Bonny Bonnieux

One last post - we are off for two weeks' holiday through Spain, Italy, Germany and Switzerland so it will be a while before I'm back in here again.

I keep a close eye on the cherry tree in our backyard in Spring to see when it's in flower - it's a good indication of when it's time to take a drive to the Luberon Valley.

This is what our cherry tree was doing, so we quickly decided to take a mid week trip to the hilltop village of Bonnieux, hoping to see flowering fruit trees en masse.

If you look in my banner above you can see the shot I got last year - trees in perfect blossom with a field of yellow flowers below. Gorgeous.

Unfortunately we were a little late - Spring has definitely come earlier this year, plus it's been a lot warmer now in April than in May 2010, when I took that photo. So most of the trees had gone past blossoms to leaves.

I also caught some pretty poor light for photo taking (excuses, excuses) and would have loved to wait for the 'golden hours' before sunset, but the three hungry children in the back of the car didn't give a toss about my photographic aspirations.



So we headed to the fab playground at the base of Bonnieux and had ourselves a yummy picnic dinner.

Looking up at beautiful Bonnieux. 

The kids got to run around, play in the sand and then we were all treated to a pretty spectacular sunset.

I mentioned last weekend the mister was running in the Paris Marathon. I'm proud to announce he not only made it, but he also finished with a very respectable time of 3hr 50. 

Five days later his legs are feeling good, but I must say his feet are in pretty bad shape. Nothing that time and corrective surgery can't fix (jokes). 

Race participants all received this helpful guide book in their starter packs. 

Plenty of good last minute advice there. I especially liked this last point (or perhaps more the english translation):

Nipple chafe: Even the French hate it. 

Be good and have fun, folks. I'll be back in two weeks with travel stories to tell and a sewing itch to scratch. Bonnes vacances! 

Carnaval

Just a quick, sneaky post about our village's Carnaval the other week.

All the schools in the village celebrate on the same day, both maternelle (3-5 yr olds) and primaire (6-10 yr olds). The kids get to wear fancy dress to school and finish early for various parties in the afternoon.

For our daughter, at maternelle, their partying is restricted to the school grounds. They have dancing, the teachers perform skits and then they gorge themselves on junk food before being sent home in various states of sugar frenzy.

I can't wait until I get to do that. 

The three primary schools celebrated by coming together in the village centre square, where they sang songs. This is the view toward Mount St Victoire from the square. Not too shabby.

After that a DJ took over and each child was handed a big bag of confetti and told to have at it. As you could imagine, it was fantastic - 300 children all throwing confetti at each other and their teachers. Heaven.

Mmmm, confetti. 

After that they all headed back to school for snacks and fun in the playground. Sounds like a perfect Friday afternoon to me.

Have a great week everyone!

Meyrargues

I've managed to get our holiday booked (Barcelona, Tuscany, Munich, Switzerland, phew) so I thought a reward post was warranted.

Another travel post, this time inspired by a certain lady who spent her honeymoon in this little Provençal village.

This is Meyrargues.

Now, Meyrargues is not a sightseer's haven. It's just a normal village going about day-to-day life which is refreshing after the trinket shops and overpriced restaurants of other more tourist-oriented towns.

That said, of course we did go to see the few touristy sites within the town.

We headed up the hill in the centre of the village to the Chateau, initially built in the 9th century, with considerable improvements made in the 1700s (the Chateau is now a 4 star hotel, wedding venue and honeymoon hotspot).

Just past the Chateau is the start of several hiking trails which connect to neighbouring villages.

After some brief and shaky explorations we headed back down the hill  towards the cemetery to take in the aqueduct ruins.

These date from Roman days when water was needed to supply the nearby city of Aix-en-Provence.

Not the biggest ruins, but still charming, and not another person in sight.

Then it was off to the neighbouring village of Peyrolles-en-Provence, which is only 5 km (3 mi) down the road. This arch leads you to the centre ville, the ancient heart of the village.

The streets are narrow and the buildings older than any Australian could imagine.

The windows are so romantic:

Especially those with an ashtray and quarter bottle of rosé (methinks a good night was had here):

The two most ignored signs in France: no parking and no dog crapping:

Another archway revealed the The Hôtel de Ville of Peyrolles-en-Provence.

Formerly the castle of King Roy René.

And then we had to be on our way, not even time for a coffee. Although only in the area for a few hours, we enjoyed our morning in Meyrargues and Peyrolles-en-Provence.

Right, back to the grind. If I can get through the rest of the admin before we leave I've given myself permission to sew up a skirt or two for my little girl. I could do with some instant gratification. 

Please think of the mister this weekend - he's running the Paris Marathon. 

Good luck, Schmoopy; bon weekend, everyone else! 

Slow going ahead...

I'm usually a three-times-a-week kinda girl (stay on target; I'm talking about blogging here), but that pesky phenomenon known as real life is getting in my way.

We are off on a final road trip holiday before the baby comes (Italy, Germany, Switzerland) in two weeks' time and I haven't made a single booking yet. Eeek.

I have a stack of papers to fill in (in French) for admittance to the hospital to have the baby which I haven't started yet (no worries, can always have this one in the bathtub at home, I think I have the process down pat now).

We have no nursery for the new bub.

Things are starting to catch up with me so I thought I'd just pop in and mention that it will be a bit slow around here the next two weeks, not to mention the two weeks after that when we are en vacance.

In an effort to beg your forgiveness, here is some awesomeness sent to me by Claire at Pinky-ing. Seems that Mr. Cooper, as well as being dashing and able to wash towels on his own stomach, can speak French. Thanks for thinking of us, Claire!



Bradley is starting to give Hugh Jackman a run for his money. This surprise nicely counter-balanced my discovery of this video clip of Sean Connery.



You know that disappointed feeling you got when you found out Santa Claus wasn't real? Like that.

The interviewer's smug comments at the end really irked me too. Of course we haven't heard any complaints from his wife - she doesn't want to get smacked across the chops for her effort.

Here's to men who can handle women having the last word without resorting to the five-finger sandwich. Have a great week everyone!