Brown paper packages tied up with string
This evening marks the half way point in our time in Provence. Four and a half weeks down, four and a half to go. If our stay was ten days or a fortnight I would now officially be setting in to panic that a good thing was about to be gone.
And that is the beauty of nine weeks. A complete indulgence. And so to get through hump day a very typical outing was planned. We would head north and visit some of the villages in the Cote de Rhone region.
As Chief Financial Officer of this operation I am constantly aware of ensuring we have the funds to see us to the end. While nothing could probably ever beat Paris for temptation to empty your wallet on food, experiences, wine and ‘necessary acquisitions’ I have very fond memories of amazing shops in Lucca and Florence. I am determined to stay the course.
Top of my list for axing spending has to be eating out. While the romance of long lunches in cafes and bistrots abounds the reality is that great food seems to be hard to find. If there were fewer in our group it would have little impact but I am tiring of spending NZ$70 dollars each time we lunch out on Menus Enfant just for the children to eat decidedly average food with little to no nutritional value (a topic for another day).
Picnics, therefore, have become the theme de jour.
With a healthily stocked fridge we created a basket of goodies to keep all members happy - ham, salami, brie (large wedge for about one euro…why do we get this so wrong in New Zealand), deliciously sweet tomatoes, the infamous basket of strawberries…
I have always found that the true pleasure of picnicking (piquenique in French, one of my favourite words) is walking out of the house with your carefully put-together collection of goodies, not so much the partaking of said meal. It is one of those activities where anticipation beats reality. It’s that sense of pride and accomplishment as you all pile in to the car that the hard work is done and you can now enjoy the spoils of your labour.
Basket ready we headed off. Our first stop was the boulangerie, because the bread you have purchased at 7am couldn’t possibly be acceptable to then eat with your lunch at 1pm. Seguret was first on our itinerary for the day - albeit a fluid plan. It’s officially known as one of France’s most beautiful villages. Which is funny as I am convinced that half the villages we visit have been given the same auspicious title.
After stocking up on essential French supplies - bread and eclairs - the drive through the Cote de Rhone area was absolutely stunning. Up close you are surrounded by grapevines, becoming more green and bountiful by the day as summer nears. It is as though nature has been whipped in to shape by an organisational expert with their neat lines and uniform sizes. Get any distance from a small ridge or outlook and the landscape looks like a crochet blanket of piggy squares with plots oriented in different directions. It’s just another way Provence illustrates a rhythm to its existence.
Seguret was indeed beautiful. Boasting beautiful blanket-like views of the large basin below, it clung to the side of the hill soaking in the morning sun. Being a Tuesday (and with a nearby village having its market day) there were very few people around, just a scattering of French tourists clearly on the same pilgrimage as ours. The best part about seeing a village in a nearly deserted state is that your are not distracted by other people. I realise now how much satisfaction and pleasure we get from spotting little details, like the cobblestoned paths or a passionfruit vine growing through shutters. Best of all, all four children seem to have taken on our appreciation for small detail. George was very excited and keen to show us all a ramshackle garden in which a table and chairs awaited visitors but all paths and ways in were at least a metre under wild flowers. Molly took pleasure in the channel that had been built from the fountain, with its natural spring water bubbling over, to replenish the washing area nearby, which would have been the spot for the village’s women to come to daily in centuries gone by for washing chores and fellowship.
We spiralled up though the village prying over walls, looking through windows and open doors and taking in the incredible views.
We had heard there was a chateau, I am fast learning it wouldn’t be a French hilltop village without one, and at the very top of the village we saw a sign pointing towards it. Chateau ruins it said. Ruins. That sounds like Schaefer family heaven. Children immediately consider survivor games and parkour training. Parents move fast to photo and video opportunities. We were off.
The path was rough and vertical. Built of large loose stones (like a poor-man’s cobblestone with the raw materials just dumped at regular intervals). But with thoughts of ruins in our heads we were determined and pushed on. And pushed on. Until the pushing became less pleasant. These days the mercury sits somewhere in the early 30s. Physical activity is not called for. And as we heard the village bells toll midday the appeal faded dramatically. In France you don’t go hiking at midday. You immediately drop whatever it was that previously held your attention, hop in your car and race through the winding narrow streets like a madman to get home just in time for your wife to be pouring the rose in the glass next to your plated cold first course.
It was no longer an excited ramble up a hill. I began to have terrible flashbacks to climbing Kapiti Island on Molly’s school camp earlier in the year. The one silver lining this time was at least I was not chasing Andy Curruthers and Adam Simpson up to the summit.
We sent the two older children off as a forward party. They carried on the ascent for another 300m discovering nothing so we decided to admit defeat and head back down. Cheer up team, it was nice to walk in a French forest. There’s always the picnic to look forward to.
Once back to the car we set the GPS for a town called Gigondas. We had been told to watch for signposts, park in a specific carpark and take one of the many paths to a picnic spot. It always helps to find the right carpark. Thinking it a bit strange we dutifully parked in the Les Florets park belonging to a restaurant which judging by the calibre of the other cars parked was not your average pizzeria (no Menus Enfant there I imagine) and all piled out. There was great excitement. Molly had bought French skipping. George and Matilda planned to build a fort and Hettie just wanted to collect pinecones. All things you do on picnics.
But what happens when you realise your picnic spot is on private property, just outside someones back door, and you are too tired and grumpy to get back in the car to find a new one? Generally a more sensible person would move on. For some strange reason we found the spot, unpacked and got ready for our feast. But then a wave of uncomfortableness came over us. Molly announced that she had butterflies in her stomach and what would happen if the police took us away. Parental mistake. What were we doing parking up in someone’s acreage? And how awkward and embarrassing would it be if we were to have an ‘encounter’ with the owner? Everyone was given about 2 minutes and 37 seconds to quickly eat. Just bread and sandwiches. The eclairs and fruit would have to wait. It didn’t help that Matilda and Henriette had a serious misunderstanding about the incredibly precious stick that one of them had collected at the picnic spot - a rare treasure of lengthy ownership - and the silence of the forest-edge was pierced by a 5 year-old howling. I have never felt so relieved to get in that car. I felt that same awful feeling of panic I get when at the end of the Sound of Music they are hiding in the convent’s cemetery trying to evade the soldiers’ flashlights. Even after my 30th viewing. Sheer terror.
On getting back to the road we discovered the real carpark we were meant to use. We knew we were in the right place as there were at least another half dozen vans that clearly were doubling as holiday abodes - a sure sign that hikers and outdoorsy types were in the vicinity. We found a shady spot under a wild cheery tree and beside some rather unkempt rows of grapevines. We sat under the majestic Dentelles de Montmareil, ate our eclairs, our Carpentras strawberries and talked about reaching the half way mark. Our favourite activities, our favourite food and our favourite destination (have a look in our video section and watch ‘Brown Paper Packages’).
We spent our half way point much the same way as many of our other days. It was an apt way to mark a milestone - one that serves to remind us that we still have much time here to enjoy but to be cautious that we make the most of it.
And while we are talking about milestones, there is another one of importance in our family looming. This weekend will signify ten years since we began our wee creative agency Homegrown Creative Limited. It was a massive risk with a fifteen month-old and a hefty mortgage, a risk conceived over a takeaway dinner around our kitchen table with some very good friends. But what a great risk it was. During the past decade we have had some incredible people work for us and with us. We get to be involved in amazing projects and work with some wonderful clients. It keeps us buzzing and feeds us creatively and literally! Without the business we would have been unlikely to undertake this three-month odyssey…I would not be sitting outside in the almost pitch black at 10pm, in 26 degrees, writing this on my laptop while listening to the chorus of frogs and occasionally letting my mind wander while looking out to the 12th century clock tower lit up in the distance.
So the message for today is: Dream big and make things happen. You will never regret it and your life will be all the better for being punctuated with amazing adventures. Whether you fantasies are little or big, at the risk of bringing out a well-known cliche (boy, their brand strategy pulled off), JUST DO IT.
