We come from a land downunder

Every so often it rains solidly. Today is Wednesday, market day, and solid rain is a complication. It’s a complication for the stallholders, but it’s a particular complication for me because, for the first time since Christophe went back to Zurich about two weeks ago, we have people coming to dinner.  I had thought “fresh tuna, with some young potatoes, green beans, a salad, a few cheeses, then strawberries and raspberries, perhaps melon too….”

The apartment is light on kitchen equipment. We can muster four plates and wine glasses and cutlery. However most importantly for our guests, two young women who are living on a 39 foot boat in the yard, we can offer space.  Ori is one of the professionals I spoke about. She’s been hired to fix up and then race the boat in question, a Swan (nice). The boat is in bad shape after a winter of neglect,  however, and she’s doubtful if the owner will get more than a month of racing out of her this season.  Apparently he’s already talking of buying a bigger Swan, a 60 footer.  That sort of appetite keeps the marine industry down here busy.

Ori helped us with a contact for the all-important marking board which you need to fix to your boat for the purposes of Australian registration. The registration process is what’s keeping us here in France. It’s long-winded, and even more so because Australia is far away and in a different time zone.  We have a helpful registrar in Canberra, and all modern  communications  systems at our disposal – couriers, email and fax -  but still, we are talking weeks, not days to complete the purchase of Enki. The law demands original documents, signed and witnessed. When the boat is registered under her new flag, we front up to the French customs, as the new owners, and – well, that’s where we hope our expectations prove correct, so to speak. When she’s  been re-imported into the EU under our names, we can go home.  No-one said it was going to be easy, did they?

Alex’s crummy back has been keeping us battened down more tightly that we (I) would like, but we drove again to Arles on Sunday night to hear Angus and Julia Stone play before a packed house and then to Avignon on Monday to extend the rental on our car. Angus (On-goose, as his name sounds in French) and Julia didn’t need any support from us or any other Australian cheer squad (those who weren’t in Paris that day to watch the triumph of Kadel Evans in the Tour de France, that is ). The Stone kids are HUGE in France. I don’t get it, really. They’re young and their voices are tender and bruised. Their music is, I suppose, like a cool shower to wash away dry dusty French pop which gets into everything here. But why does one band succeed and another not? Good luck to On-goose et  Julia.

Avignon was bursting with players. I drank up the energy, and the urbanity of the place. Another time, I told myself….Alex took pictures in black and white because that’s where his head was. For me, the festival was all about colour. I have it in my head still (the bra and panties set was red, by the way).