Bonjour

I hope that you and yours are well.

It’s been a lovely sunny week where I am in the north of France and we had the first of three national holidays in May. They all fall on a Thursday and many people take Friday off too – called faire le pont – ‘doing a bridge,’ making it a long weekend off work! So it’s been even quieter than usual in the village, and its usually pretty quiet anyway!

Last Thursday’s holiday was 1st May Day: Labour Day and the Fête du Muguet – the festival of the Lily of the Valley. It’s traditional to give Lily of the Valley flowers to your friends and loved ones, a custom started in 1561 by King Charles IX of France who gave them to the ladies of the court – the flowers were said to bring good luck. This time of the year, florist shops and supermarkets are full of little bouquets and pots of these delicately scented bell-like blossoms.

I popped to my neighbour Claudette’s house with a jar of Lily of the Valley flowers to put on her kitchen table. Now Into her nineties, and despite a couple of recent falls which worried all of us in the village, she’s generally as spritely as ever, pottering about in her garden, feeding her chickens, making oil-thick coffee for anyone who visits (or a thimbleful of walnut wine if it’s after a certain time), and she loves to share stories of days gone by.

“My old man used to bring me some of these flowers” she said wistfully. Her husband passed away many years ago, but she always says that though he is no longer where he was, he is everywhere that she is.

“In days gone by” she began, and I settled down for a tale of life in the village as this is how she always starts. “It wasn’t a national holiday when I was born, that only happened in the 1940s. My family were farmers and this time of the year we were busy working. My maman would make big bowls of stew for when my papa came home from the field.

A lot has changed since those days. But the air smells the same – of apple and cherry blossom, grass growing and trees sprouting, and the sky is the same beautiful blue…” she paused as someone knocked at her door. It was Thierry the farmer with his grandson who looks like the Milky Bar Kid with his white-blonde hair and round glasses. Their tractor was parked in the road outside, on the way to work, they had bought in a bunch of Lily of the Valley for the village’s favourite wise woman, and a  pot of stew that Thierry’s wife had prepared. Claudette smiled, “And some things never change.”

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been to Paris, Saint-Germaine-en-Laye (near Paris) and next week I’m off to Nice, Vence, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Aix-en-Provence. I travel solo and go everywhere by train and though the odd late or cancelled train is sometimes not fun, but by and large, it’s a  good way to travel around France. Come with me via Instagram where I’ll share photos and videos as I go!

Wishing you a very bon weekend wherever you are,
Bisous from France
Janine
Editor

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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream,  My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online. Her latest book How to be French – is a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre.

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