We are delighted to be back again in southern France, after only a 9 month absence this year. We arrived the last day of May, & have been enjoying the sunshine & clean air in our lovely little village, overlooking vineyards, olive trees, & mountains. Once we get through the internet & phone issues, all will be almost perfect. We have 3 nice trips planned, spaced evenly through our 3 months here, & have already enjoyed 2 full weekends, visit...

Here we are at the end of the summer, already! Our stay here in Villevieile was shorter this year than usual --7 weeks instead of 12 (due to Covid of course!), but it was still a continual spark of joy to be here. Once we arrived, our travel was of course restricted. There was no way we wanted to even try to visit another country. Getting here was enough of a hassle, but worth it. We easily adapted to France's new Anti-Covid system called "le passe sanitaire", ...

Bienvenue! We are delighted to welcome you (or welcome you back!) to our blog about summers in the south in France! However, we have included blogs & picture albums from "the Covid Summer", 2020, when, like everybody else, we were a bit restricted. But we did manage a wonderful Summer Odyssey, in spite of Covid, & we wanted to include it on our blog. We use this blog as part diary, part travelogue, part musings about all kinds of silly things, & lots...

Family Matters It's August 20, & we've one more week left in our French Summer. After 11+ weeks of hot, dry weather with blue skies, I'm sitting on the terrace at 4:00 in the afternoon, sipping a cup of HOT tea with a sweater on. Is this some signal from above that it's time to leave? The lavender is cut back, the figs are ripe, the lawn is brown, & my plumbago needs a haircut (& so do I!). That's another hint…it's almost over. But what a sum...

About 3-4 years ago, Les & I did Ancestry's spit test. A bit surprised with the results, we realized that the percentages of our "parentage" didn't seem to make sense. How could I be much more Irish than English, when both sides of my family came from the Midlands (Derbyshire & Yorkshire) in England? How could Les NOT be ¼ each German, Italian, Finnish & maybe Jewish, since he had grandparents or great-grandparents that came from those countries? An...