French Market in Provence and a familiar vineyard

Yesterday we decided to take a little time out from sunning ourselves by the excellent pool of our villa near Vidauban, and drive up north to the little town of Lorgues for their weekly Tuesday market. 

Oh boy, what a French treat: there were clothes, excellent leather goods, fantastic veg, saucisson, mountains of dried lavender and other herbs, and cheeses to die for. Plus anything else you might ever think of needing (including vegetable cutters…) The place was very busy with hordes and hordes of both locals and tourists. 

With the sun beating down (it was 32C), after just a short stroll we were flagging and needed a cafe au lait and croissant in one of the many cafes lining the market.

Thus revived, we made our purchases: 

Son bought a much needed Panama hat (in the Mediterranean heat his black hair very quickly becomes a furnace on top of his head). 

Son's fiancée and I found a bargain in 5 Euro sarongs to wear around the pool (which also turn into shawls to wear around the shoulders in the evenings). I now wish I'd bought two; I've been wearing mine solidly since I got it, and I would really need one in a brighter colour.  Oh well…

Daughter got a ring and I got Son a Breton stripe t-shirt for his birthday today.

The Englishman brought the food….cherries, cheese, bread, fantastic tomatoes (not the same fruit we get back home in the UK!), 4 kinds of sausages.

If you’re ever around this area, the market is worth visit.

On the way back to Vidauban, we passed a sign for Chateau L'Arnaude and I realised it was a vineyard I visited with my mother five or six years ago. In fact we stayed in the house, as guests of the owners who have now sadly sold it on. I had no idea we were so close to the vineyard, and since I remember the wine being particularly excellent, we popped in to have a taste and ended up buying a box of white. (And very nearly a box of the rose and red too!)

It’s a small world.

The 5:2 Fast Diet is a family affair

Having been going on about our new 5:2 Fast Diet to all and sundry for months now, I suddenly realised that almost all of my family are doing the intermittent fasting too!

The Englishman wrote about his experiences with the diet below and our Daughter started the 5:2 fasting as soon as she went back to uni after Christmas. She's never been fat, but felt that she wanted to lose the few pounds she'd put on over Christmas. As she has no access to a reliable set of scales (students!), she can't tell me how much she's lost in the last four weeks, but reported that her hipbones were more noticeable. Oh, the wonders of youth! However much I starve myself, I don't think I'll ever get to that stage; my hipbones haven't seen the light of day in years…

Son and his girlfriend have caught the bug too; on a recent evening out Son told us he'd not eaten anything all day to save his 600 fasting day calories for the meal we were just about to consume. Bad planning, I call that, but all the same, he's looking lean and healthy on the 5:2.

The latest recruit within my family circle to the Fast Diet is my big sister. She's only been doing it for two weeks and has already lost 2.5 kilos. Way to go Big Sis!

The only creature in the family left for me to recruit is the terrier, but I think I might have some trouble explaining the concept to him….

And on that note, here's a gratuitous cute terrier picture.

My Mowember Boys

No bumfluff 'taches here!

Both the Englishman and Son are again growing moustaches this November to raise money and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer, through an inspirational charity called Mowember.

Last weekend, when I asked how come both of them could grow facial hair so quickly, the response was unanimous and immediate, 'Testosterone! Because we're real men!'

As a Mo Sista (a woman who loves a Mo), you have to get used to this kind of Alpha Male behaviour during Mowember. There's nothing like a bit of facial hair to make your perfectly normal partner (or Son) into a chest beating cave dweller….

Oh well, only 13 days to go.

You can support my Mos here and here.

What's your IKEA story?

The new academic year always seems to herald another trip to IKEA to get bright and beautiful bits of pieces for daughter's digs at university. But IKEA and I have a history going much further back than that.

First time ever I visited IKEA was in the round, Guggenheim style, store in Stockholm in 1973. My parents had newly separated and together with my mother and older sister we headed up to IKEA on bus and tunnelbana (tube -you can guess how this is going to end?) in order to look at things we could furnish our new flat with. We came out of the store having purchased two armchairs, complete with brown and orange cushions. Plus some other stuff we couldn't do without - lamp shades, table lamps (in orange and red), rugs (brown and beige stripe) and various bits of bed linen. It was all so cheap and chic (we thought) that we just couldn't resist.

Stockholm IKEA circa 1965

As you may have imagined, the bus and tunnelbana journey home was interesting.

The next time I went to IKEA it was a good twenty years later when, living in Wiltshire, one Sunday morning I announced that we would drive the 70 or so miles up to Birmingham to the newly opened IKEA. The Englishman had no say in the matter - I was obviously still slightly deranged following a second pregnancy. I announced I was homesick and needed to be amongst Scandinavian things. (The presence of an IKEA was still quite a novelty here in Britain). Besides the drive would only take us three or so hours each way. It was circa 1992 and our daughter was a toddler and our son was a wise five-year-old.

That time we bought the children some beautiful pine bunk beds. It was only when we headed for the car park that the wise oldest child asked, 'Is the bed going to fit into the car, daddy?' We looked at each other over the top of the five-year-old's head, and assured him there wasn't going to be a problem. The beds just about did fit, but daughter had to be squeezed in her car seat at the front, and son and I had to share a back seat (and seat belt) in our Ford Mondeo. This arrangement, as he kept telling me frequently during the three hour drive home, was 'against the law'. We became convinced our son would become an Insurance Actuary when he grew up.

The third time that an IKEA visit will never be forgotten in our household was when, in 1995, on our way home after visiting our London friends we thought a trip to a furniture store would be the best hangover cure, or rather a plateful of IKEA meatballs and chips would be.

At Brent Cross we headed straight for the restaurant and after our bellies were full we went to look for the children who by then were 7 (son) and 4 (daughter). They'd been allowed to go to the nearby play area in the cafeteria. But when we looked, we could only see our son there. 'Where's your sister?' we demanded. Poor son panicked - our daughter had left the table after him, so he had no idea where she was.

This is how it happens, I thought. We're in London where children, particularly little girls, disappear all the time. Awful, unimaginable things are done to them by cruel, sick people. Cold fear overtook me and with an numbness I haven't felt since, I rushed to talk to the nearest security man, while husband - on a hunch - made his way down to the ground floor. The store was filling up - it was a Sunday in late November, and the early Christmas shoppers were in full force.

We found out later that our daughter, when being told she could go to the play area, decided to make her way down to the 'sea of balls' which she'd spotted on arrival but hadn't been allowed to go into. Luckily she made it there, and the staff realised she wasn't with a parent, and alerted store security. I'm sure both the Englishman and I developed a few wrinkles and grey hairs during the fifteen or so minutes (which felt like years) we lost our daughter at IKEA.

So you can imagine that now every trip to IKEA makes me shudder…

Do you have an IKEA story?

House rules

While going through some old files today I came across a note which, for years, was stuck to the fridge door in our old house. I think I posted The House Rules one day when coming home from work, tired, and finding the kitchen a mess, with several teenagers lounging in the TV room oblivious to my arrival. Or to anything, really.

You can tell I start the note being fairly calm and get more frustrated as I go on, thinking about all the things that need doing in the house.

Here's the transcript:

Everyone's Duties - House Rules

1. Keep decks clear (you can tell I was a naval wife once upon a time...)
2. Always make sure there is a plastic bag lining any dustbin.
3. Empty your laundry basket.
4. Use your laundry basket.
5. Put dishes into dishwasher.
6. Put dishwasher on if full.
7. Empty clean dishwasher  - somebody has to do it!
8. Keep kitchen tidy!
9. Don't collect dirty glasses & mugs & crockery in your room - it breeds bacteria.
10. Under the bed is not a large cupboard...

In our new flat there's no need for rules as it's mostly just the Englishman and me here. Now I almost miss those days of a house-full of floppy youngsters, always hungry, always tired, leaving a trail of crockery and dirty washing behind them...actually, come to think of it, I don't at all!

Something so right

I thought I'd embarrass everybody by crying my eyes out at Son's Oxford University graduation ceremony, but I managed to control myself.  Whether it was due to the jubilant mood of the crowd, the freezing temperatures as we stood in the shockingly long queue of proud parents and friends, which snaked around the Sheldonian, or the hard wooden seats in the Theatre, or the one and a half hour ceremony, mostly conducted in Latin, I don't know. It could also have been Husband's whispered Dog Latin jokes like,  'Salitamus Harricus Potterus,' 'Glutumus Maximus' or 'Bickus Diccus' ala Private Eye's That Honorary Degree Citation In Full or Monty Python. I had one wobbly moment when the graduants stood up and clapped the family and friends, and Son looked at us, sitting in the Gods, and smiled. Proud parent doesn't come anywhere close to describing what I felt at that moment. But that soon passed when a candidate was given a Masters Degree in Studies and Husband whispered, 'Surely that must include dining rooms and bedrooms too?'

The rest of the day went swimmingly, in spite of the wintry temperatures outside. Luckily the heating in the marquee at Son's college kept everyone warm during the celebratory lunch. There weren't any speeches, just a few sensible and encouraging words from The Principal.

And what did I wear, you may ask. Well, the weather completely scuppered my plans. Luckily it didn't rain much, but the forecast looked so dodgy, I decided to opt for a long sleeved black Agnes B jersey dress and a Jaeger jacket, tights and Miu Miu peep toe shoes. I added the scarf at the last minute and boy was I glad I did. Even though it is just a thin silk thing, it was a birthday present and kept me a little warmer than had I not worn it. Standing in the queue, waiting to go into the ceremony for half an hour, whipped by the occasional freezing gusts of wind, I fantasised about the several warm cashmere wraps, winter coats, smart boots or thicker tights I could have worn.

Going for a conservative look also seemed the right decision....and all items were already in my wardrobe. Fancy that!

Let's hear it for the boomerangs

I read in one of the Sunday papers that this it what grown up children who return home when they've already once flown the nest are called. A growing phenomena now that so many newly graduated youngsters don't immediately land their dream job. Or any job...

Husband says our boomerang is 'back on the payroll'. Rather harsh in my view as to me he's a gift from God in more ways than one. I shall count the ways:

1. His return coincided with daughter's departure.

2. He's an excellent, innovative cook. We spend hours planning menus with simple fresh ingredients, and sometimes he even cooks lunch after a session in the gym.

3. He knows when I want (read 'need') a drink. He knows which wines I like, usually Sauvignon Blanc, and that it needs to be nicely chilled and poured into my favourite, large glass.

4. He has definite opinions about everything from politics to literature to fashion and can argue his case intelligently until the cows come home (and does...).

5. He's got a wicked sense of humour.

6. Best of all, we never tire of his company as he leaves us for weeks on end to 'be a social butterfly' or to be with his girlfriend in Oxford. A perfect boomerang.