We Lived in a Tiny Farming Village

We lived in a tiny farming village in the Burgundy region of France.  The village was so tiny that it didn't have stores, but a Boulangerie truck, or bread on wheels,  came by every day at late morning so everyone could have fresh bread for the day.  There was also a charcuterie truck that stopped on it's rounds and offered fresh meat, and probably other staples.  We lived up on the hill, and our address was "La Grande Croix," which meant somewhere in the vicinity of the Church and it's cross.  I often wondered how the little mailman found us, because everyone's address was the same, but then we must have been like aliens from another planet, and everyone would have known.

We found a small house to rent there not because we particularly liked it, but because it was the only house we could find anywhere close to where my husband worked.  There was no way I was going to be far away from him at any time.  He spoke French - I didn't.  It was that simple.  The house was basic and unattractive, and it was hard for us since we had a nice house and property back in the US, but we knew that everything was different now; that our lives were going to change in ways that we couldn't imagine. 

The house had mostly what we needed.  It was furnished, although all of the furniture except the table and dining chairs were things that could be folded out into beds.  It had been used as a country house for our Parisian landlord and as a summer rental for other Europeans vacationing in the area.  In fact, our landlord asked us if we would be able to move out for the month of August each year so that he could continue his rental activity.  We told him that we didn't think so.  Where would we go during that time.  We unfortunately didn't get a month's vacation as the French do.  The house also had a small sort of studio apartment in the backyard that was rented to a college student during the year, and where our landlord would come each weekend during the summer to do all manner of work to the property, generally starting early in the morning with the noisiest activities.  The one thing I can say about the house, it had a pretty view over the hills of Burgundy, although you had to make an effort to see it.  Our business-minded landlord would not have bothered to take full advantage of that view.  On a clear day (I'll talk about the fog later), you could even see an awesome medieval castle, Chateau de Brandon off on a distant hill. 

The house had tiny appliances that we had to slowly get used to.  The refrigerator was a  mini refrigerator that fit under the counter.  I used to come home from the grocery store and wonder how I would get everything put away, but I always managed somehow.  The stove was also tiny, and I had to turn off the baseboard heat while cooking or the electric box would trip, and the electricity would go out in the whole house.  It was, however, the washing machine that offered us the most entertainment.  It held about two pairs of jeans and a pair of socks, and would wash for a full hour and a half.  We often found ourselves sitting and watching it with utter fascination as you might watch a really good movie on television.  In time I learned to program it for the wool cycle that used cold water instead of boiling, and only took 45 minutes.  It was more practical, but infinitely less interesting.

We were surrounded by farms raising mostly sheep and Charolais cows - not very pretty cows.  They were white sluggish animals with sort of pinkish eyes, and always covered in manure.  I was moved to eat mostly vegetarian while living there.  I sort of felt like I was eating the neighbors otherwise.

Our daughter was only thirteen years old when we arrived in France, so she had to go to school.  We enrolled her in the local Lycee or high school, and she started attending it after we both had a month of intensive French classes taught by a teacher who couldn't speak any English.  She not only spoke to us in French, but explained grammar to us in French.  I admit that I would get so terribly tired concentrating on what she was saying, and trying to understant that I could actually drink a cup of the strong French coffee during the break with almost no side effects.  Maybe a little tunnel vision from time to time. 

Our daughter came home from school one day not long after she had started going full time and said that one of the girls in her class had invited her to a birthday party at her home.  We were very happy to think that she was fitting in and making friends, which had been worrisome for us.  Another girlfriend's mother offered to take our daughter to the party and bring her back, since she knew that we had no idea where anyone lived, or really what was going on.  She also said something about a castle.  We shrugged our shoulders and thought maybe the parents were caretakers or something?   We anxiously waited for her to come back home that afternoon so she could tell us everything.  It turned out that her friend was the daughter of the Count and Countess, which I guess made her a Countess too, and that their home was that medieval castle on the distant hill that we could see from our window.