We ate long and well and talked about the months that had gone as quickly as weeks. There was so much we hadn't seen and done: our French was still an ungainly mixture of bad grammar and builders' slang; we had managed somehow to miss the entire Avignon festival, the donkey races at Goult, the accordion competition, Faustin's family outing to the Basses-Alpes in August, the wine festival in Gigondas, the Ménerbes dog show, and a good deal of what had been going on in the outside world. It had been a self-absorbed year, confined mostly to the house and the valley, fascinating to us in its daily detail, sometimes frustrating, often uncomfortable, but never dull or disappointing. And, above all, we felt at home.
Maurice brought glasses of marc and pulled up a chair.
"'Appy Christmas," he said, and then his English deserted him. "Bonne Année."
About The Author
Peter Mayle spent fifteen years in advertising, first as a copywriter and then as a reluctant executive, before leaving the business in 1975 to write books. His work has been translated into seventeen languages, and he has contributed to the London Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Independent, as well as Gentlemen's Quarterly and Esquire.
A Year in Provence won the British Book Awards' "Best Travel Book of the Year" in 1989. Its sequel, Toujours Provence, was published in 1991. Mr. Mayle's most recent book is Chasing Cezanne. He and his wife live in Provence.