A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

The Englishman Peter Mayle and his wife decide to move from foggy England to sunny Provence, France, purchasing a 200 year old farmhouse on the edge of one of France’s national parks. They happen to move in January and first thing they experience is the natural wonder know as a Mistral - cold blasting winds that roar down from the mountains and blow through every crack and seam in the house.

Each month Peter describes what it’s like to live in Provence, what the country is like, the season, the restaurants, the holidays, and the food. He talks about driving around to buy cases of wine for their wine cellar. He describes each little towns restaurants. Peter talks about discovering where to by bread, who has the best olive oil, which baker makes the best pastries, what butcher takes the most care with his cuts of meat.

And mixed in are the Mayle’s adventures with the construction workers over 9 months. After that first Mistral Peter and his wife decide to put in central heat and between their poor but improving French and the growing understanding on how quickly things get done in France we follow the monthly construction progress.

This was a nice book that highlights the beauty of Provence and the attitudes of the people who live there. I loved reading about restaurants who serve one thing a day and if you go that’s what you get. I enjoyed reading about mushroom hunting and poisonous snakes. I empathized with the Mayle’s as they contemplated in Nov whether their heat would ever be installed. This wasn't a gripping page turner, but rather like a lazy summer's evening with the sun slanting through the trees as bits of cottonwood fluff float lazily through the air while dragonfly's dart hither and yon. It was kinda like that.