The week between Christmas and New Year is the week I call ‘the quiet week’. It is the one week of the year when the world seems to slow down, turn off and take a long deep breath. The phone stops buzzing, the emails aren’t flashing and there is time… time to indulge, reflect and just be. ‘Being’ is not something that we can all do very often… it is the greatest luxury of all.
The mornings have been frosty in my corner of Provence… and quiet. As snow muffles the everyday sounds so does frost. Frost, hand in hand with the mist, lends an ethereal atmosphere to the countryside and makes it impossible to be anything but tranquil… except for the occasional shot from the hunters up in the mountains… and even those pops in the stillness become customary and can’t alter my reverie.
I have enjoyed this ‘quiet’ week at our farm ‘being’ with my family and friends… walking, reading, watching movies… chatting about everything and nothing. Over indulging the ‘gourmet’ side of life and minimising my ‘technical’ addictions. Waking up each day and not having a major list of must ‘do’ items must be one of the best feelings in the world…
Santa, clever old guy that he is, managed to deliver Frozen Planet to Provence and this ‘quiet’ week has been a visual treat for us. This series, narrated by David Attenborough is not to be missed… we have been enthralled and I will watch it over and over… New Year’s resolution… a trip to the frozen world. It might not be this year … but I have promised myself one day… (European readers can buy it now from Amazon … If you live in the US or Canada you will have to pre-order… but it is so worth the wait… )
Reading has been our other pastime… Santa….. even cleverer that ever… delivered Kindles to the kiddies and they were a huge hit… Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy has proved to be the favourite… if you haven’t read these books… start now… gripping and impossible to put down.. That is the thing about the ‘quiet’ week… reading and watching what you want… relaxing the mind and escaping to a place of your choice… I have been devouring some coffee table books from my wish list… J’aime Paris by Alain Ducasse… his ‘where to’ places in Paris and Historic Houses of Paris… both brilliant…
(European readers can find them here and here…)
images – vicki archer
