Advertisement
Published: March 19th 2008
The Golden Crop
wheat bundles and a summer a skyI returned to the west a skeleton.
Over the course of a year in China I had somehow managed to lose 25 pounds. I am still not quite sure how it could have happened. I was living in a country famed for its cuisine and because of the nice exchange rate I could order a meal akin to my families thanksgiving dinner every night of the week for a miniscule amount of money. Yet, regardless of how much I ate, my dwindling frame continued to shrink. It didn’t make sense.
France was the perfect answer for this. I would be entering a land filled with hundreds of cheeses, fresh baguettes, chocolate croissants and herbed meats. If this mixture of foods didn’t fix me up I didn’t know what would. And sure enough, after a couple of weeks there, I started to put some meat back on my bones.
By chance, Annie’s grandmother owned a beautifully refurbished farmhouse a couple of hours south of Paris, and she kindly lent us the key. I have never been anywhere quite like it. It was located in a lush green valley overlooking an ancient castle and surrounded by mile after mile of
sheaved wheat bundles. There were only a small handful of people that still called the village their home. Many of the others had left years before for places unknown and their deserted stone homes sat quietly throughout the town. Every couple of days the bread, milk and meat men made their rounds through the village selling their goods to any taker. There is nothing like getting fresh chocolate croissants delivered to your door. For the rest of our food and supplies we cycled through miles of golden wheat fields to the neighboring town’s grocery store. Besides that we were on our own, nothing but peace, quiet, wine and chocolate croissants. It was paradise.
We spend the days wandering around the village and lounging in the summer sun and when the sun set behind the rolling hills we cooked up a feast and cracked open a bottle of French wine. This is mainly how those three beautiful weeks passed us by. It was an incredible vacation and it made me see France in a different light. Up until then I had only experienced the lights of “gay Pari” and the booming beach towns of the French Riviera. The countryside was
out of sight, out of mind. I am glad that that changed and the opportunity to live in this village arose. I will never forget that summer.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.29s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 82; dbt: 0.1079s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
