For most of my adult life I've lived in great cities: Paris in the 1950s as a student; London from the mid-50s to the 1980s; and Manhattan, NY from the early 80s to the mid 90s. All of which I've hugely enjoyed. The houses I've lived in in the country both in England and the US have been right in the country. And I've hugely enjoyed them, too. But for the last 10 years I've lived in a small working village in the Luberon,in Provence, called La Motte d'Aigues, literally translated as the mound (or clod) on the (River) Aigues. Though the Aigues has not flowed for many a decade.
I stress the word working because many of the hill villages around, or les villages perches as they are known - though not so perche when it comes to lovely Lourmarin which is decidedly flat - are in your face beautiful and quite obviously ancient and therefore a magnet for tourists. Sometimes too much of a magnet as one hears from residents fed up with their windows constantly being peered into if they don't want to sit in the dark behind shutters.
But the road to and through and then out of my village makes it seem as if that is it and fails to reveal the quirky old tangle of handspan-wide streets creeping up the hill behind with their own ancient window-boxed stone houses. So, most people do not have the chance to find its antiquity unless they are particularly curious or determined, and, let's face it, fit - in the old-fashioned way. It's a steep hill to climb. So the tourist industry is not part of our immediate village though just down the street, now lined with newish houses, we are fortunate to have L'Etang de la Bonde, the one and only lake in this whole area, which is also quite diffident about being seen from the road despite its cafes and a couple of bars and its superette (mini supermarket) for the campers, some of whom come year after year for the tree-lined beaches and calm stretch of water benignly over-looked by its turreted chateau. And now there is the restaurant with its broad terrasse overlooking the water, called, surprise, surprise 'The Restaurant du Lac'. This was started, or rather, revamped and restarted, by my entrepreneurial elder daughter, Sophia Gilliatt and a dear friend, William Ledward and supported by a few generous, again English, friends as share holders. Jane Hayward and I did the design and decoration and since it appeared in the Bib Gourmand list of the 100 best new restaurants in France and in the venerable Michelin it is beginning to be beset by lunchers and diners as well as people staying in its three rooms upstairs. A fail safe for those who have come from a distance and do not want to drink and drive.
It's an agreable feeling for the English to have started a restaurant in France but the chef, Philippe Sublet, is decidedly French though he worked for some time with Hester Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in Bray, near London, one of the UK's three Michelin stars establishments. So far, however, he shows no sign of putting egg and bacon ice cream on the menu or any other Blumenthal clever, chemical concoction. He is decidedly his own man.
But away with family plugging and unashamed nepotism (what else are self indulgent blogs for?) and back to village living, or, more precisely, my village. This happily occupied 'mound', this built-on over generations 'clod of earth' - if you go by the dictionary - is semi- surrounded by cherry orchards and olive groves but mostly vineyards. So it mainly lives on agriculture and in particular, viniculture. This is most noticeable in the Autumn or Fall during the grape harvest when the whole place smells like an over-used wine bar and most normal sounds are drowned out by the putter, putter of ageing tractors hauling tractors stuffed with wobbling bunches of grapes to local wine makers.
This putter, putter is itself occasionally interrupted by the explosions of shot guns in the frosty mornings echoing from the lower slopes of the mountains and the woods denoting the hunting season once again.
Rabbits and hares and small birds and game birds and the occasional boar and deer fall victim to the happy trigger-triumphant hunters so if you are venturing into the surrounding country you have to be careful to wear a bright sweater or jacket.
We are lucky with our amenities which certainly makes living easier all around. We have a good school so that encourages a lot of young families unlike so many French villages who take on the Gallic versions of God's waiting rooms with apparently cheerful resignation. We have a Post Office, a big wine Co-operative, a bar which also sells coffee and newspapers, and a pizzeria. We also have a small square with lots of parking - though its only a 3 minute walk from me - which holds two good doctors, a hairdresser, a boulangerie ('try not to live more than 5 minutes from a boulangerie' someone advised me some years ago) and a particularly well and imaginatively-stocked little supermarket with excellent fresh local fruit and produce and goats' cheeses, all regular groceries and a whole side wall of wines and spirits as well as anything else you'd need to live comfortably.
Then there is entertaining. We have, like most villages around, a series of almost weekly excellent concerts. In fact, Le Roque Antheron, only 20 or so minutes away, is famed throughout France for its Summer Chamber Music concerts. Our music-making takes place in Le Temple at the top of the hill, an early 18th century Huguenot church which the village stoutly defended through all the anti-Protestant risings. The village behaved equally stoutly in World War 11 as hosts to the Marquis and members of le Resistance. A nice woman almost opposite me grew up with a slow stream of allied army members and Resistance fighters hiding in her parents' attic. She learnt to be both secretive and natural and still lives in the same house.
We can easily drive or take a bus to the amenities and Festivals at Aix en Provence or Avignon. Or to the almost daily morning markets which take their turn in the surrounding villages. Although actually, we have the crowning glory in that direction: our unique night market on Thursday evenings throughout the Summer months when we have live music and dancing and stalls for this and that and great bonhommie. People come from all around and bring picnics or just buy food and wine from the stalls and everyone, but everyone dances under the cherry trees until 11pm, whatever their age. The extraordinary thing is that an hour later there is no trace of any activity and this is the same after every village market.
Travel is good too. The TGV station to Paris (in not much more than two and a half hours), or to Nice Airport for the USA, is only 40 minutes away between Aix and Marseilles and it is not many minutes more to the Marseilles airport at Marignane where you can fly to the UK or pretty well anywhere in Europe. As for local travel we have a good bus service and we are saved the nerve-wracking driving in the narrow streets and treacherous corners of the old hill villages which rarely have room for more than one car at a time or the heart-stopping reversing all the way down the long hills one has just inched up, or precariously backing round a blind corner to give way to a tourist bus. They are stunning old villages but not built with cars in mind or even carriages. So that is that.
In villages you can be independent but always have neighbors on hand should you want or need them. You can lock up and go away for a week, or a month or even a year without fear of burglaries and vandalism unlike houses more out in the country. And although its lovely when young to have a swimming pool and a garden in the sun you don't necessarily, when you are older, have the time or the energy or the money to spend on their maintenance. I have two spacious terrasses which are quite green enough for me: one for eating (I happily accommodated 15 for dinner the other night) and one for sunbathing and admiring the panoramic view of the mountains with the lovely old roofs of the village below. Indeed, I'm sitting at the table on the shady, verdant eating terrasse in the afternoon sun as I write. A good glass of Rose to hand from my equally good local friends at Chateau St Esteve de Neri (again, would you believe it, English) and life seems very pleasant.
Altogether I highly recommend village life as a good alternative to cities for people d'un certain age. Particularly, of course, my village.
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