A morning in Aix-en-Provence, nothing to write home about, then we headed to the coast. I was a woman on a mission.
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A few years ago, my mum discovered a battered old diary in a car boot sale. We don't know who the writer was, but we know she took a trip with her husband to the south of France in 1949. My mum and I have become a little obsessed with this diary. Something about it appeals to the romantic 'Amelie' within, and makes us want to continue this mysterious woman's journey and keep her alive somehow. Soppy I know, but those that know us will hardly be surprised. Perhaps it's the handwriting, the faded photographs, or the precise daily recollection of the food and copious amounts of alcohol they consumed, presumably due to continued wartime rations in Britain at the time. Here is the entire entry for Sunday, which was her birthday:
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I didn't sleep very well, it feels rather thundery. Just waiting for breakfast to arrive... Well, it certainly turned into a birthday alright. We had the large yellow cups with red flowers on at breakfast and while we were getting dressed the femme de chambre knocked at the door and brought a large bunch of pink carnations from Christiain and her mother. I got a large green vase from Elise and we put them on our dinner table and ordered the champagne for lunch - Veuve Perrier - like Algernon in the Importance. Then we swam and had aperitifs at the beach cafe and came back and changed into frocks for lunch which we had outside. The champagne didnt turn up to our disgust so we ordered a bottle of rose each - dinner was hors doeuvre, vol a van, mutton and pots, pattiserie, [sic] and then, after we had the two bottles of wine up came the champagne with beautiful glasses embossed with dragons. After that we had coffee and green chartreuse and at 3pm retired to our rooms where I slept solidly until 5pm when AR [her husband] got us up and we managed to get to Le Lavandou for tea and patisserie, just got back in time for dinner so no swim. Dinner - soup, ham and peas. Bed early but it was too noisy to sleep well.
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You have to wonder if her not sleeping well might have been due to all the food and booze. Best of all is the last page where she wrote "Things Learned from the South" consisting of just two lessons:
1. Resolve not to wash up evening meal until morning.
2. Not to work so hard - even, if necessary, to give up schedules altogether.
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Picture reading all this in intricate spidery ink on faded brown paper in a spiral bound leather notebook; you can imagine the charm and intrigue that led us to what came next. In 1997 my folks retraced her steps. The hotel she had stayed in had been turned into run-down holiday apartments and a new hotel with the same name set up next door - La Bastide in St Clair, currently run by a lovely young couple. Pop in if you're passing.
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Now it was my turn. Huw, Suze and I chose to focus on Bormes, a place Mrs X had especially enjoyed. Or I should say, I chose to focus on it and Huw and Suze willingly obliged to indulge my whim. A stunning and happy-feeling village of artisans, ice cream parlours and yellow and orange buildings clinging to the steep hillside, looking down on the glistening sea and Le Lavandou 1km below. It was easy to see whey she loved it. Stuck in the diary were three sepia postcards of the village in the 1940s. It became my aim to seek out these vistas and take modern versions, which I did, much to the annoyance of Huw whose patience ran out somewhere between the second and third.
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Mission accomplished, I felt satisfied that this glimpse into a different life of a bygone age had once again been re-lived. And as we took the Riviera coast road eastwards past St Tropez, Cannes and into Nice, no doubt a stunning road by day but cooler and quieter for our Oddy by night, I was grateful that this 61 year old diary had brought us to that lovely place off the beaten track.
