A bientôt.

So this morning, I swapped the soundtrack to my jog from Daft Punk....to ABBA...because tomorrow we leave Uzes en route for three weeks travelling around Sweden, Denmark and Ireland:

Our suitcases are almost packed. Luckily, we've just discovered that the international airline, which will eventually take us home to Tasmania, has increased it's luggage limits to 30 kilos each...phew. This last week has been a whirlwind of frenetic activity.....amongst other things, the fete de l'ecole and the end of year spectacle....here's the five year old sporting a gardener's costume....whipped up by the teacher out of the magic that is crepe paper:

The farewelling of friends....I even donned this Collette Dinnigan frock:

and drove an hour down the peage to Montpellier to have a swanky lunch with my fab friend Nicole at the Musee Fabre:

....while my husband and children watched the stage finish of Le Tour de France.

And here's the ten year old bidding au revoir to his best friend from school, the friend who single handedly turned his school experience from torture into triumph (thank you, thank you, thank you):

And the ticking off of the last few activities from our bucket list.....including climbing two of the three towers of Uzes:

And canoeing down The Gardon and under the Pont du Gard:

I'm really sad to be saying goodbye, it has been a truly amazing experience in an incredible place.

Look at this achingly beautiful field of sunflowers that I stumbled across on Sunday on the way to a brocante market:

And this view of the the Virgin Mary glimpsed from the Jardin Medieval:

And even more perspectives of Uzes' answer to the leaning tower of Pisa, Le Tour Fennestrelle:

And finally, feast your eyes on this dramatic electrical storm which crossed over in front of our place last night:

So, so beautiful. 

Anyway, I am just going outside and may be some time.......realistically, I may be all the way back in Hobart before I can access my computer again, seeing on the next stage of our journey that we're flying Ryanair with only carry on bags and even then we'll all be crammed into that Volvo. Anyway, if you're tempted you can always check in and see what I'm up to on instagram here.

Rx

Deguster.

So, if I've whet your appetite for a trip to Uzes here's my insider's guide to hanging out and imbibing in this beautiful, medieval village.

Our life in Uzes has centred around the Place aux Herbes, which is tucked away in the pedestrianised heart of the town, inside the Boulevard:

Every house that we looked at renting was measured on a scale of how far away it was from the square. We ended up in a four storey town house, the one with the dove grey shutters....conveniently it's equidistant from the square and the children's school and so close to the Ducal Palace that we can hear the flag on top of the tower being whipped by the wind:

Most mornings, after I've dragged myself through the surrounding countryside in the Valee de l'Eure, jogging, I rendezvous with my husband in the square and I negate any beneficial effects the strenuous exercise may have caused, by pulling up a chair at a cafe....either 'Les Terroirs' which has WiFi or 'L'Oustal' which does not yet which has better coffee.... and drink a cafe creme....or two. And then we are back again at the end of the day, for an evening apero....a glass of crisp pink rose for me and a pastis for my husband. This tends to be relatively soon after we've placated the children, who are usually in full cry about how hairy their day at school was.....with a Nutella crepe at 'Passion Vanille' (1 Place aux Herbes, Uzes):

This has proven to be such a fail proof way of winning them over to the bright side of being in France that we have inadvertently assumed the mantle of 'Passion Vanille's' best customers. So frequently has our family descended on this shop, that last week, when they were photographing ice cream sundae concoctions for their new menu, they were taking photos of the various ice creams and then feeding them to our children.....for free. 

OK, so a common theme running through our time here has been bribing our children to endure school....where we plunged them for one term, initially friendless and unable to communicate, into four achingly long days a week from 8.30am - 4.30pm, doing lessons in unfamiliar French, suffering the hardship that is the canteen when their parents wouldn't rescue them and bring them home for the two hour lunch break and instead they had to stay and be dished up a three course meal.....and surviving teachers that shout. We may have also had to resort to other means, beyond the Nutella crepe, with the next most popular being the occasional trip to the 'Haribo Factory', which is very conveniently located just on the outskirts of town (Pont Charrettes, Uzes):

In our defence, you can count our number of trips to the 'Haribo Factory' on the one hand. The French nurse a national addiction to sugar and it is an overwhelming sight to see laden boxes crammed with confectionery leaving the outlet shop. I've never seen anything like it. Next to the boutique, there is also a 'Musee du Bonbon' which is a pleasant enough way to while away the afternoon although it's not really 'Charlie in the Chocolate Factory' esque as you don't actually see them making the famous gummy bears.....although, if you are so inclined, in a museum environment, you can try your hand at twisting a liquorice strap or coating a Tagada in sugar. Regardless, children love it....especially as there is a generous dose of free lollies.

Anyway, I digress....on Wednesday and Saturday the square is overtaken by the market:

I have just finished wading through a biography of the late English cookery writer, Elizabeth David, who it transpires, was responsible for suggesting that Le Creuset be coloured in that iconic shade of blue....the same blue as a packet of Gauloises cigarettes....and who wrote about the market in Uzes and how it 'sells delectable food and how she was able to buy at least fifty different cheeses, the bakery sold seven varieties of bread and the pate in the charcuterie was delicious'......I'd agree with her yet add that in addition to all of this you have to get your hands on some of the spectacular olives (especially the green ones stuffed with big slices of garlic), steel yourself to fork out at least 10 Euros for the stingiest yet best piece of nougat that you will ever taste (on Saturday they were road testing a new flavour...tiramisu) and DO NOT, I repeat, do not leave without buying some of Cyril's snails either in the shell or in a biscuit.

Our family has scaled to new heights of snail worship, as on the weekend we all drove out to have dinner at Cyril's snail farm 'Les Escargots de l'Uzege' which is transformed into a restaurant on Saturday and Sunday nights over summer:

We sat at our table and gazed out over the 'parc' where 45,000 snails are in residence, we saw them being watered and relentlessly nagged out children to be careful not to upset the snails.....or be electrocuted by the fence:

For entree, I had snails stuffed with melted butter, garlic and  parsley while my husband had his snails with truffle:

Main course was Escargots a la Provencale, snails in their shell cooked in a thick ragout of onion, garlic, wine and tomato:

Followed  by a dessert of snails...OK, not really, however on the assiette gourmande there was a snail shaped biscuit filled with chocolate ganache:

Since we have been in Uzes we have been eating our way around most of the cafes and restaurants in town....I say most as I'm hoping that in the last hurrah of school we can synch the babysitter and manage to try out a couple more. Until now, our favourites have been 'Le Comptoir du 7' (5 Boulevard Charles Gide, Uzes) where we went for lunch soon after we arrived...back in the days before we had a babysitter, during the middle of a tempestuous thunderstorm and where we accidentally drank a litre of red wine.....from what I remember though, the food, service and atmosphere were very good....in a town where most of the food is overpriced, over fiddled with and touristy. 

You won't find 'Au Petit Jardin' (Boulevard Gambetta, Uzes) in any guidebook yet, as it only opened a couple of weeks ago....it was the babysitter who put us on to it:

It has a beautiful, little garden in the courtyard out the back, where parasols vie for space and pots and mixed borders spill flowers, herbs and greenery:

The food is interesting, delicious and decorated with flowers....look at this fish carpaccio garnished with lavender sprigs:

And this magret de canard with caramelised raspberry compote, eggplant and mashed potato which was unexpectedly studded with fresh raspberries:

This traditional looking creme brûlée was perfumed with orange flowers and tasted gloriously like summer:

We have also had some perfect picnics up on the garrigue with afar off the the rooftops and towers of Uzes in the distance:

Nothing beats a glass of champagne and some serious patisserie from either 'O Saveurs de Mon Enface' (Centre Commercial Pont de Charrettes, Uzes):

or from 'Deschamps' (17 Boulevard Gambetta, Uzes):

Trust me on this....although, if you have a penchant for drink and cake, like I'm afraid that I do, you can easily recreate a similar experience anywhere and make your heart sing.

Rx

Goodbye.

When we told friends that we were coming back to France for an extended stay, usually their first question was 'What are you going to do with your beagles?' The answer started out simply that my mum was going to have them to stay with her. Three weeks before we left she rescinded the invitation. Panic stations. What to do. There was no question that at 18 and almost 16 they couldn't go back to the kennels where they had holidayed for the 8 months when we were last in France.....a stay which had been fraught with myriad 'prepare yourselves emotionally' phone calls, massive vet bills and a cost that almost equated to private school fees. We thought about not going, after all these were the beagles that our life as a couple were so intimately entwined with. We had beagles before we had babies. And we took the beagles to the hospital to meet each respective baby (except for the one born in France) and each time they rolled their eyes and with stoicism moved one step lower down the pack hierarchy. My husband made me a special bespoke lead perfect for pushing the pram and walking the beagles around the neighbourhood. Together, we became part of the local scenery....Wayne at the post office would ask after my beagles by name yet had no idea what my children were called.

Yes, they were old, yet the vet assured us that there was no evident reason that they wouldn't live through the three and a half months that we were going to be away. So, at the eleventh hour, we put an ad in the Saturday paper and received over fifty responses from people who would consider looking after them. The first couple that we met, immediately started kissing them and fondling their ears....alarm bells were ringing....and then they told us how much they would charge. The second couple never returned our call as we had made the fatal mistake of taking all of our children as well as the beagles on that visit. Then one rainy Saturday, my husband drove out to a farm, that had only just escaped the recent bush fires and met an incredibly kind hearted couple who really wanted to look after them.  So we left them there and they were happy, with each other, sniffing and exploring.

Last week, we had the five year old's class rabbit home to spend the weekend with us. I'd joked with the teacher that this would never happen in Hobart as we have 'deux chiens de chasse' or in english, 'two hunting dogs'....who wouldn't have been able to help themselves. On queue the emails and phone calls started. Followed by the hard decisions. As I write this, one of our beagles won't be coming home again and depending on the lab results, the other one may not be either.

Our time in Uzes is almost over. Soon we will be packing up and heading back to Hobart. It has been a very strange feeling, being momentarily suspended between two worlds. My husband and I love it here, however, let's not kid ourselves, we're outsiders, interlopers. We have been living a self indulgent dream. While my French may be competent enough to see me give birth in French, through the rigamarole of buying new shoes for my children (and this is no mean feat even in English) and able to understand the middle aged letch in the cheese van at the market who told me that I should eat that particular cheese, drink red wine and then go to bed with my boyfriend.....I am a long way away from being able to communicate and not sound like an illiterate vegetable. My children love nutella crepes and no school on Wednesdays, yet, deep down, I think they'd rather be back in their comfort zone in Hobart......

Rx

Noir.

Can you believe that on Saturday we were almost half way to Nimes before we realised that the train we were catching was actually.....from Avignon. Sometimes I can't believe how downright dim we are....I'm ashamed to admit that I'd even been reading the ticket to check the time and it still hadn't registered that my husband was driving the car towards the wrong city. Thank God for the eleven year old who luckily realised our folly. Once we turned around the GPS said that we would have seven minutes to spare once we made it to Avignon....and we still couldn't work out where exactly the TGV station was. Desperate times meant that I felt justified in changing the GPS language from French to English.....and discovered that the station we were looking for was on the other side of town.....in a field. Three minutes. I kid you not that we almost jumped out of that station wagon before it had come to a standstill, ran up the escalator onto the first platform we came across and threw ourselves onto the train which was just arriving. It was our train and we made it. I still don't know how. Why are all of our French train experiences like mini self induced massive coronaries?

My eleven year old daughter and I were in Lyon to take my new pink handbag back to the shop....now it has gone to the Dior workshop to be mended and hopefully we will be reunited before I leave the country. Meanwhile, across the road was a shop notorious for it's beautiful scarves. I know that I'd had my heart set on a particular pink one, however when the chap checked on the computer, the only one available was in Bordeaux....which is rather a long way away. Nevermind, we were seduced by the beautiful black 'Le Songe de la Licorne' with fluoro details:

I bought my first Hermes scarf in Sydney after I received my first pay check from my first ever proper job......way back in the mists of time. I have added to my collection at a rate of one every ten years.....unlike my friend the eternally glamorous and hysterically funny Faux Fuchsia.....who's strike rate is much higher.....at about one every ten minutes! She also has a seriously impressive repertoire of knot tying. Even though I have a book, I usually stick to this, my favourite knot, which I taught her how to wear in London:

Now, if you would like to try this at home....all you do is lay your scarf, pattern side down, and keep folding it in on itself...about four times....until you end up with a long roll:

Tie a loose knot in the centre:

Position the knot, depending on whim, either in the centre or off to one side:

Pass the ends around behind your neck and then manoeuvre each end through the knot, one side at a time:

Pull down firmly on the red toggles.....et voila:

Lucky for me, they threw in a box of Knotting Cards, so, with some practice, maybe I can move into uncharted territory, beyond my old favourite.....I'm thinking about attempting the halter neck boob tube.

Meanwhile, on our return from Lyon we rushed over to the Pont du Gard for the spectacle 'Les Feeries du Pont'. 

This is how this ancient Roman aqueduct looks on any given day:

From our picnic spot on the grass it looked like this:

That was before darkness descended and Ulysses embarked on his magical journey through time and into the future in 'Ulysse au Pays des Merveilles' or 'Ulysses in Wonderland'. Then it looked like this....wonderland. Covered in this instance in groovy, hippy, flower power blooms:

I don't think I have ever seen anything so cleverly executed and spellbindingly beautiful....the whole family were entranced.....even the two year old. If you ever find yourself down this way when one of these performances are on then make sure that you buy tickets. You'll regret it if you don't. Consider yourself warned.

Due to crowds, traffic and a long walk we didn't manage to reach home, which by the way is usually only ten minutes down the road, until well after midnight so I suppose that we were up most of the night....well, by our standards anyway. Which leads me into a segue for the Daft Punk song that every radio station around these parts are playing ad nauseum and that I just can't get seem to get out of my head:

On the upside, it's a great song to jog to.

Rx