Little did we know, we had parked under an apricot tree and it was an apricot tree that was overladen with ripe fruit. The noise of an apricot landing on Eileen in the middle of the night is quite disconcerting and even more so when one bump is followed by more bumps in the night. When we stepped outside in the morning, we realised what was causing all that bumping and there must have been twenty ripe apricots sitting around us on the ground. While eating breakfast and getting hit on the head by yet another falling apricot (me), we got two loads of washing done and almost dried before we hopped on our bikes and cycled in to St Remy de Provence. Yet again we had to sort out problems with Orange and our internet access, it seems the prices have quadrupled, so last time we only received a quarter of what we thought we had been sold!
St Remy is a lovely little town with very stylish shops, cafes and restaurants squeezed along tiny little, mainly pedestrian, roads. The main road encircles it and has become one big busy roundabout with more shops and restaurants. On the road leading off it, to the south, is Glanum and we cycled down there to see two incredibly well preserved roman buildings. It was approximately 2kms uphill all the way, but definitely worth the tough ride and of course the ride back in to town, downhill all the way, was great fun! And when we got back there were another thirty plus apricots scattered next to Eileen.
A swim was definitely needed by mid afternoon because the temperature was now in the mid-thirties, so back at the campsite we jumped in to the swimming pool and cruised around together in the water. There were quite a few other people doing the same thing and amongst them we spotted Susan Boyle, Picasso and Mark Reilly’s Mum, Betty, strange that they all happened to be in the same campsite as us!
After showers and more apricot gathering, we cycled back in to St Remy. I’m at the point of really missing the variety of food that we have in Australia. We’re finding that there really are only French restaurants in the small towns and villages and they all seem to have the same things on their menus, with just a few provincial changes. So we were both really excited to find a Vietnamese restaurant in St Remy. The owner came from Saigon, as a child, in 1977 and he was so funny to talk to. Especially when he presented Rodney with the bill and loudly whispered “it’s a note from your wife back in Australia”. He had all the lines and the food was a very welcome change; I certainly went to bed happy that night.