Week-end de 15 août

I'm starting to wonder if the French even have ordinary, normal two-day weekends. It seems like we are constantly burdened with long weekends. What a bore, non ? Earlier this month was no exception. August 15th is Assumption (which, according to Wikipedia, is "important to many Catholics as the day that Mary was received into Heaven" - don't worry, I didn't know either...), so François had the day off (along with everybody else). We hit the road (along with everybody else!) and went to spend the weekend in Malaucène, a village about two hours from Gap. Why Malaucène? Well, Nicolas (FQ's brother) and his wife Stéphanie, along with Arthur (FQ's nephew/godson) are currently renting a house there for a couple weeks of summer vacation. Most of the time, they live in New York City (you'll remember that FQ and I spent a week in NYC chez eux back in March). You can imagine the view from their apartment in Manhattan is just a little different from the view from the maison de vacances :

If you're wondering what that bump in the middle of the photo is, you're not alone. Apparently, it's the remmenants of an old fort. Nowadays there's a chapel up there, a few olive trees, and a beautiful view of the village:

The house Nicolas and Stéphanie rented is the one just to the left of the centre of the photo (can you spot the white parasol?)

Of course we never get tired of taking the classic "long-arm" self-portraits whenever there's a nice view to be had:

And please note how my new shortish French haircut goes well with the French scenery:

And how cute FQ is in his new stripy sweater:

Speaking of cute, here is FQ's nephew/godson Arthur, who turns four next month. I love the moustache de lait !

OK, enough French cuteness! Back to the long weekend recap: we had a lovely time doing not much at all, French-style. In the mornings, we wandered into the village to buy croissants and newspapers, came back, ate breakfast, read the paper, played Lego with Arthur, opened a beer as soon as the village church bells told us it was noon, ate lunch, took a walk, took a nap, had apéritif, BBQed something for dinner, drank some wine, chatted, went to bed. Ahhhhh.

You can see all the photos from the long weekend by clicking here:

Weekend du 15 août