The French Connection

The French Connection is a journal of impressions and photos recorded during my year living in Provence, France, from 2012-2013.

The Gates are Open
October 16, 2013

It’s both a joy and a luxury to travel freely through gates of time and place, to explore and to return, as we have done this year. Arriving home after living for a year in France, everything seemed strange and…

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The Compass
August 29, 2013

Our compass bends toward “true home”: to that place where we must return, “définitivement.” The day of leaving France has been foreseen since the day of our arrival, but set aside, well out of sight, until now. Our plane leaves…

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Time and Customs and Cultures
July 30, 2013

It’s full-on summer now – no escaping it. Outdoor concerts abound, including the famous Aix Festival. Before setting off for England, we treated ourselves to a quintessential French dinner in the courtyard of “La Salle à Manger” in Salon de…

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Of Swallows, Marmots and Alpine Splendor
July 11, 2013

 A summer afternoon thunderstorm is building in the view outside my window. Sainte-Victoire is conducting a swelling chorus of clouds;  the percussion section prepares to take its turn; the air freshens.    But the swallows, les hirondelles, take no notice…

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Of Sheep and Turtledoves
July 6, 2013

Standing outside our front gate today, Ken pointed high into the chestnut tree and asked how many doves I could see. At first I saw only one, balanced on a limb in the cool shade of the broad leaves. And…

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Show and Tell
June 29, 2013

With any luck, I’ll be able to share in this post many photos that will give you a sense of what we’ve been up to in the last month since I’ve written here. We’ve been traveling and exploring, golfing and…

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Of Latitudes and Attitudes
May 25, 2013

Neither Ken nor I had ever visited Norway, so we thought – why not now, since we are in the neighborhood? Well, southern France is closer to Oslo than California is. And we have a special reason to want to…

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Short Timers
May 4, 2013

“Time keeps on slippin,’ slippin,’ slippin’ Into the future.”   Here we are in May. Time feels like a landscape, and we are rushing through it on our personal “train à grande vitesse” –tgv, traveling fast now not because we…

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Missing Pictures
April 18, 2013

Hello again.  For whatever reason, several of the photos that were supposed to be in the last entry didn’t make it to the screen. So here they are: Etang de Vaccares with Renée Françoise Renée at “Love Letters” Thanks for…

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More about …
April 17, 2013

I pushed a button I didn’t mean to and off went the post “Feeling Our Oats” – So now I’m continuing where I left off, I hope. The Camargue is an amazing wetland/delta area that Ken and I had visited…

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