Summer

This is me these days- on a rock, facedown, vacant, content.

Ah. Provence. Finally to be enjoyed as it ought to be- lazily, merrily and without specific purpose; picking up a book between sleeps and staring at the words while daydreaming about something else... But, for you, I’ll summon up my energy, cast my thoughts back over the last couple of months and give you a bird’s eye view of what happened.

The cherry harvest was long and tiresome.14-16 hours of work per day, 6 days a week. Jean-Michel ought to be given a trophy for managing such a crazy business. However, I did say to Katy when we got home one night after midnight: “To be working these hours we should be saving lives or making millions- and we’re doing neither!” It was a stretching experience and quite character building.

We had a few days off after the cherry episode to beat our ploughshares into wine bottles and cash in some sleep. Some good friends came to visit, including my own flesh and blood- Xav who was passing through on his way to his mates wedding in Switzerland. Cigars and wine ensured this was a colourful reunion. We also partook in the ceremonial burial of Katy’s placenta. It had been resting in the freezer while we waited for Thomas Manatoa’s French godmother Elise [pictured] to

get a chance to come down.

Xav prepared a nice service in te reo with French explanations and we sang Ka Pinea Koe* to wrap it all up. It was very special.

*Ka pinea koe e au I will adorn you
Ki te pine o te aroha With an ornament of love
Ki te pine e kore nei With an ornament that will never
Te Waikura e Rust away

Thomas [pronounced ‘toh mah’- a la française] is a delightful chap. I’m very fond of him and its strange to think we’re spending so much time with him now but will then be absent for most of his childhood. That is a saddening thought, but it

will give me a shot at been one of those enigmatic old uncles who send one line birthday cards and expensive gifts to their growing nephews only to meet them properly later in life and develop a strong adult friendship.

The lavender harvest was next. This was quite an enjoyable job. It was a lot more ‘normal’ in terms of farm life. Just Jean-Michel, his dad and I. Hot days, lunch breaks, lavender smell filling the air. It was great. Its only defect, really, was that it came after the cherry harvest- meaning that we were pretty zonked. Here’s a little video to show a day of lavender harvesting. You can see the cutting in the tractor, the drying and then the harvesting of the flower. There’s another type of lavender that gets sent to a distillery to have its essence sucked out but I didn’t get a video of that process. Tiki and Tahi the goats also feature in this video as I milk and feed them every day. They’re super placid in the film because I’ve already catered to all their needs. Otherwise they’d be climbing all over me and trying to eat the camera.

Hannah and I and our friend Mishal- who came to visit for a week- went to Perpignan for 3 days to see a friend of mine I met when I was flatting in Granada.

Abbaye Saint Martin in the Pyrenees. It’s a bit of a hike to get up there but it’s worth it!

Perpignan is tucked into the South-Western corner of France, near the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees and also on Spain’s doorstep. Its Catalan heritage is still relatively strong and the language is spoken in Gipsy/Spanish communities. There’s a push for French people of the region to rediscover their Catalan roots and from what I could gather there’s some progress in that area. While we were there we went to a photo- journalism expo which showed the works of dozens of photographers around the world for 2010. There were some interesting themes:

Islam in Bangladesh; cops in the Bronx; the survival of the homeless in New York; the Amazonian rainforest etc. There was a series on the civil unrest in Thailand from March-May this year, which showed among other things the burning of a massive shopping centre in Bangkok. We’d been there a month before (days before the blood protest)

and I can easily see why this massive money machine was targeted in the protests. Seeing it utterly destroyed was quite potent and you could feel the powerful rage of communities looking for justice. And of course you can't help but feel the strange paradox of being a tourist- knowing that all this was brewing while you were head down in a map trying to find your way to the nearest noodle bar.

On a different note- we are currently in the mountains of Tuscany with Katy, JM and Thomas! More about that another time.