All Souls

It is the Toussaint (All Souls) holiday in France. Kids are out of school for two weeks, shops shut down, including the one and only village grocery cum café cum Post Office cum newsstand in the village. So if we want a paper (home delivery has never been a French thing) we have to walk or drive to the another, bigger town. Yesterday we walked. It’s 45 minutes downhill to get there and then, of course, (steeply) uphill returning. The shop that sells papers didn’t have any Le Mondes left. Needing my daily fix, I went to the village and downloaded Le Monde and the New York Times.  Never again, I promise. I read Le Monde; that was fine, but today I broke down and read the Times, an overdose of the latest Trump stories. Trump rates a very few mentions in the French papers, always either amused or just plain negative; basically you can ignore what’s going on in Washington, and think about the rest of the world, Europe, for instance, Spain in particular at the moment. The ongoing Brexit story. Or local politics. It’s amazing how easy it is to drop one narrative (Washington) and pick up another (Europe).

No internet for 3 weeks. It’s good. It leaves a lot of time for reading other things. Of course, sometimes I miss it. But what I really like is reading a real paper newspaper again.

Today we had a long walk towards La Roque Alric through the woods, back on the north side of the mountain. It was glorious, vineyards yellow (though there is a vicious wind, which is tearing the leaves off everything) and red, olive trees silvery green and blowing. The moon is almost half full. I need to ask our nextdoor neighbour what happens when the moon is half full—perhaps some badly-needed rain?