Two weeks in Provence talking the (Dua)lingo

Oh, how I miss this pool!

Our holiday in Southern France already seems like an age ago, although we’ve only been back in London for just over a month. Lucky for us the weather here turned tropical on our arrival, so it wasn’t too much of a shock to the system.

The view

This is our second time holidaying in Provence, and I think we are now truly smitten. This time we found a beautiful place nestling below the ruins of the old abandoned village of Vernegues, with four bedrooms, pool, shaded eating out areas and stunning views over the valley. There was a built in BBQ with an outdoor kitchen, and even a wooded area to sit in when the heat got just too much.

Although we did have a terrible start as far as the weather went – there was a storm with quite scary thunder and lightning on the first day, but after that the skies cleared, leaving behind the winds of ‘Le Mistral‘, which too disappeared in a few days.

Some Rose was consumed…

Our efforts at brushing up our French with Dualingo made the holiday much more enjoyable – although I’d studied French at school and university, and the Englishman is fluent in the ordering of a pichet of vin rouge, we’ve long since forgotten how to properly speak French. Dualingo, an online language app, brought some of it back, and we could actually converse with the friendly Madame, a neighbour (so not any other kind of ‘Madame’), who looked after the property. When on day one she got stranded with us without an umbrella during the downpour, over a coffee, we found out we’d both married military men, and could exchange notes on how hard and lonely bringing up children without one’s husband can be. Madame even taught us one of the expressions we came to rely on during the two week stay, ‘C’est le Sud!’. Meaning nothing in the South of France is hurried, or reliable. Needless to say, Madame was not a local.