When I tell people I live in the south of France they always envision the beautifully colored lavender fields of Provence or the sun washed villas along the coast of the Côte d'Azur.
No, we don't live in a villa with a swimming pool or a mas provençal with olive trees and vineyards. We live in a 3 story, small village house in the middle of, well...nowhere.
La France Profonde. We live in the country.
I had to convince one friend that Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis are not our neighbors. The only celebrities around here are a well known English wine guru who has a holiday home 15 minutes away and the vineyards owned by Gérard Depardieu and Johnny Hallyday.
As our 84 year old neighbor replied when I returned from a weekend in Barcelona, I've never been to Spain.
Spain is just over an hour's drive away. And she's never been.
She's from the village down the road, all of one mile away, and is married to a local. They live in the house that he was born in and two of their son's, several grandchildren and a couple of cousins live in the village. In fact, if you counted all the members of this family, they probably make up 10 % of the village population. Which is 400.
Well, 402, if you count us.
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