Haute Provence

Here we are soaking up the delights of Buis-Les-Baronnies. [I'll check the spelling and get back to you later. Yes, that's it (I just checked) - one 'r' and two 'n's]. It's in Haute Provence. 'Haute' means 'high', so we are in Provence Upper. In future, therefore, I am going to give our home address in Wangaratta as 'Haute Waldara' as a consequence of this rather tortured thought process. I think it will stick, and the likes of Mal and Brenda McKay, Allan and Elaine Darwin and Jack and Joyce Marshall will readily agree to the erection of a sign half-way along our road: "Welcome to Haute Waldara". Should improve house/land values by thousands! We may even get our own postcode!

This village, like those surrounding it, at first look tiny, but it soon becomes apparent that there are lots of people about with lots of money. Restaurants charge, relatively, a lot of money. A 'menu de jour' was noted yesterday on a signboard out the front as costing 120 euros! That's AUD174.09 (in real money)! A haircut for Dear Jude would cost 36 euros! My understangi g of market forces leads me to believe that SOMEONE is paying these prices. I'll be danged if it is going to be us, though (unless Dear Jude REALLY wants that cut and style. As for the restaurant, all they got from us were the huff marks from our faces pressed up against their window pane).

I tell you who would love it here, and that's Gavin Frawley! There are buckets of cyclists on all the roads belting along the King's Highway. Mostly groups of chaps off for a day of serious spinning. The occasional touring couple on touring/mountain bikes offers some variation to this pattern. Yesterday we were told to get our car off the road very roughly
by a police officer on a motor bike. Very soon after, some flat-out-serious-sprinting chaps scorched past us in the opposite direction, up out of their seats and very determined looks on their faces. We looked for Cadel, but they were going far too fast to see! I bet he was there, though. I amcertain that Our Gav could mix it with the best of that lot.

We are having a day around the village today. I'd better get into the shower.

Hoo Roo!

Graeme