Ok, I have been here a month and a half now, so time for a few random observations.
Lunch is very important. I tend not to eat lunch here. Rising later than a working day, and getting in a yoga session first, means I breakfast late. So in the interests of not overloading my body any more than necessary I skip lunch if I am on my own. Not so any French person, ever, under any circumstances. This causes me a bit of a problem sometimes if I go out between the magic hours of 12 noon and 2 pm. There are people eating and the smell of food everywhere. Some of the shops and the post office are closed. I am often compelled to stop for a chocolat chaud, just to feel like a normal person since the rest of the world is so busy eating.
These are my French friends Sylvie and Christine eating lunch in Loumarin last weekend. They had a full hot meal and dessert, after a considerable debate as to the best restaurant to sit in the sun. The excellence of the food is a given. We also drank a jug of the local rosé. Sylvie repeated the exercise with me that evening. Both are as slim as whippets, as is their friend Natalie who served us a four-course lunch the next day. How they do it I have no idea.
The French have a sweet tooth. My landlady left for me an arrival present of local sweets called Callisons. Neither Jacqui or I cared for them much, but there are numerous shops in Aix dedicated to this local specialty. They are sweet but bland, and fortunately Sylvie is a fan so she took them away with her. I wish I could say I did not care for the patisseries here, but that would be a lie. The pastries and cakes are superb, and they are everywhere.
People are buying and eating these sugary confections all the time. No coffee or tea is complete without patisseries. And chocolate. Specialist chocolate shops abound. Not to mention those cute little places that produce nothing but multi-coloured and flavoured macaroons. Then there is the nougat – don’t even let me get started on the nougat shops. Do people really eat this stuff – you bet they do. Sugar is considered an essential food group in France, and yet very few people are fat.
Men wear mustard coloured trousers. I have no idea why I keep noticing this, and it would be inappropriate to take a photo to illustrate the point. But French men seem to have a thing about mustard coloured trousers. Is this a fashion trend I have somehow missed in Auckland? You also see, occasionally, men in those huge loose corduroy trousers looking like they come straight out of an old film set in a French farming village. They will also be wearing a knitted vest or pullover, a scarf and cap, and a houndstooth checked sports coat. Very likely they will also have longish grey hair. When you see someone dressed like this you know you are in France, but suspect you have travelled back in time a bit too.
Scarves, hats and berets. There is no doubt that in general French women dress better than we do in NZ. But one thing is certain. No outfit is complete without a scarf. Even I have taken to wearing one most of the time.
There are possibly many reasons for this, not least of which is that they are sold in the 1000s in the market for as little as 3 Euros, although you can blow anything up to 500 Euros on a designer scarf just as easily. Another reason might be, that as warm as a day may seem at midday, out of the sun or later in the afternoon, temperatures drop rapidly. But even on the warmest days everyone is wearing a scarf, which is really just to add that little je ne sais quois to one’s outfit.
Which might also explain how I have come to acquire both a hat (fedora style felt) and a beret, both blue and both yet to be worn in public. I am a work in progress when it comes to hats, but come the really cold weather and I will be out there with the best of them. Oh, and gloves of course. French people (men and women) wear gloves. Fortunately I brought a pair with me.
Incidentally, a nice man on a market stall gave me lessons in tying my scarf, so that was a bonus.
There are more breeds of dogs than I ever imagined. French people have dogs regardless of whether they live in a shoe box or a mansion, and they take their dogs everywhere with them. In fact dogs are almost as important an accessory as a scarf. They are in the shops and restaurants, on the trains and planes, and everywhere you look. Furthermore they come in all shapes and sizes. There is no such thing as a ‘fashionable’ dog here. All dogs are fashionable. The pair below are Leonburgers, a breed previously unknown to me, and if they were to stand up they would easily take the table and everything on it with them. The size of the man in the background is not a trick of perspective.
There are dogs promenading everywhere. They stop to greet each other, or pass by in dignified reproach if the other dog is bigger or intimidating, or just too insignificant for their notice. They prance and stroll and primp and preen, and seldom bother to take any notice at all of the humans on their leads. I am entranced, and at a loss as to how dogs can have become such a problem in NZ. Perhaps our dogs need to be taught a little French savoir faire.
Christmas is a big deal. Unlike NZ, where stores bring out the Christmas decorations at the beginning of October, the town is just starting to gear up for Christmas. But make no mistake, Christmas is a full on event. The Christmas market starts in the Cours Mirabeau on Wednesday with 50 special wooden chalets, all decorated and lit for the evening market. There are brightly coloured children’s rides of various kinds at both ends of the road, and the normal stalls have been relocated to the La Rotonde. I am still waiting to see a municipal Christmas tree and lights, but the Council workers had made a start on Friday before they knocked off mid-afternoon (union rules here) for le weekend.
Here is a taste of what is to come. I am thinking of buying the slightly risqué Mrs Clause outfit – what do you think?
In addition there are parades, fêtes and spectacles galore over the next couple of weeks. I will keep you informed.
Shabby chic is a thing. Many buildings are old but filled with grandeur. There are huge doors, lintels, elegant windows, hidden courtyards, and delights too numerous to mention. Where there are shops or restaurants on the street front there are the normal range of modern fit outs. But the upper levels more often than not have dodgy spouting, crumbling plaster, rotting shutters and flaking paint. Wooden trims are often rotting away. And the interior in the photo below, for all that its form is gorgeous, is simply unmaintained and rotting.
The medieval buildings in the older part of town (read pre-1650) may in fact be faring slightly better due to their more solid construction. But everywhere buildings are in use no matter what their condition, and if anyone cares it is not immediately apparent. There are building firms that specialise in the renovation of these ancienne buildings, and I have seen them at work around and about the place. But my suspicion is that without the help of the state or city, it is simply uneconomic to restore or even maintain these buildings that date back many 100s of years.
As a result, shabby chic is simply embraced, and even the modern buildings (anything less than 100 years old) tend to look a little dilapidated. However the outside frequently, though not always, belies the elegant interiors.