La Maison: La Bergerie

LUYNES - After visiting the CIPEC school, Mike and Eugene came and met me and we walked back to La Bergerie for my first visit to the house we could live in. Along the way, Eugene showed me a few of the areas where the CIEPC kids play in the woods, and also the nifty tree house he had built for his own kids. Within two minutes we arrived at the house.

I met the two older daughters, who Eugene and Jackie are home schooling. The parents weren’t real pleased with the secondary school (across the street from CIPEC) for a number of reasons, one of which is because the girls weren’t learning enough French. That, plus they said it was more segregated in terms of the ex-pats and the French kids than CIPEC, and their girls weren’t even getting the benefit of the cultural immersion. So they now study at home and seem to be happy and well adjusted. They also hired a French tutor, which Eugene said has made a big difference in their language skills. The two older girls are 13 and 15 and we chatted about what it was like for them being in Provence at that age. The best thing they all liked about living there was the opportunity to experience so many different places and things - small Provencal villages, dramatic mountain scenery, historical sites, the beaches, and the local culture – all within a short distance of the house in Luynes. As teenagers, the older girls like to hang out in Aix, too, which seems like a safe city and where they can see movies, shop and check out the French boys.

The youngest daughter is 4 and she goes to CIPEC and loves it, so that was re-assuring to hear when I chatted with her after she came home that afternoon. She’s a tad younger than Lindsey, but there were definite similarities and she talked about a lot of things she does at school that would be familiar to Lindsey, too. The family’s plan is to return to Australia after touring around Europe this summer and the parents are anxious to get the older girls back into structure of a regular school but they weren’t concerned at all that the experience in Provence had set their kids back at (even with the home schooling) – just the opposite in fact.

Jackie (a Irish woman who moved to Australia many years ago) and Eugene (an Aussie through and through) had prepared a great French lunch for me and Mike, including quiche, various meats and cheeses, fresh salad and the requisite bottle of wine, a local rose’. We talked about how they had met Mike and Nadine by chance in Bali, and Le Bergerie was the solution to their challenge of wanting to live in Provence for a year.

Afterward, Jackie showed me around the house, which has three bedrooms, one of which is a large self sufficient apartment-style room downstairs that has a separate entrance. Upstairs are two good-sized bedrooms, and a glassed-in sun room which they use as an office and study area. The main floor has the kitchen, dining area, TV room, and a living room – including a cozy fireplace which Eugene says they use all the time when it is cold.

Outside is a large patio deck area, and further down the driveway is the pool. Mike and Eugene both say you spend a lot of time outdoors in Provence thanks to the nice weather, and the pool comes in handy during the really hot summer months of July and August. The house is surrounded by woods and trails and the family enjoys exploring the immediate area. They get occasional wild animals coming through (pigs, rabbits) but very rarely any unexpected human company.

It was good to talk to Eugene and Jackie about the mundane stuff – utilities, mail, banking, the Internet and TV service, routine maintenance stuff, etc. since we would be in a similar scenario as they were when they first arrived. And of course, Nadine has vowed to help us settle in seamlessly, as she did for her current tenants.

I also met the gardeners, who come twice a month, and the contractor who fixes stuff around the house (Mike is having a new roof put on this summer). My lack of proficiency in French worried me as Mike rattled off instructions to the workers, but Eugene doesn’t speak much of the mother tongue and he says he gets along fine. At that moment, it seemed like the type of place that is always a bevy of activity, even though it’s fairly isolated from the main road and the neighbors (of which, from what I could tell, there were only two or three within walking distance), but I think I just caught them on a busy day, and for sure Mike wanted to see some things attended to during his short visit.

Mike then drove me around the nearby towns (Luynes and Gardanne) and a few of the other important places to know about for shopping and such. It’s all very modern, centralized and easy enough to get around. There are large shopping areas within minutes - big supermarkets, a Home Depot-like store, clothing stores, gyms, gas stations, even a McDonald’s (which, as with all McDonald’s in France, offers free wireless internet).

And, in 10 minutes we were back in downtown Aix en Provence.