Old things

When I was a little girl, I lived in France. We lived in lots of places, but the one I remember best is Les Arcades, a (then) sorta semi-ruined maison-chateau in Beaugency, a village in the Loire Valley.

The grounds were expansive, with orchards, a small greenhouse, a wine cave under the house, stream and pasture, twinned parterres covered in pea gravel and surrounded by boxwood, and off and up a walled hillside, the home of Mnsr. Pierre, the gardener. Tres, tres cranky, was Mnsr. Pierre, what with a bunch of unruly kids running around his jardins. But not so cranky as to prevent Mme. Pierre from bringing my mom a bowl of fresh cherries or whatever other fruit or veggie was in full fragrance.

The grounds were great, the house, a mess. But it was cheap and that's what my family needed. Hindsight (thanks Mom & Dad!) a tremendous choice. I adore the memory of those gardens.

Here in southern France, looking at mossy water wheels, ivy covered walls, boxwood hedges and parks with pea-gravel walks, I remember Les Arcades and the smell of boxwood, topiaries and mossy stone walls and a gruff Frenchman bewildered by an American invasion.

The people of Isle sur la Sorgue must feel the same way. The town is a lovely tourist trap, where you will hear Australian twang and German .... um ... something. Some of the locals are polite but abrupt, some just polite and some friendly, like the owner of La Renaissance, where we ate lunch today.

Carl has a good history of drawing people out, and his fumbled response to the owner's "Finis?" question had all of us laughing. "He speaks no French?" he asked me. I shook my head. "OK, I thought he was finished but when he said 'No' I thought OK, I'll just let it go!"

Later, C made the proprietor of a cigar stand laugh!
He'll be here all week, folks! (Veal. Waitress. Etc., etc.)

Anyway, lunch was lovely. Then we looked at lovely antiques much, much older than Mnsr. Pierre.

Les photos:

 1) Lunch at La Renaissance.

 2) Poster outside an antiques store dealing in Mid Century Modern furnishings.

 3) Interior of a room of Hotel Donghier Antiquities. Isle sur la Sorgue is lousy with antiques dealers. Where does all this stuff come from?

 4) Fishing was done here in boats called "nego chin," which roughly  translated means "dog drowners." Boats not used any more, at least for fishing, or dog drowning, hopefully. Now just for photo ops.  Lovely though.

 5) Awesome dragon man statue outside of Robert Juan Antiquities, dealing in Asian and south Asian art.

 6) A rather old book at Carli Antiquities. This was actually open and you could flip through the pages, as were quite a few others.

7) River life on a Sunday afternoon in Isle sur la Sorgue.