Puppy Love

Some R&R: a 10 year old who thinks Remy is adorbs!

The globalized, interconnected world is a weird and wonderful place. Yesterday R., Tuck and I visited with my friend Joanna, her two boys (M. and X., ages 15 and 13 respectively) and their 16 week-old Barbet puppy Remy. I met Joanna last fall in my french class that I take twice a week in Aix-en-Provence. So at lunch in France we had 2 Canadian humans, 1 Canadian-born dog of French origin imported to France with us this year, 3 Aussies who now live in Scotland, and their Barbet who was born in the UK and now also lives in Scotland.

Joanna first met Tuck on Monday October 15 at 9h. My, how time flies! Due to a series of first-world logistical problems that day I ended up asking my french teacher if Tuck could come to class with me that particular Monday. She kindly agreed and the rest is history.

On Monday October 15th, I arrived at french and Tuck (a.k.a. Mr. Charming) did the dog version of the bisous (double kissing someone when you greet them). Lots of dogs are very good at currying the favours of humans, the Barbets are best-in-show in this regard. When Tuck was a puppy we brought him home on December 12. We often have a Christmas Eve afternoon open house and were a bit worried about how that might go with a new puppy at home. Our fears were put to rest when puppy-Tuck marched into our living room full of people and promptly plopped himself down in the middle of the room and took a nap. Tuck is happiest in a room full of people and at french class he decided to make himself at home by picking Joanna’s feet to warm when he laid down.

Before class had ended Joanna’s dog-questions began and by the end of the week I had introduced Joanna to Paula (the breeder from whom we got Tuck and a person who holds a very special place in our family). Paula then helped Joanna find breeders on this side of the pond. In January R. and I took Tuck over to meet Joanna’s husband and two boys. Not long after Joanna had found a breeder and began the process of hoping to get a puppy all while packing up their France house to move to Aberdeen, Scotland.

Their puppy was born in March and they brought him home in early May [editors note: there are many advantages to being the kind of person who neglects to delete emails, in this case I have an email trail to help recreate this entire history!]. I’m a complete sucker for Barbet puppies with their sticky-up warthog tails and rolly-polly bellies. When R. and I arrived yesterday to meet him we were reduced to two babbling fools about how soft and cute he is!

It is SUPER hard to photograph black dogs.

It was wonderful to see Joanna, her boys, meet their puppy and it was especially nice that R. got to join me. Normally she should have been at school but her teacher was away sick, there was no sub available, and so she got to spend the day with me. Having R. with me for this visit was particularly fun because she’s the one whom we credit with our getting Tuck.

My first dog’s name was Shadow. She was a pound-dog, a mix of lab, shepherd and given her propensity for eating everything, part goat -I had that dog’s stomach pumped 3 times! I got Shadow as an adult dog when I was single and living in Kingston. It’s a long story but the short version is that she pretty much picked me to be her person. And while I was terribly allergic to a dog that seemed to shed her undercoat almost weekly, Shadow was a vital and much loved member of our family. Everyone in my family has a ‘Shadow stole my food’ story, she was an amazing canoe trip companion, and she was a good sport flying back and forth from Vancouver for a year when I did my post-doc out there.

Four years ago February Shadow died in her sleep in our house at the ripe old age of 15 having had a perfectly ordinary day. We should all be so lucky! At the time R. was about to turn 7 and H was 3. Because I am allergic to dogs, after Shadow died, I really wanted to wait a year before considering whether we’d get a new dog. I wanted a chance to see how much better I’d feel without a dog at home. All of this wait-and-see thinking was all very good and well but it didn’t take into account something that proved to be quite important.

At the time, I really had no idea how much having a dog in our family meant to R. It took us about a week to figure out that R. was a child with dogs in her heart. For her entire life we’d had Shadow and with Shadow gone R. was a bit lost. About 6 weeks after Shadow died, on a Thursday evening, I gave R. my Eyewitness dog breed book and told her she should start learning about dogs, their sizes and their personalities so that if, 11 months later, we were going to get a new one, she could help participate in our decision-making process.

Shadow was terrific but when she joined me, I was at a different point in my life with plenty of time and energy to roll with the many challenges she came with. By the time she died, we were a family with two young children living in 14′ wide house in urban Toronto. My allergies to dogs hadn’t changed much and the appeal of a less-allergic dog was large for me. Welcoming a dog into a home with children is an entirely different prospect than bringing home an adult dog when you are a single woman. So we began to consider getting a puppy and this time from a breeder.

About 20 minutes later R. comes back, page open to the Barbet and says “I think we should get THIS dog”. I thought I knew that book inside out and backwards from a time in my mid-20s when I learned a lot about dogs and quickly. But when I saw the Barbet it was a breed that I’d never heard of and I had certainly never met or seen one. 30 minutes later we’re googling the breed and by bedtime that night I’d sent an inquiry off to Paula asking if “someday” we might be able to come visit to meet her dogs and learn more about the breed.

Someday turned out to be 3 days later when we drove one rainy April morning to Kitchener to meet Paula, her family and her dogs. We were especially taken by Bonnie, Paula’s gentle “giant” of a Barbet – we loved her calm and warm personality. By 3pm that Sunday we’d written back to Paula to ask her if she might consider us for one of Bonnie’s puppies in a year’s time. But that spring of 2009 I’m sure we visited Paula 3 or 4 times just to hang out. At that point we were on the list to get a puppy in the spring of 2010.

Then, one evening in the summer of 2009 I got a message from Paula addressed to all of the families who wanted one of Bonnie’s puppies. Her message basically said “Bonnie went into heat much sooner than expected, how are you collectively feeling about a puppy 6 months earlier than planned? No pressure. We can wait but if we are going to move sooner rather than later the window is small”. Thus began a series of SMS between me and Chris who was out having a beer with friends. By bedtime we’d decided “ok, let’s go for it now”. And in December 2009 we brought Tuck home.

During our entire process of deciding about if, when and which kind of dog to get, we’d had our minds turned to the sabbatical we’re just about to finish. By spring 2009, I had just been tenured and Chris was submitting his package that fall. We had long conversations about whether to wait until after sabbatical to get a dog because we knew that if we were going away for a year we’d want our dog to join us. So we thought long and hard about the appeal (or not) of countries with strict quarantine rules. By that point we were pretty sure we’d like to go to France so we did some early reading and learned that if we had a dog, with time, money, paperwork, and a willing landlord, our dog could come along with us.

Barbets big and small.

So now, in 2013, in Provence, R. and I had a puppy playdate with friends and their new dog. R. had an amazing time with the two dogs and because Joanna is such a gracious host, we all had a wonderful visit together. Tuck has been such an important part of our adventures here and at home and Joanna’s family is clearly smitten with Remy. And all, in the end, because a 6 year old girl deeply missed her first dog. Merci bien R!

Vide grenier is french for I’d rather give my stuff away!

Early morning at our town square with everyone setting up for the Vide Grenier and Brocante.

Today was our village’s garage sale (vide grenier; translation: empty attic) and brocante (like an antiques market). We decided to pay 10€ and purchase 2m of space at the sale. Our primary purpose was to sell off the nespresso machine we bought when we arrived. But when we started to pack this week we realized we had lots of things we could sell.

Filling out the application form for the vide grenier required almost as much detail as registering our girls for school. A few weeks ago I got an urgent text from Chris asking me for the i.d. number on our car! We had to provide this information to purchase a simple spot. We also had to swear that we would not participate as sellers more than twice  a year, we’d only sell things that were used and commit to other vows far more serious in intent than our ‘hey we want to sell our posh coffee machine’ mindset coming into this day.

First world problems indeed: how much can we sell our nespresso for?

We were told that set up began at 5h30 and that by 7h things would be nuts. Around 6h15 we were surprised to find out for our 10€ we got 2m of space on the sidewalk and the road – for some reason I thought we also got a table. No bother, down went the picnic blanket. By 6h45 we’d already made our first sale – a rather aggressive negotiator bought 9 pairs of kids shoes from us for less money I think we should had held out for. But saying “yes” got rid of him and put some money in our pockets – well worth the extra 10€ I think we might have haggled for. His purchase quickly made me realize why I’ve probably never done a garage sale before – I hate dealing with people in this kind of business transaction.

A year ago right now we were fervently working to purge our house of things unnecessary and unwanted. We were making many trips a day to the storage locker and Goodwill. And for days on end we put tonnes things to the curb for others to take. We sold a handful of things on kijiji but really, in the end, we were both ok with just getting the stuff out of our house and into the hands of other people.

Flash forward to this weekend – two weeks before the end of school (July 5) and our departure not too long afterward. Packing is top of mind. We’ve tried this year not to buy too many things but we are cursed/blessed with children whose bodies and feet are rapidly growing and our daily desire for espresso exceeded our tiny village’s resto capacities. So in addition to the coffee machine we had a blanket full of goods to sell.

Notre trucs. Les trucs is one of the most useful words I’ve learned this year. It means “stuff”. Kids use it _all the time_. It is a helpful word when your mental database of nouns isn’t as stocked as you might like it to be.

As things got going this morning, I soon realized that our ‘almost new, brand name’ stuff wasn’t going to fetch much, if anything, at all. One man returned 5 times to negotiate with us to buy the nespresso – his opening offer was 20€. No way. We had it listed for 75€ – I set that price to be under the prices that other nespressos were fetching on the le bon coin (like kijiji). By 9:45am I sold it for 60€ to a much nicer woman. Then I began texting village friends to see if we could bundle up the best of the remaining clothes to recirculate to their kids. By 10:45am all that was left was an Ikea reusable bag full of skates, horseback riding boots and a few clothes that I will donate to the local charity which is now sitting downstairs in my sejour.

As I write this post the sale is raging on. There is not a parking spot to found in our village and people are still haggling at 16h like they did at 7am. From travel in East Africa, I learned how to haggle but today confirmed for me this garage sale gig isn’t my thing. I don’t enjoy it as a buyer or a seller. If the price is fair, I’m happy to pay it. And if we don’t need it, check the 14 feet of sidewalk in front of our house in Toronto.

New Christmas traditions

This is a brand of soda sold in France. Today at lunch in Marseille we had a good laugh with our waiter explaining why our girls giggle when they order it. Thanks to http://stefansargent.com/articles/?p=273 for the image. Given the subject matter in this post it seemed only fitting to lead with this image.

WARNING: this post contains many scatalogical references along the lines of what we’d call “bathroom jokes” in our house. If this kind of stuff is not your cup of tea stop here. Normally it’s not mine either but this experience was one that I am keen to share. However, if you enjoy reading about holiday traditions from other parts of the world and have a good sense of humour, read on …

* * * *

One of my oldest and dearest friends, E.S., is the kind of friend who, when on a road trip to Cleveland OH, has an ipod full of things “you must listen to while we are driving”. On said trip she shared a David Sedaris podcast about how they celebrate Christmas in Holland. I won’t spoil it for you but if you haven’t read or listened to this essay, save it for a grouchy day, it’s that kind of funny.

I remember, when listening to it, thinking “I wonder how much comedic license he took when writing this piece?”. And then I just happened last fall to be in Amsterdam on the weekend that Saint Nicholas arrived. I was en route to East Africa and had 36 hours layover. I spent a chunk of it taking photos of Santa and his entourage just to send to E.S. because it really was just like Sedaris said it would be.

Our lead up to Christmas in France this year was lots of fun with gingerbread houses, present making, and gathering items for the Provence traditional 13 desserts. With Christmas come and gone I didn’t expect to be thinking, much less, writing about it in April 2013. But then we went to Barcelona.

We decided to spend our second week of the girls’ spring holiday (not to be confused with the February holiday they just had) in Barcelona so we took a road trip. On our last day we booked a “Kids and Family Tour” with a great company called Runner Bean and had an excellent 3 hour tour of the Gothic Quarter with the lovely Ann-Marie. The tour was just terrific and full of great stories, back alleys, and opportunities to learn more about quirky nooks and crannies of this wonderful city.

Ann-Marie told great stories on our tour about the gorey history of the Catalonian flag and the history of St. Jordi’s Day (St. George as we know him in English). But boy oh boy we were surprised when we learned about Tió de Nadal (a.k.a. Caga Tió) and the Caganer.

At a pause in the tour, Ann-Marie began to tell us a story about some Christmas traditions in Barcelona. When she started I thought we’d hear about street festivals and food but, much to our surprise and delight (at least for our kids!) we learned that in Catalonia there are two Christmas traditions that involve Christmas characters and defecation. The first is Tió de Nadal (a.k.a. Caga Tió, roughly translated into English means *hit log). He’s a wooden log, hallowed out at one end, wearing a Barretina (the traditional red Catalonia hat) and his back end is covered by a blanket. 

From December 8 thru 24th, Tió is placed out in the family home where he is “fed” treats like orange peel, turrón (a nougat like candy they make), sweet wine and other goodies until the 24th when the family goes to Mass. Then when they get home, the kids sing this song (translated by our tour guide, variations abound we are told but the gist is the same):

Poop Tió poop, poop turrón 

Hazlenuts and almonds

Don’t poop sardines

They are too salty

Poop turrón

Which is much better

Poop Tió poop, Christmas log

If you don’t poop well

I’ll hit you with a stick. 

Then the kids beat the Tió (the log) with a stick. Eventually they stop to see what treats are hiding under the blanket for them. Really, I’m not making this stuff up. The BBC wrote about it and YouTube is full of videos about the tradition. And then, as if that isn’t enough, we learned about the Caganer.

El Caganer is a ceramic figurine depicted with his pants pulled down, squatting, having a b.m., with the end product also included. He is like a bare-bum ‘Where’s Waldo’ because the figurine is usually added to the detailed nativity scenes people set up at Christmas time.

Imagine, you’re at your Grandma’s doing the census of her nativity scene: Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, a donkey, some wise men and a guy with his pants pulled down taking a … Seriously! I kid you not. He is supposed to bring good luck with his fertile contributions to the soil. And, El Caganer is big business here with celebrity spin-offs widely available ranging from President Obama to the Queen to Elvis to Maradonna.

This was one of the only photos I could find that didn’t show a side or rear view of El Caganer.

Needless to say our girls thought this was all pretty fantastic. As we were waiting for our lunchtime restaurant to open after the tour, I looked across the small square and noticed our two girls laughing very hard. I moved a bit closer to hear them singing the Tió song along to a clapping game! Apologies, in advance, to all of the families from our school at home if this song crosses the Atlantic this summer.

There has been lots written about Tió and El Caganer but nothing I read really explains the scatological piece. As with Santa and his entourage in Holland, these traditions may differ from ours at home in North America but they are part of the holiday celebrations here. I wonder what Catalonian comedians and bloggers giggle about from our traditions at home? Regardless, these traditions are long held here and it was a fun surprise to learn more about them.

In my last blog post I wrote about how fond I am of objects with surprises inside. When I shared those thoughts Caga Tió was not even on my radar. Given how much fun we had learning about him we might just have to make one of our own for Christmas this year. I can live with the poop song but it’s the beating of the log with the stick that I am having a hard time getting my head around. I guess it’s not that different than having a piñata.

When our tour was over we returned to the shop that sells El Caganers and bought one to take home. We don’t have a nativity scene … yet … but if you see one on our mantel next Christmas don’t be surprised to see a small Catalonian figure mooning you!

Long may your big jib draw …

One evening long ago at an urban planning conference in St. John’s Newfoundland, I found myself joining the legions of those who come-from-away as I participated in a “Screeching In” ceremony. When asked “Is ye a Screecher?”, if you want to answer “yes”, you need to drink some “local” hooch (a.k.a. Screech, not really local at all but Jamaican dark rum), recite some prose (the excerpt above mean “may the wind always be in your forward sails”), and kiss a cod as a way of wishing “bon voyage” to those sailing away to bring back the rum.

The other day when we decided to eat my Easter fish for dessert, I was reminded of that sloshy evening in St. John’s and felt the urge to kiss the fish. We cracked it open and found many MORE delicious goodies inside. The four of us, over a few nights, had lots of fun tasting M. Brunet’s delicious chocolate creations. When we get back I’m heading straight for the Chocolateria to see if I can inspire some Easter fun for next year.

I’m a hasty photographer and as I’m posting these pics I often cringe at the everyday objects that lurk in the backgrounds of my photos. But these bits and pieces are true artifacts of our life. Note above: there is a half-finished glass of water – that’s my fault and a common bad habit of mine. And there’s a pink hair elastic – for the love of all that is good if hair elastics were currency I’d make the Forbes 500.

I love objects with surprises inside – kinder eggs, Christmas crackers, and now Easter fish. M. Brunet’s chocolate is truly delicious and he is such a gracious and low key chocolate maker. The fish was great just on its own but then when we popped it open we were treated to a variety of new delicious things. It’s funny how even as a grown up treats like these can delight!

[editor’s aside: It’s funny, all kissing of chocolate cod aside, when writing this post, I stumbled upon another common experience between France and Newfoundland. Earlier this winter I wrote about the tasty tartiflette I made. The recipe for it concludes with putting an entire reblochon cheese on top of a huge casserole full of potatoes, onions and lardons. The recipe for tartiflette isn’t an old Alsatian tradition — it was recently created to increase the sales of reblochon cheese. Well, même chose avec le Screech. It’s not some age-old Newfoundland tradition but a newish one geared toward tourists. Ah, the power of food and booze-related economic development!]

Weird Souvenirs

Last month I wrote about how I was collecting grocery store stickers in pursuit of some new cutlery. Well, as you can see above, the fruits of my autocollant collecting labours paid off and our family now has a new set of Alessi cutlery. It was a full family affair with the kids keenly wanting to come shopping to experience, first hand, the erratic distribution of stickers. The kids also were diligent keepers of the stickers ensuring every single one made its way into the collection booklet that we had to present to earn our discount.

I laughed when I looked carefully at this photo – it’s like where’s Waldo with the self-portrait in the soup spoon.

The official price per place setting, once I traded in all of my stickers was 8.99€ but then when I gave them my Carrefour card (it’s an affinity card for collecting points) I got 16€ credit for my next month’s grocery purchases. So, all in, we’re going home with a whole whack of groovy Italian-designed cutlery for 56€.

Last week we had Canadian friends visiting and the mum was asking me about what kinds of things I was going to bring home to remember our time in Provence? A whole bunch of Italian cutlery courtesy of Carrefour was the first thing that came to mind.

Carnaval

Today was the annual spring Carnaval in our village! The spring carnival seems to be a rite of spring here because all of the small villages are celebrating their own too. It’s not like Carnival in Venice or Rio but a made-in-Puyloubier kind of event.

Since Christmas, kids in the village have been going to paper-mâché workshops at the library to help make decorations, shakers and piñatas with a team of local artists. These workshops are offered free of charge and our girls went three times to help. The organizing committee this year picked the theme of “Le Monde” and everyone – parents and kids – was encouraged to dress up like people from another country. This presented an interesting challenge on many fronts.

We didn’t come costume ready because we knew kids don’t celebrate Halloween here. If Va-loo-eh (Value) Vee-la-age (Village) or its equivalent exists here, I’ve never found it. So I had to summon my rusty Camp Cataraqui skills for making costumes out of not very much to figure out what to do. We decided that R. would be a Canadian hockey player (because she is one) and H. would wear some variation on something that looked tropical because she wanted something fun and colourful, she likes to do her own version of the hula, and the costume wasn’t going to be specific to a particular place or its people.

R is wearing her practice jersey from hockey camp last summer, a dog bandana with Maple Leafs on it from the Dollar Store (watch for it on Tuck on Canada Day here) around her neck, and H’s hockey gloves on strings. H. is wearing a bunch of stuff spanning the colours of rainbow sherbet and her “skirt” is made out of a plastic table cover that I cut into strips and stapled onto an elastic waist band. She loved it!

Then there was the problem of _my_ costume. I hate dressing up, always have. I felt like in high school the options were racy, clever, or cute. I’m not really built for cute, never felt comfortable in racy, and wasn’t that clever so I found costumes hard. Today I decided to “dress up” as a hockey/hula mom so I made this stuff and attached it to my very red fleece jacket. Every time I put it on I want to ask “does this jacket make me look like Elmo?”.

There were some pretty elaborate costumes on both parents and kids. At home, I think, when it comes to costumes there’s often an element of fun or humour attached to them and I think our three costumes all had this quality. Today some people were really dressed up and it was clear some people put a lot of time and effort into what they were wearing. Regardless, on we went!

The day began after lunch with (another free) workshop for kids with a troupe of professional drummers. Our girls were taught how to use large drums and they learned a range of rhythms that would be used in the parade. It all sounded samba-ish to me and the workshop was toe-tapping fun! I took this short video of the girls in the workshop  and I laughed aloud when I watched it later because it absolutely captures our girls and where they are at right now.

The workshop was SOO-PUR, as they say it here, and the drums made the hour and half meander through our village so much more fun! I’m not really sure how it took us an hour and half to do a walk that normally takes less than ten minutes …

One of the many stops in the village during the parade. This is the square about 5 doors up from our house.

These REAL boy scouts were walking through the village and got stuck in the middle of one of the parade stops. This is them after they escaped! When I first saw them I thought they were a family dressed up as the Von Trapps.

After the village procession we all ended up at the Salons des Fêtes (the local community centre). There was more drumming and dancing outside, some snacks were served, and piñatas were cracked open. Then there was a DJ’ed dance party for the kids. I had no idea my kids knew so many French pop songs!

H. with L. watching some dancing.

R. in blue ducking from the confetti being thrown at her. In the foreground is her friend A. who was born in Texas and is keenly dressed as a cowboy.

The outdoor amphitheatre behind the Salon des Fêtes.

The kids are knackered and upstairs watching DC Cupcakes. This event, like the others that we’ve attended, was fun, energetic, and not quite like things we’ve experienced at home. Next weekend the Mayor is hosting some event that runs 10h30-16h30 for all the kids in the village ages 3-11. It’s billed as a “celebration of childhood” – it’s free, it’s a drop-off and it includes lunch. I think it should be billed as “a weekend gift to the adults of the village”.

It’s so hard to imagine something like either of these events at home. While our neighbourhood in Toronto has a fantastic creative spirit and lots of community minded people, the sheer numbers of kids are huge and there just isn’t a community space that could easily accommodate everyone. As an urban planner, I think a lot about scale and how can use it things to make cities more livable, sustainable, fun and also efficient. Our year in the village has given me an innate sense of how smaller-scaled places work. So far I can’t figure out how to translate the best of here to home but we’ve got three and half months to go so there’s still time.

And now I’m collecting grocery store stamps?

For as long as I can remember grocery stores have offered programs in which when you make purchases you get stamps or tickets to store in some kind of booklet. And then, when you have enough stamps you can trade in your booklet and a bit of money to receive new towels, or bakeware, or cubic zirconia jewellery. Even in this age of loyalty cards these stamp-based programs are still in play and on the odd occasion when I’ve noticed the display at the grocery store I’ve obnoxiously thought “well, if it was Le Creuset then I’d play ball!”.

Time to eat my words. When I shop at a grocery store (not that often here) I shop at Carrefour. Why there? Because it’s the closest big grocery store to our house and they have more “international” food (read: stand up tacos for the rascals) than the Casino (another chain, not the plague Toronto is battling) 2 minutes further away. At home in Toronto I shop at the S*ittyLoblaws at Dundas and Bloor West if I need a grocery store. I have lost many years off my life in that store agonizingly waiting for someone, anyone, to do something so I can get the heck out of there with my groceries. It’s a nasty place but again it is close to home so it lessens the pain.

Before Christmas at Carrefour I noticed many women with small boxes of jewellery and books full of stamps at the checkout. I was amazed at how many people were taking advantage of a stamps-for-jewellery thing I was completely ignoring. And then last week everything changed.

I was headed to grab the aforementioned box of Old El Paso “Taco UP!” (as they call them here) and something caught my eye … the word ALESSI. I was quite confused because I don’t normally associate my grocery store with groovy Italian design so I did a double take to see if I’d read the sign wrong. But lo and behold, Carrefour’s next stamps-for-merchandise gig was ALESSI Nuovo Milano cutlery.

So up to the checkout I went and eagerly asked for my booklet to collect the stamps. Officially, for every €10 I spend on groceries I am supposed to get 1 stamp. But each cashier seems to have their own stamp distribution equation. The first time I spent about €60 and received 15 stamps. Then I spent €32 and got 3. Then last Saturday I spent €32 and got 32 stamps. Yesterday, we spent €40 and got 4. Today Chris spend €23 and got 17. Whatever. We’re well on our way to a table full of new cutlery. H’s job is to put the stickers in the book and she’s very diligent about making sure she’s doing a proper job. Her french primary school emphasis on things neat and tidy is wearing off on her!

I’ve never heard or seen anyone else in line ask for the stamps which might be why the cashiers are so generous with the stamps. But I know one other family collecting too. Their mum is also Canadian so I wonder if the Carrefour people think this is some weird maple syrup fuelled fetish?

As a Ralph Nader/Consumers Reports brainwashed consumer I wondered “is this too good to be true?”. Surely, for that price, I thought, these must be “Alessi” or really some low-level grocery-store only crappy substitute. So today I looked up the retail price of the items offered. The retail price for 6 place settings with knives, forks and spoons is €515. If we got 120 tickets and paid €41.94 we’d get the same thing from Carrefour. The Carrefour advertising claims you save 80%. I was really surprised to see the same cutlery for sale in stores.

Our year away is breeding all kinds of new habits. But collecting stamps-for-fun-Italian-cutlery wasn’t one I anticipated. Time to stock up on toilet paper.

Sabbatical equinox

Today is the halfway point in our sabbatical. I’m often asked if time is flying quickly but that’s a hard question to answer. When I think back to when we left Toronto it feels like so very long ago and on a week-by-week basis time passes both slowly and quickly.

To be sure our daily lives here are much simpler than at home: the kids walk to a school that is 4min away and we work at home while they are at school. So in that way time doesn’t pass particularly quickly, which I like. During the girls’ school terms there is a pattern that has naturally evolved around week-to-week obligations. I have french class early on Mondays and Thursdays, Chris’ class is Monday afternoons, the girls have activities stacked up on Wednesdays and R. dances on Thursdays. Homework is the heaviest on the weekends, Mondays and Thursday nights. Tuesday nights feel like Friday and on Friday we eat pizza. All of these routine events make the weeks quite predictable and I often find myself surprised when it is Wednesday again!

We haven’t really been marking the time spent here or until our return. But in the grocery store over Christmas a funny thing happened that made me actually count how much time we have left. I was waiting in a rather long line, as per usual, to pay. Here, instead of the North American cornucopia of kid-eye-level junk food, the check-out line has mints, gum and many varieties of mobile phone recharge cards.

I have a simple pay-as-you-go mobile phone and it was low on money so I started looking at my options. The best value card was a 6-month one which lead me to calculate the time-remaining math. Our return-home tickets have been booked since late October so I was able to count ahead.

School doesn’t end here until July 5th so we’re staying put until then. At home there are bunch of summer activities our kids are keen to participate in (e.g. sleep away camp, seeing friends) and here it gets very hot in the summer. We made the choice to fly home not long after school ends in part for the kids but also because we’re flying home with Tuck so we want to try to keep things as safe as possible for him too.

I’m finding that living somewhere for a year on a temporary basis leads to odd consumption math. For example, the dog food we buy for Tuck comes in a big bag that lasts about 2 months. Our current stash will last until mid-February so we have about 2.5 bags of dog food of time left. We go through a canister of cooking gas about every 2 months so same thing for those …

Our french car also carries a visual reminder of our temporary status and fixed departure date. The red plate, shown above, signifies someone with long-term lease. The numbers on the right hand side of the plate show return date so anyone in the know can figure out when we’re leaving too.

Pont du Gard – an amazing Roman aqueduct. We hope to canoe under it

Last weekend, on our way home from skiing, I started making a list of the things we want to make sure we do before we leave. There are many day trips within 2h drive of our place including canoeing on the Gard river under the Pont du Gard, seeing the flamingoes in the Camargue, visiting the Friday market in Lourmarin, and hiking the circuit to see the Mées.

Les Mées – an odd and beautiful geologic formation I’m keen to get up closer to.

On our mountain we are keen to hike up to the Priory.

Priory at Mont Sainte Victoire

As part of the Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture celebrations in March a new GR2013 trail will open. It’s a new 360km grande-randonée that passes through 39 communes (villages) and it has an emphasis on cultural sites rather the typical environmental ones in the other GRs. It takes 15 days to hike the entire thing but it will be fun for us to see how much of it we can cover on day trips.

We also look forward to February and April school breaks. In February we’re taking a trip to Italy where we’ll stay in Venice and Rome, a first for us all. In April we’re going to take a driving trip in Western France down to Barcelona. And then there’s May full of national holidays including a long weekend which we think we’ll spend in Paris (again!).

We’re also looking forward our upcoming visitors. This weekend lovely family friends are arriving en route to their winter sojourn in Pomerols. They arrive Friday perhaps in time for lunch and for sure in time for apéros, Friday night pizza and hopefully a trip to a vineyard. In April our girls are SUPER excited because they each have a very dear friend coming to visit, chaperoned by one of their moms (lucky me!). And in May the Gore Grandparents are returning in time for the big rascal to turn 10.

Speaking of birthdays, my 45th (gulp) arrives in May so we’re having fun figuring out what kinds of mid-life crisis celebrations we might cook up. My current thinking is that we’ll posh it up and spend a warm day at a private beach club in Nice before we leave. Much to the chagrin of our girls my birthday falls on one of the two Wednesdays they actually have to attend school this year. At the last minute the fall (Toussaint) holiday was extended to a full two weeks and the two extra days they added are being “made up” on Wednesdays in April and May. I say it’s good practice for our girls for when they go back to 5 day-a-week TDSB school but they are having none of it.

Myriad blogs and books speak of the strong attachments people from away form to France and it is easy to see why. It’s a beautiful country with delicious wine and food where colourful people speak a wonderful language. At our halfway point we have lots of time left to enjoy but I’m guessing when the time comes to leave we’ll be saying “à la prochaine” instead of “au revoir”.

“Winter” in Provence

It’s so cold here the trees need blankets. Kidding! These plane trees are part of a public art project celebrating the MP2013 Capital of European Culture year-long event. The project is called  « Ascension of Polka Dots on Trees » by Yayoi Kusama on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence.

Now that it is mid-January it might be a good time to report on what winter is like in the south of France. Since December 21st it’s been a bit like Waiting for Godot (without the pending suicide pact). Being an Eastern/Southern Ontario born and raised Canadian, winter has quite specific connotations and expectations attached to it so being here during “winter” is a new experience.

Toronto and Puyloubier are on almost exactly the same latitude but oh what a different geography makes! While there were a few days last week when it was the same temperature here as it was at home, for the most part our winter experience here has been sunny, below zero at night and somewhere between 7-12°C during the day.

Yet despite this pretty balmy (for us) weather, I still find myself feeling bone-chillingly cold. Here in the absence of centralized heating we’ve all learned the benefits of layering up. The tile floors are chilly but easily mitigated with good slippers. My fall investment in mattress warmers (like an electric blanket but it goes under the sheets) are an energy efficient way to avoid getting into an freezing cold bed at night. We turn them on after dinner and off when someone gets into bed.

In our bathroom we have a warming towel rack that doubles as the heater. This is one appliance we want to install when we get home. It keeps the bathroom warm, the towels dry and it also will dry a pair of freshly laundered jeans in under 3 hours. This added benefit is key in a part of the world where clothes are dried on racks and/or outside and not in a clothes dryer.

Laundry, in the winter here, is an adventure. At home we have the luxury of ‘just in time’ clean clothes. Here we’ve had to train our kids to warn us when they only have 3 pairs of underwear left. On a good day we can get dry clothes in under 24 hours but we’ve had a few stints where it’s been 3 days and stuff is still only 90% dry. We have a running joke asking each other if something is “wet, cold or both?”.

It’s funny being away from home in “winter” because somewhere, deep down, I am still waiting for it to be much colder. I think it’s been sunnier here than normal and I’m steeling up for the weeks in a row of rain people tell me are coming.

H. and Chris made this snowman last week. Doing what you can with what you’ve got!

It has snowed twice since we’ve come including last Tuesday. Our girls were so excited that the 1cm that lasted 8h brought the potential for a “snow day”. Here, because there is no snow removal and people have car tires designed for heat, not cold, even the lightest dusting of snow can mean school is cancelled. Alas, poor rascals, it started snowing just as school was starting and it was almost gone by day-end.

We’ve had some funny experiences with snow-related infrastructure here. Before Christmas at our big grocery store I noticed that they window “ice” scrapers for sale. I learned early on here not to dawdle with purchases so I quickly snapped up 2: a short “heavy duty” one and a longer one. Impotent is the best way to describe their effectiveness. On Monday morning when trying to get to french class at 8h15 I had to resort to using windshield wiper fluid and letting the car idle (gasp!) for 10 minutes to get the ice off the windscreen.

The chair lift to the top of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Condamine ski station.

Last weekend we drove 3h north to the Southern Alps for a weekend of skiing. We were lucky to receive 30cm of fresh snow in two days but that also meant we had a rather harrowing drive home down the hair-pin ski resort road with summer tires on our car. It’s funny because we’re both pretty safety conscious people and neither of us thought to see whether our tires were all-seasons (we knew they weren’t snow tires). Our trip home got off to a bad start when, after backing out of parking spot at the ski hill, we couldn’t even get up a 4° hill because our tires were spinning. So, after taking a run at the hill I pretty much closed my eyes the whole way down and was grateful for good driving and good luck. Before our next ski adventure we’re going to have to invest in chains or perhaps snow socks?

Our village fountain last week after a cold-spell. It reminded me of a Mateus wine bottle/candle holder from when I was a kid.

I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent Groundhog Day here or not but I will report back on what I discover. Here’s hoping that now I have written this “winter isn’t so bad here” message I am not dooming Provence to six more weeks of terrible winter! Today is one of those 2C, hard rain, bone-chilling cold days but with a view like this one, I won’t complain.

Memories of my year in Vancouver: “When it’s raining down here, it’s snowing up there”. A view of rare snow on Mont Sainte Victoire from our terrasse.

La Galette des Rois

I blame the money cake. Those of us of a certain age might recall birthday parties in 1972 and 1973 with cakes with coins hidden inside. My mom wrapped the coins in waxed paper because we all know how dirty money is (ha!). I have very vivid memories of my confetti birthday cake with cooked pink fluffy frosting, multi-coloured little ball sprinkles on top, and a handful of small change baked inside as a surprise for the lucky recipients. For as long as I can remember I have had a whimsical love of food with surprises inside.

For New Year’s Eve I ordered DIY party crackers from the UK. The kit to make you own comes in this very inconspicuous flat package complete with shiny foil wrappers, ties, cardboard forms, jokes, hats, and the things you pull to make the “pop”. I love the moment when the cracker is popped open, the insides go flying and then everyone scrambles to read their jokes, tell their fortunes and compare whose plastic chatchka is better. Crackers are tacky and fun – we’ll stuffed ours with french sweets and had good laughs on the 31st with the cheezy jokes.

I love fortune cookies too – not for how they taste but for the fun of cracking one open to see what is inside. Ditto for the KinderSurprise but I like the outsides on them too. We like them so much in our house we had baskets of them at our wedding!

So I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m a wee bit excited about the arrival of la galette des rois – the king’s cake – in celebration of the Epiphany today. The Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th, is (I’ve just read) the Christian celebration of the revelation that Jesus was the son of God and is also known as the 12th day of Christmas or the 12th night. This article has an excellent history of the cake and its origins.

The galette des rois is a fun part of the Epiphany feast and it takes many forms around the world and even here in France. There appear to be two versions here in Provence.

This frangipane one with almond paste inside came from our local bakery complete with the fancy hat.

This one is more like a brioche with fruit confit and aspirated sugar on top.

Tradition dictates that there is a “charm” hidden in the cake. At its origin there was a bean (une fève) hidden in the cake and the eater who found it is king or queen for the day and is promised luck, wealth, power, and virtue. The King or Queen also gets to pick his/her Queen or King for the day by dropping the charm in the glass of their chosen royal consort.

H. has an epiphany – the first piece of cake goes to her sister.

People apparently take this process of cake cutting and piece distribution quite seriously with processes in place to reduce bias or advantage in potential charm finding opportunities. When cutting the cake, the youngest guest gets to decide who gets which piece. In particularly rowdy families the youngest gets to sit under the table while the cake is being cut and call out the name of the person who gets to receive the cake piece that was just cut.

It seems that people start eating these cakes before the Epiphany so that if you find the charm on one day, it’s your turn to provide the cake the next day. Other traditions suggest if you find the charm you need to buy a round of drinks for your guests. I learned on facebook recently that in Mexico if you find the favour you have to host a tamale party for everyone.

By the mid 19th century the bean was replaced with a porcelain charm including some produced by Limoges. Now the charms (still called la fève) take many forms. I’ve seen cakes with Asterix and Obelix on the label at the grocery store and I’ve seen many photos on line of charm collections that look like the ones shown in this photo including the same figurines you’d find in a manger scene. Apparently the collection of these trinkets is serious enough that people who are rabid about it are called fèvophiles! 

Last week Chris and I had a good laugh at our local bakery. We’d gone up to buy baguette for dinner and noticed a new sign on the door showing a set of 12 charms of french politicians we might find in our galette. Can you imagine cutting a cake and finding a mini-Rob Ford or Prime Minister Harper as your “good luck” talisman? This is a photo of the fève we found in our cake today.

This is a porcelain caricature of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He’s a long standing member of parliament and he keeps a blog too: http://www.jean-luc-melenchon.fr.

Look who is King for the day! Figures the political scientist would find the left-leaning fève in his cake piece.

When reading up about the tradition surrounding the galette I found this blog post “All they do around here is eat!”. The title made me laugh because sometimes it really seems like that is the case!

Tomorrow, as at home in Toronto, our girls go back to school. While this holiday was only two weeks long it felt like a real break so I think it will be a bit of a rough grind tomorrow getting everyone back in the groove. So we’ll take the good luck from our king’s cake and spread it around to all of you who are prying little people out of bed, packing snacks, and generally smoothing the transition back to “normal” life.