Pretty Provence. Tuesday 1st September, 2009.

Where has the year gone? The arrival of September forced me to think how quickly our experience is slipping through our fingers as I sat on the terrace with my morning coffee, the birds were singing and a distant rooster was greeting the day with his noisy exuberance. AJ joined me for a while; he was not so exuberant in his just woken state. I feel as though I want to slow time down to allow me to savour every moment for a little longer, to taste its sweetness more intensely, but I know it is not to be.

JR and I went to the computer shop as arranged, just to hear the words spoken to our face, as if hearing them down the phone line made them not as true. It wasn’t the case, it is as dead as a do-do. JR is great with this kind of stuff, he thinks it all through logically and moves forward thinking of every imaginable hurdle we may face. A new hard drive was ordered along with the appropriate software to be loaded, it should all be ready by Friday. The most important thing is I feel like I can trust the guy and don’t feel like we are being fleeced.

We took off out of Venterol at 11.30am and did not plan to arrive home until late. The tourist office had recommended a beautiful day trip to take beginning from Nyons, in the direction of Currier, along the D64 to Ste-Jalle. The D108 peels off, climbing, twisting and turning to Buis-les-Baronnies and what looked like the beginning of Gorge country with an almost dry river at its bottom. We stopped at Buis-les-Baronies for lunch. Our picnic spot filed two of our criteria, we had shade and water. We climbed down the bank to the water, a family were playing a little upstream, we greeted each other politely. Our lunch was delightfully simple; an assortment of the usual toppings, today there was fresh goat’s cheese as well, on a crusty, crumbly baguette. I had packed some of the local olives also, we devoured them quickly. AJ balanced on a little rock wall and crossed the river, I thought for sure he was going to go in, but he didn’t, although he came pretty close a few times. We played rock target which is now our usual waterside sport. The colours of the rivers in Provence mystify me. They are like Australian opals and make me think of home. Their bluey, green qualities are of soft pastel and they have a milky quality from the limestone silt, I have fallen for them, their beguiling colour, their cool tranquillity and that they are the setting for many happy family memories for me.

With lunch behind us we continued on with contented tummies wondering what would be our next discovery. It was not long until we found it as we doubled back a little and took the D546 in the direction of Vercoiran. Fields of shimmering, silver olive trees lined the road; we stopped to admire their beauty and the tricks they played in the light, refracting sunshine on their leaves. Their branches were filled with hard, green fruit, it was not light in colour but not dark either and far away from feeling the hands of the harvest. The old trees showed the years before them with the girth of their gnarly trunks and character one only acquires with age. Their trunks were thick, much thicker than the young ones, not yet bearing green orbs of fruit, and they took pride of place in the plantation, they were the elders, the Grandparents to the young, spindly ones.

When the roadsides weren’t lined with olive trees, the landscape was filled with fruit orchards of varying kinds. A few rows into an orchard on the right was a flurry of activity that would be hard to miss. Long ladders, whose two long sides of timber joined at the top to enable them to be wedged in the forks of trees, were standing upright throughout the orchard. The ladders held buckets to collect the fruit and held legs of many colours which sprang from the bodies owning many accents from around the world. This was a fruit-picking community, the workers of the harvest. The harvest today was of prune trees, better known to us as plums. The trees yet to have their ripe fruits plucked, had heavy branches filled to overflowing with purply, swollen fruits ready to eat. We chased down the boss who was busy emptying buckets of plums into crates on the back of the tractor and asked if we could take a few photos. “No problems”, he said so we did. Most were happy to smile and pose for the camera, teasing each other as they did. A few were not, no doubt they were not supposed to be working in France but we asked no questions and respected their need for anonymity.

Just passed St-Auban-sur-l’Ouveze, we took the D359 to tiny Aulan where we poked our noses around the chateau, now closed in readiness for the impending winter. The tourist season officially finishes at the end of August here and many sights close their doors. We filled our drink bottles from a fountain in the chateau wall, the cool water was welcome, it was a warm day and out supply was dwindling. The road followed le Toulourenc through deep gorges, although they were mostly dry showing only the white, rocky beds of the river, this is a spectacular part of the world, very rugged and wild. We stopped at one of the deepest parts of the gorge and were rewarded with an opalescent pool of deep water, all bluey green and beautiful. AJ diced with danger navigating rocks on which he climbed which, when the rivers were flowing, would have been a steep waterfall. We stayed for a while throwing rocks and stuff, AJ teased me for not being a daredevil and giving in to my vertigo infliction, it is getting worse by the day.

Our next stop was at the hillside village of Montbrun-les-Bains known for its thermal springs and fountains, it was certainly pretty but I would not call it spectacular (we must be getting spoiled), its avenues still showed their central gutter where sewerage flowed years ago, and were lined with tilleul trees that give up their annual burst of lowers for the infusion drink enjoyed all over France, the trees were minus their precious blooms today, they were gone long ago, before Provence was part of me.

The tourist office advised that the village of Brantes in the Vallee Toulourenc was not to be missed. After snaking along hairpin bend after hairpin bend we arrived at high altitude in the village and it was here we ended our day, sitting perched on a cliff as the sun slowly set behind the majestic Mont Ventoux. Surely someone had set a distant universe alight behind the streaks of cloud to make such brilliant fiery colours in the sky. The village itself was kind of kooky. It was cut into the side of a mountain with a dry river bed at its foot and I felt that if just one rock gave way we would tumble to our deaths. There were no cars, just tiny pathways all rustic and uneven to navigate. Wild herbs of both edible and medicinal nature grew in every crevice, and at every turn there was something to eat on offer from the creator, I had discovered my secret garden. I could come here and eat like a queen and dine on olives, elderberry, apples, rosemary, mint, blackberries, tilleul and grapes as long as the season offered them.

The sun had gone by the time we drove back down to earth, as we looked behind us from the road the village was lit in a soft glow, its bell tower glowed softly against the night sky and it was a beautiful sight to see. Feathery ribbons of cloud collected on the peaks of Mont Ventoux like an eerie mist and I knew I was small in the world. How could one be small when the centre of themselves holds so many memories and has seen so much beauty?