June 2011

When the weather is inclement, it is still lovely. When the weather is lovely, it is fabulous. Our weeping mulberry tree is inundating with berries. Our wild cherry tree is producing slightly tart but freshly enjoyable fruit. And I think the lettuce from our garden could be the most delicious I have ever tasted. And the courgettes are beginning their avalanche.

At the end of May, Stephan and Koen arrived from Amsterdam and were joined a few days later by Pierre and Michael. Previously, with our first two guests, we had a drive around the lake as well as an excursion to Aix-en-Provence. During all this, the weather was supportively superb. Kevin and Frank from Hawaii joined us for one night. We all had dinner at the Calalou. Michael and Pierre made a nice risotto the following night. Koen and Stephan prepared dinner the next day to which Jim and Joanne joined us. And our their last evening with us, Stephan and Koen took us to Les Gourmets.

Once everyone had departed, the rains arrived. They were needed. We went to Elizabeth’s for a lovely luncheon. Tilly was there with her darling children: Iris, Edith and Douglas. They also came by our place afterwards, and we took them to meet Wilko. It was nice to see Graeme at the lunch in such fine form. We also met Elizabeth’s cousin Clare as well as a artist friend, Yvon, who lives in Le Garde-Frenet.. Two coffees at Elizabeth’s kept me up most of the night. It allowed me, however, to work further on the World’s Religion course I am teaching for the Cherry Hill Seminary this summer. With such an active and interested class, this has become my major time-consuming focus. It will last through most of August.

We had dinner with Catherine and Pierre, their daughters Mona and Emma, and two of Mona’s friends who came with her from Paris – one from Manchuria; the other from India. This was at Celestine, and when the thunder began and the lights momentarily flashed off, I remembered that I had forgotten at home to unplug the computers and telephone, etc. So Pierre drove, and we dashed back to Tellus. It may not have been necessary on this occasion, but last year Pierre and Catherine’s house lost all their lightbulbs during a lightning storm.

Finally, our dies nefasti cleansing regime began, and it has felt good and not felt overly burdensome. Eventually the rains subsided, and Guy came again to cut the grass which was necessary. There has been the Boun’estival. We went the first night to Bauduen and enjoyed the street theatre in this lovely town on the lake. The following day in front of l’Eglise d’Aups we watched Isobel Jaspereau again in her “Let’s Return to the Opera” show – both comic and interspersed with delightful arias that she sang most enjoyably. Later that day we went to the Hameau of Bounas for what seemed like a mini-Glastonbury Festival. One highlight was when Jonathan, the son of Marie-Laure whom we had met on New Year’s Eve at Adele and Pascal’s, surprised his mother by coming down from Grenoble. She was totally surprised. The other highlight was the acrobatic act that Adele and Pascal’s son Julian presented.

The bank holiday following Pentecost Sunday was the day of les puces for Aups. The weather was perfect, and everyone empties their greniers and offers things for sale. Stalls are set up throughout the town and on the place. Upon our second visit we visited the Museum. I had not remembered how impressive many of the museum’s paintings are. What was even more impressive and moving was the special room dedicated to the history of Aups and especially the Second World War years and the Resistance.

Our nefastus cleansing ended with the 15th. It felt good, and we were ready to plunge back into hedonistic celebration by the time it ended – starting with Scapa followed by Bruichladdich and then Bowmore. Made my third trip to Ford Motors in Draguignan to get a duplicate key for Melissa, and this time was told that I did not have the master key that would first need to be ordered. Phoned Peter and Shirley, our neighbours in London, on Saturday the 18th, and fortuitously it turned out to be Shirley’s 89th birthday. She seems to be a lot better.

The next day we went to Aix with Catherine and Pierre to see the Palme d’Or winner, The Tree of Life, but the excessive camera movement made me violently ill midway through, and I was too ill afterwards to have dinner but had to come straight home and go immediately to bed. Sometimes the aftermath of this motion reaction can last a week but this time only a day. Then it was the culmination of the sun, and we rose at 05:10 to be at the lake for the sunrise. Richard in the past has referred to these moments as ‘Madness at the crack of dawn.’ We have previously waited until the sunrise that follows the solstice, but this year it seemed that the final sunrise of the solar ascent would be more appropriate, and we plunged into the lake at 06:55. It was splendid, and a delicious day in and out of the village followed – coinciding with France’s fete de la musique. At the noon hour in town, we enjoyed a lively Dixieland band (banjo, clarinet, trombone and tuba) and later during the cocktail hour a jazz ensemble of accordion, bass and guitar. Negronis finished the day for us.

Later in the week when we were to pick up Elisabeth from the Marignane Airport of Marseilles, we left early so we could see Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris but once there learned that the early showing of the film had been cancelled. We ended up seeing and thoroughly enjoying Mike Mills’ The Beginners – both funny and moving. Tomorrow, we fetch Sylvie from the train station in Les Arcs. The next day Vivianne should be arriving, and then on the following Wednesday we all go to Aix for the ISSR conference and, for Richard and me, the start of another nine-day dies nefasti.

From the solstice, that moment that we have aspired toward for the first half of the year, it becomes a long decline. The peak is over, and as long as we remain in this life and in this world, we look forward to another reprise, another ascent, from the yuletide that we also love so well. But for now, and from now, it is a decline. The days will become shorter – and eventually colder. True enough, and fortuitously, the great ‘bang’ of light, the great nuclear explosion, is followed by the sound and effect of the explosion. We still have July and August in which the heat reaches us after the pinnacle of light. The decline is gradual, and we slip almost mindlessly into further times of celebration and enjoyment of our friends and loved ones. The ‘summer’ lies still before us.