November 2019 

It’s been almost a month since we’ve last posted. School is back (and almost due for another holiday), autumn has arrived, leaves are falling, winter jackets are out and the Beaujolais Nouveau has hit the shelves (and our stomachs). 

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It’s been a month of relative calm for us, staying mostly in Aix, settling into our routine and enjoying our time. Not to say that it has been boring, far from it. Just possible less ‘blog friendly’ than the first couple of months of our travels. 

French classes are continuing unabated for the whole family. Nathalie, our awesome tutor, comes to the house every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings, gamely attempting to lift our language proficiency to something like acceptable. Nathalie guided Anthony through his ‘C1’ exams earlier in the month (5.5 hours of French government controlled interrogation, testing written and oral comprehension and expression, seemingly designed primarily to ensure that the sacred French language is protected from ill educated heathens. Results TBC). Liz, the undisputed rising star of the family, is also guided by Nathalie and ably supported by a secondary support team of Sophie (local French friend with whom Liz has bi-weekly, bi-lingual meetups) and Corey (American friend with whom Liz can be seen – and heard – most Tuesday lunch times in local brasseries testing the limits of franglais … and often local’s patience. It’s quite possible that the two of them are already on the French language police most wanted list. Side note – there is no doubt that such a group exists).  

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From the kids perspective, we have been promised to expect ‘the Christmas miracle’ – the wonderful occasion when our previously ill-educated and monolingual children return from school and suddenly start sprouting perfectly formed phrases in God’s language. At the beginning of the month, there was no doubt in our minds that the Christmas miracle was going to bypass our house like God’s plagues over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt (excuse the sneaky passover reference). There have been, however, some green shoots appearing since we last wrote. Perhaps we will get our miracle, but maybe Santa got his dates confused, or his sled got stuck in the snow, or he delegated to the Easter Bunny. The girls (especially Ellie and Jessie) are showing real signs of progress. Conversations are starting to happen, comprehension is improving and homework (particularly for Jessie who gets loaded up each week) is getting easier.

Sena is increasingly convinced that English is French and French is English, and has started to demand whether the teacher she has on a given day speaks Australian. Unclear whether this represents progress or not. 

When we are not doing our cultural and civic duty to learn the language, we are trying to deepen our appreciation of the French culture by experimenting with French cooking. What this basically means is we are running a series of experiments on our children to establish which animals they will eat (and what bits of those animals – with extra points for the non-prime, budget cuts), and how much wine is too much wine when cooking for children. This has led to some major success stories (our children are destined to marry stout highland farmers and spend their days tending bell wearing cattle (or whatever the French equivalent is of this) and eating mountain food such as raclette (potatoes, cheese and charcuterie) and tartiflette (potatoes, reblochon cheese, lardons, onions and cream). We have also tried our hand at coq-au-vin and various other red wine drenched recipes, most with at least moderate approval. And the children have yet to appear noticeably drunk from the alcohol which is also a plus. 

NB: We are also on a first name basis with the Asian supermarket down the road and have structurally altered the shipment sizes of their gyoza and noodle orders. Regardless of how good the baguettes, ham and cheese are, we will all always love good Asian food! 

We have subjected our cooking experiments on our friends too, hosting 3 dinner parties this month for some French/Australian friends, Lauren and Clement; American friends Emily and Greg and our Australian visitors Rosie and Lina. As long as they don’t realise they all got served the same menu then our credibility should be intact. 

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When not cooking at home, we have been lucky enough to be treated to a number of parties at friend’s houses including Sophie’s 40th, Otis’s birthday and, of course, Thanksgiving at Corey and Matthias’s house. 

We have also instigated a ‘date lunch’ day – because we already paying for private school babysitting and because, why wouldn’t we? It’s not like we’re at work anyway. We can be spotting most Monday afternoons at local brasseries supporting local businesses. Bonnie joins us for these outings and tries to make himself small enough to sit under the table, hoping for a stray bit of steak to come his way. Generally these visits are a great success, except when, on our first attempt, Bonnie was (as it turns out) suffering from some stomach troubles (having tucked into some cat litter at a friend’s house the day before). He managed to control himself until dessert time when he had a bit of an accident. Whilst everyone was very understanding, and the food was great, we can unfortunately never go back. 

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Our roller-blade commuting continues to be popular with the girls, and they can still be seen zipping at ever faster speeds down the main Cours Mirabeau each morning and afternoon. The degree of difficulty of these commutes has increased as the typical bi-weekly tourist markets on the Cours Mirabeau have seamlessly transitioned into the Christmas Market stalls on the same stretch, complete with a number of kids rides blocking the roads (but not stopping the traffic, which instead just drives on the footpath).

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After 3 weeks of resisting children’s demands for a night out in the market and some rides on the small rides (on the basis of ‘one big night’ at some ill defined date in the future) we finally succumbed and spent one night after school wandering the stalls, eating churros (yum) and roasted chestnuts (how can something that smells so good taste so average?) and drinking gluhwein. It’s definitely beginning to feel a lot like Christmas (and yes, Michael Bublé has already hit the playlist, but no, Izzy the Elf has not yet made an appearance). 

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Anthony has kept busy discovering small country roads by bike and foot. Many of the rides have been with groups of like-minded expats including Otis (pictured below). (Side note – for some reason the local French people often aren’t available at 9am on a weekday morning to go for a ride. Weird, I know.) Exploring local towns and countryside around Aix and particularly the Sainte Victoire mountain this time of year, watching the vines change colour and drop their leaves and snow start to appear on the mountains of the southern Alps really is special. It’s just a pity about all those hills. 

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One of the highlights in November was a visit to Beaux de Provence, about an hour from here. The town itself is stunning, another one of the ‘Most Beautiful Villages in France’ (this one deservedly so), which, along with beautiful winding streets and incredible views over the provençale countryside, sports an incredible medieval castle which appears to grow organically out of the cliff face. Visitors clamber over parapets and up incredibly steep stairs – with the effort rewarded with amazing views. It turns out this venture is better suited to two legs rather than 4 slightly aging paws, and at one point we thought we were going to lose Bonnie, and potentially Sena, in the process. All for the perfect photo! 

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Stunning medieval castles notwithstanding, the highlight of the day was without a doubt the ‘Carriers de Lumieres’ – which is basically an animated art exhibition set to music and displayed against the walls of an old quarry. The effect is incredible. There were two exhibitions – Van Gogh and japanese art. The whole family was transfixed by the physical location, the images, the animation and the music. The kids were completely enthralled, as were we – it was like nothing we’ve seen before and we loved it. Dali is starting in March, and we’ll definitely be back! 

During November we were excited to be catching up with some friends. Anthony was off to Milan to visit Dave who was on a flying visit for a conference. Unfortunately an episode of extreme incompetence which lead to him watching his plane leave from the departure lounge of Marseille Airport (after being there 90 minutes beforehand) this was not meant to be. Sorry Dave. 

Liz had more luck with her planned trip to Zurich to see Lars. Maybe it was because she caught the train and not Ryanair. Maybe it’s just she’s not an idiot. You can make up your own minds. In any case, she made it safely to her destination and enjoyed a couple of days hanging out in Zurich, catching up with Lars and Tahlia and enjoying the autumn leaves and Christmas Markets. And she came back with a bucketload of excellent Swiss chocolate, so everyone was a winner. 

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We also had a visit from Lina (over in Paris on a conference) and Rosie (who lives in London) for the weekend.

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It was lovely to catch up with them for the first time in ages (particularly in the case of Rosie). After hosting them for dinner on the Friday night, we spent Saturday wandering the markets and then heading out to Chateau La Coste, a beautiful vineyard/restaurant/outdoor modern art exhibition about 45 minutes from Aix (and conveniently 10 minutes down the road from Ellie’s playdate/party). It was a perfect autumn afternoon with beautiful sunshine lighting up the colourful leaves of the trees and the snow capped alps in the background. Bonnie (who has been struggling to transition to the life of an apartment dwelling city dog) seemed to love the feel of grass under his feet as he ran around off the lead and explored the modern art exhibition with us. A win for everyone. 

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Meanwhile, Ellie (and subsequently Jessie and Sena) were at a Christmas craft party in a nearby country house, getting rides on tractors, playing hide and seek in the forest and making Christmas cards. A great afternoon had by everyone. 

The other big thing to happen this month is that we have shipped Ellie off ‘on exchange’ to Lyon. She is spending her first ever week away from us and living with our friends Fred and Noemie and going to school with their kids. The plan is obviously that she will come back with perfect manners and linguistic skills. We are hopeful but doubtful. Anthony rode the train with her up to Lyon on Sunday and was greeted with a welcome sign, Noemie, 3 smiling children and Magic the border collie. Any fears of homesickness (of which there were, understandably, alot) quickly dissipated and she bounded off for her next big adventure. The next we saw of her were pictures of her eating snails and excited FaceTime conversations about how great school was there. I’m sure she doesn’t realise how lucky she is to have such a wonderful host family in Fred and Noemie! 

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We are beginning to understand what it must have been like for our parents when we went away… it’s both wonderful and a little challenging as the house doesn’t feel the same without her. 

We are now heading into a busy travel period. On Friday, Liz is hosting her ‘Girls Christmas Party’ where she is hosting 20 women for a girls only bash. What could possibly go wrong. To get as far away from this as possible, Jessie, Sena and Anthony are heading up to Lyon to pick up Ellie, having a night out in Lyon for the ‘Fete des Lumieres’ and then heading to Berlin Saturday morning to meet Liz (assuming she’s sober enough to find the airport, and the general strike which has just started doesn’t stop her) and see Aunty Jo. Following Berlin, we have just 3 days back at school before our winter holidays start. And somewhere in there we are moving house and changing cars. No admin there at all. 

It’s hard to believe that we are already nearing Christmas. Even harder to think that, if we’d stuck to our original itinerary, the girls would be leaving school now and not coming back, and we’d be leaving Aix in just over a week. We feel like we are only just getting settled now, and there is still so much we all want to do, things that we haven’t even got to starting yet. Luckily we still have time next year to appreciate and enjoy everything for a little longer and really extract everything we can out of this amazing time.