to understand wine, the point however is to drink it”.
Jesus said, “Blessed are winemakers for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God or I’m not a Red Sea Pedestrian”.
There are about 68 million people who reside in France. If one assumes half are adults (34 million) and are in a family of two plus two children, that could be 17 million dinners. Let’s remove teetotallers and the ill and make a guess of 10 million dinners every night. That is 10 million corks being popped starting at about 1900 until the moon rises or inhibitions drop. Every day. Without exception. That is about 3,650,000,000 bottles year. That is assuming only one bottle is opened at dinner. Add in English tourists (ahem) and that figure rises. Where does all of that glass come from and where does it go? This of course does not take into account the amount sent for export to the UK, the United States and other oenophiliac nations like Somalia.
Alors, 3.65 billion every year! You would need a country the size of France to grow enough vines to fulfil that need. France actually must be floating on wine. Or at least its populace is. One of the most important daily decisions is therefore about which bottle to open to have with dinner. This decision will of course be helped along by the earlier after
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work pastis, or indeed by the earlier after work glass of wine, both of which assist the slide into gentle smoothness as the sharp edges of the day are rounded off.
One of the most pleasurable sounds in the world, next to bacon frying, a blackbird’s song or the sound of a steam engine, is the gentle pop of a cork after a gentle screwing by the ’Tire-Bouchon’. Savour the moment as you pull upwards. Do not rush this stage or lest you fall foul of spillage all over your fresh clean white shirt. Some sniff the cork for early tell-tale signs of mustiness which informs you the wine is fit for pouring down the sink. There are many hints and tips for the pouring of the wine. Decant? Leave for an hour? It depends entirely on the wine and your will power. Most reds of two to three years of age are ready for drinking, those that can be laid down for 10 years are still ready to drink now. Drink when you are ready, not necessarily the other way around.
Ditch the old-fashioned small tulip glasses. They are fit only as entries in the history books on English middle class dinner parties of the 1970s. Pint glasses are probably over the top. The most important thing when savouring the first mouthful is not to talk complete bollocks. A few are blessed with palates that can distinguish between varieties of blackberry. They talk of cherry notes and tannins. Leave them to their reverie. Mortals can chug it back with alacrity or cheese. Although, the first few glugs should fall into the ‘moderation’ category lest you scare the hostess, especially if she is Swiss or a Librarian. Again a few years of training is required to know what moderation means. This training should not take place in British pubs, dance clubs or on a Brighton Pier hen party as the context tends to militate against judgment. French bars and restaurants provide ideal training venues as there seems to be an ambience of moderation all round, apart from the food. This is eaten in individual
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portions big enough to feed the entire front row of a rugby scrum. Then there is the bread. Just in case.
Bread baskets are obligatory at French dinner tables and thus provide a nice book end to the day. Baguette for breakfast, and then some for dinner to mop up the delicious sauces that are bound to accompany the main meal. Don’t dunk it in the wine though. You may be offered an ‘amuse-bouche’ before your chosen entrée. This will be bite sized hors d’œuvre, a minuscule of something tasty, of unknown origin perhaps decorated and prettified in an attempt of course to amuse you. If you have been following the routine, by this time you will have had your pre dinner pastis and/or wine (or three), you might have had an early afternoon beer. If you are English, you will no doubt have not skimmed past this stage before the amuse-bouche. It is unforgivable if you are eating with French friends to now get stuck into a large G and T, although a cocktail might be acceptable. If you find yourself beginning to burble or have difficulty in holding in that fart, you might already need to be thinking about decorum and how to go about obtaining it before it gets lost down the toilet pan or along with your nose into the cleavage of your hostess. The French, of course, invented risqué and roué and will be aware of the possibility of the odd faux pas at table. It is not de rigeur however to be barfing up one’s breakfast or making lewd suggestions before the amuse bouche has turned up to tickle your tonsils.
Beware the entrée. Especially if it is a salad. Normally the template for sizing anything is Wales or a London Bus. That of course would be ludicrous if applied to entrées. But do not attempt this course on your own unless you are auditioning for the part of Bunter in the West End or for Falstaff in the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Fat bastards who already have
nothing to lose but their kilograms can crack on, everybody else who wishes to taste their
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main meal without intermittent refluxes of bile should either share or avoid altogether. If at home, you are free to make up your own entrée. An easy and quick recipe involves a glass, an ice cube and a measure of pastis, notwithstanding the warnings above.
We all know the French word for ‘vegetarian’ is ‘Quoi?’ So, don’t ask. Just don’t. Provence kills all manner of living things and eats all of it. Every last bit of anything killed is eaten or turned into foie gras. Exotic and unnameable organs are succulents and may of course be an amuse bouche. Those of a medical background can no doubt name any manner of tissues and organs, bones and ligaments, collagen, ducts, lobes, orifices and sphincters. If it has a latin name and belongs inside an animal, reptile or bird, it will be eaten often stuffed with olives, garlic and mushrooms. If confronted with a plate of something unrecognisable and a fancy name, covered in sauce, smelling of garlic and perhaps a bit pale and/or ’bouncy’ do not be surprised if it is not filet mignon. Get stuck in. There is bread and wine on the table to assist with your gastronomic discoveries.
Leave room for a digestif, if you can still walk.
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Crépuscle
A pale full moon to the East rises over the shoulder of the darkening green blue hills of the Vaucluse plateau that form the lower eastern slopes of Ventoux. The sun has just dipped below the horizon behind the rooftops of Caromb directly opposite to the West. In the interregnum between dusk and night the light dims to a red tinged blue. The wrought iron cage work of the town belfry is black silhouetted in the skyline, the outline of the bell itself is clearly visible as the sun goes down behind it. Ventoux’s slopes are purple and red and folded into dark vertical terraces. The white tower becomes orange, red blinking light at its top. The greens of the fields of olives and vines, of cypress and oak and of various shrubs ripple various shades of green. A light wind ruffles tree tops. Clouds disappear. A few white dots denoting aircraft, fly slowly across north to south, no white vapour trails are visible.
A bat blackly flits silently around the the inner courtyard of Le Vieil Hôpital chasing insects. No noise. Starlings begin to flock and chase each other across the sky in ever increasing numbers looking for the roost. Across the plain between Ventoux and Caromb a dog barks once in St Pierre de Vassols, 3 kms away. The short line of the village houses is creamy orange in the setting sun and its church tower spikes upwards into the blue. High on a hill sits Crillon le Brave, another creamy orange village but instead of the spike of its church tower, a castle like fortress chateau dominates. In between Caromb, St Pierre and Crillon is farmed land and trees. Very little, if any, developments of housing join the three. They are distinctly boundaried by vines and olives.
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Shutters are closed. A few streetlights turn on in an attempt to bring a little civilisation. No one is walking about. Cars are garaged. Cats are inside sleeping. All around is the silence of the stars as they emerge into the night. The moon’s blue grey seas are clearly visible amidst its brightness. A shooting star blazes across from south to north.
Digestifs are taken. Sleep prepared for. Wild Boar can rest from the hunters in the Luberon Hills.
The last baguette has been used to mop up the sauce. The last of the wine in
today’s bottle is poured. Talk ensues. What will the weather be like tomorrow? Hot and sunshine? No one asks in Provence because they know already. Mons. Farnaud the butcher has enjoyed another epaulée d’agneau, Mons. Le Decorateur has his last cigar. Madame Fifi and Trixiebelle have satisfied their last customer. Paris is another country, they do things differently there. The passing days merge into the passing of decades in the lives of the Provençal farmer, vigneron and boulanger. They pass as quickly as the wisps of the wind before Ventoux’s steadfast ever present, never flinching eternal gaze.
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