The Stranger Across the Aisle - II
An elderly couple greets my family at the start of a sabbatical year in France. (4 minute read)
In the early summer of 2010 my wife and I moved to the south of France with our two children. We rented an old country farmhouse surrounded by olive trees and a vineyard.
The first time we went looking for our sabbatical home we drove past it because it only pops up for a second from the main road. But then Melanie saw something looking back, and she yelled out “that’s it, that’s it, that’s it!” and we made an abrupt U-turn on the white rocky soil of a neighbor’s goat path. We blocked traffic for a moment, and Melanie put her hand on my forearm as we made our way down the long gravel drive.
The owners lived in Paris, but the wife’s elderly parents greeted us on the terrace in the shade of the plane trees that front the house. We found ourselves laughing because we had to raise our voices over the sizzle of cigales to introduce ourselves. Then the two of them led us inside and gave us a tour of the home.
The husband …
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