July into August 2022

July into August 2022

I am recalling my mother from her final stay in Florida. Richard and I had gone to the Sunday service at the Unitarian Church in Naples. When we returned, we found mother happily asleep on a raft in her swimming pool with a big and contented smile on her face. Richard and I are now many years later at our beloved farm in the Midi. After nearly three years absence with the pandemic lockdowns, it is here more special than ever. The abode and its

surrounding land are the harvest of what is now 46 years of input, and while we are increasingly falling apart physically, I understand that smile of my mother’s from the vintage of satisfaction and ingathering of joy.

We have been blessed with further delightful visits first by Carlo, Jean-Christophe and their niece Marie-Emilie who came for a luncheon, then Bron & Beth who stayed with us for three nights. Barbara took us to the Grand Hotel one night for dinner. Next it has been Rix and Sylvester who were here for ten nights. We have been twice to Tourtour for dinner – oncewith Beth & Bron and then again with Rix & Sylvester. We have had coffee with our neighbour Anne-Marie, coffee also with Natacha & Jonathan. Anne-Marie’s father, Roger, has died, and she is here to sort things out. Natacha & Jonathan came for a Saturday night dinner with Barbara, Penny and Joanne. We were invited to their house for a dinner, but the road was closed, so it became lunch the following day. The construction had still not been finished, so after first coming back home, Jonathan suggested that he come to where we could walk to and from there get us up the mountain to chez Natacha in his car. While Rix & Sylvester were here, they took over the kitchen and served us luscious meals being determined to wait on us and make us rest. They also took us to Expression in Salernes for a very special dinner. We have had coffee with Tilly during Saturday’s morning marché, and we will join her, Jessica and the five children tonight for the town’s aioli. And I have finally been able to Zoom with Lanna. We also were able to phone Marlowe in Palm Springs for his 95th birthday. And one late afternoon we took a bottle of whisky and visited Renaud who, after having had a shot of some kind in Marseilles, was feeling better.

When Natacha first arrived, her aunt Marie-Claude had just died, so we were able to attend her funeral in the église. It had been delayed because the priest had contracted the rona, but Coco’s service when it did occur was moving, beautiful, very community and even Catholic pagan. Two weeks later while we were at Penny’s for dinner with Rix, Sylvester, Alex and Peter, Richard and I were able to attend via Zoom Saint Lynne’s memorial. Also moving, and I was one of the speakers. For ourselves, I have been to my ERN specialist twice and now can finally hear again. Richard has been to the doctor twice and has had an echograph in

Draguignan that has confirmed that he has a hernia. The surgeon is on vacation, so we have yet to try to arrange for that. We have also been to Cathy, our touch therapist. And at least, thanks to an anti-inflammatory, Richard’s back is now okay. And Pierre has given Barbara, Richard and me our Pfizer booster jabs. José and her mother Maria, our cleaners, both got Covid-19. José recovered more quickly, but Maria who is 86 took longer.

The drought continues in France, but at least we had two days finally of some rain. With Rix & Sylvester we had gone to swim in Salernes at the Roman bridge over the Bresque the day before our inundations and the drop in temperature. I have finished reading Kathryn Gin Lum’s Heathen: Religion and Race in American History and am now working on its review. We have three more of August’s feriae to go: the Volcanalia, the Opisconsivia and the Volturnalia. I am also reading Victoria Schroeder’s (Vicky’s) Cleopatra’s Eternal Journal. For the rest, we continue to operate with smiles on our faces.