Recently my little family headed off to the South of France on one of those epic car journeys that is horrendously incompatible with a raging, antibiotic-resistant UTI. I think we stopped at every service station on our 8-hour journey but as services go (with sunny outdoor seating and semi-decent food) it could have been much worse. My small son was both horrified and fascinated with the hole in the floor toilet situation found in the picnic area facilities handily dotted along the route. I was just very, umm, thankful.
We stayed in a lovely villa that has just about every home comfort you could possibly need in the picture-postcard village of Serignan du Comtat. The scenery is stunning. A drive to the recycling bank (which in England would be fairly meh, let's face it) took us past fields laden with lavender and melons but it was the sunflowers struggling to tilt their full-bloom faces towards the sun, which reminded me that Mother Nature is totally on it when it comes to colour-blocking.
We packed a lot into our holiday: a visit
to the sea, food and wine tasting, a fantastic brocante market in Beaumes Des
Venise where I halved the price of my purchases using pigeon French and, I like
to think, a little English charm. I spent a lot of time in pharmacies
unsuccessfully trying to score a double-pack of Bioderma Micelle Solution but I did buy some other French beauty goodies I will post about
separately.
The husband watched Chris Froome et al ride
out on a stage of the Tour de France and drove us up Mount Ventoux, a Goliath of a
mountain he has himself conquered. Anyone living with a MAMIL (middle aged man in Lycra)
who likes riding up torturous inclines for fun and then downloading their ride
stats on Strava, will know this kind of climb results in an endorphin rush that
borders on the sexual.
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