Honey On My Tongue. Wednesday 2nd September 2009.

I don’t remember if I had told you that I had met a local honey producer at the small market in Venterol on our first day in the village. She called yesterday to tell us that she and husband Charles would be tending the bee hives at 2pm today if we would like to come and photograph the process.

The road up to their property was pretty as a picture. The landscape was of tall Cyprus, pine, and oak trees, the later with yellowing leaves, ready to hibernate, to shed their leaves and conserve strength to enable them to endure the lack of rain. They can do this for a few years to get through a dry spell, and then, when the conditions are right they will spring back to life, such is the miracle of nature.

JR donned a protective bee suit and ventured off with Charles to visit the hives, Julie and I looked on from a distance, only moving when an angry bee came to investigate us. Julie could tell by the tone of its buzz that it would not tolerate us, a previous visitor had proved no threat at all; I was at her mercy.

They live an uncomplicated life, two kids, no TV, mobile phones or MP3’s. They use an outdoor dry toilet in the summer as water is precious and it takes 8 litres of water to flush a toilet, they prefer not to waste the resources from their underground spring, ‘Les Moulieres’, after which their farm is named. They are 9th generation on this farm and live an almost self-sufficient existence. They have chickens for eggs and occasionally for meat, the goat gives them two babies to eat every season, also milk daily, some of this is transformed into cheese. The fruit trees of course give their fresh fruit to be enjoyed; these fruits are also made into confiture to be enjoyed all year round. The fruit varieties they have are apricots, apples, pears, peaches, figs, cherries, black currant, red currant, quince, plums, and two I will have to investigate further; kaki and nefle. They grow olives by the truck load which I can vouch for whole heartedly; these of course give both fruit and precious oil. The bees give honey (lavender and spring flower) and other by-products, and the prolific veggie patch supplies three families with basil, parsley, tomatoes, pumpkins, capsicum of red and green, French beans, salad leaves, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, leeks, melon, onions, and spinach. “When we harvest we share”, says Julie. A healthy rosemary bush is covered in a spray of pink flowers by the front door.

The north side of the house is protected by an enormous line of Cyprus trees, planted by Julie's Great, Great Grandfather to give protection from the Mistral winds, and the garden is littered with waist height earthenware jugs, the storage for olive oil hundreds of years ago. The farm of ‘Les Moulieres’ is a special place, Julie’s family are part of its terroir.

There was a get together in our village beginning at 6pm so we arrived home just in time to go straight out again. It was called ‘Musique Dans le Jardin’. We followed the yellow arrows that directed us down the narrow alleyway after our house. Inside a timber door was a garden paradise and by chance it was the garden we overlook from our terrace, the garden where we heard the sweet notes of song only days before. A central fountain tricked its own melody; its surface was decorated with softly coloured flowers bobbing and floating. Our friends Julie and Charles arrived soon after us; it was nice to see a few familiar faces. We had expected something a little less intimate held in a public park, AJ looked terrified at the prospect of staying so we slipped him the key and he made a discreet exit before the entertainment commenced.

An older couple held the stage, as we, the audience sat under a rough-cut stone garden house which had an open end allowing the view of the performance, a central olive tree too young to have fruit, a laden apple tree and a pomegranate tree in full splendour, its fruit up high showing the colours of ripeness but the lower branches held only green, inhospitable fruit. Its admirers will have to be patient if they want to receive its glistening red jewels, only after it has been kissed by the Provencal sun for days to come. The silvery haired lady played a traditional Moroccan instrument and sung with Oriental tones and high pitched whines and inbetween her songs, her partner, a poet, would recite the words he had penned. “la lune, la lune”, he began. He was animated and put all of himself into his performance, they looked at each other adoringly as often as they could, and he recited his poems directly to her as the content suited. They poured tea from a brass kettle and drank from Moroccan glasses. The more the performance continued, the more dramatic it became. He took her hands and they walked around the central garden in slow motion, ending in rapturous applause. It was quite a special moment to witness. I am not saying it was particularly my cup of tea, it was a little off beat that is for sure, but it was delivered with a special small village uniqueness and with undeniable passion. The worst thing was, actually two things come to mind... the first one was when I looked over and saw JR with his eyes closed, it is hard to sleep and be discrete in a crowd of only 25. And the second thing was that I am sure the lady was the lady we heard in the throes of passion from our terrace a few nights ago, I could hardly stop myself from giggling out loud every time I thought of it. Doesn’t life throw us unexpected and funny moments sometimes?

We returned home to AJ, happy he had not stayed for the performance. We sat on our terrace enjoying local olives, comte fromage and chevre – and yes, we did recite some poetry to each other employing the dramatics of the performance we had witnessed. We threw together a quick pasta sauce of onions, garlic, lardons and tomatoes, it was yummy, the best ever according to AJ.