There is no two ways about it . After spending a week in the village of La Garde Freinet one gets the feeling that this would be the ideal location to film the sequel to 'Groundhog Day'.
Around 6pm these last few evenings we plonk ourselves down under the awning of Le Petit Bar which is located in the middle of the village main street. This is about the hour where the residents realise that the lunchtime siesta is over and start venturing forth to do whatever before they get on with their next meal.
Three nights into this routine and you realise that each evening's activities is basically a full repeat of what went down the previous evening and on and on.
The village Mayor Jean-Jacques Courchet fronts up for a drink with the locals and any French speaking ex-pat who feels like chatting.
At some point in the piece the priest (attired in full battle gear) fronts up to each and every bar and restaurant to chew the fat with various parishioners.
Lots on kissing, hand shakes,the full routine.
Retired ex-pat Poms flood the bars, order endless numbers of beers, talk their heads off whilst appearing to be really enjoying themselves.
As for the locals, once seated they guard their single drink for hour upon hour and talk amongst themselves at a volume level one notch up from whispering.
This national mania for soft talking must play merry hell with the hard of hearing.
The grocery store with all the fruit and veg on display out the front has a continuous flow of villagers carefully assessing, squeezing, prodding, inspecting and then selecting their two potatoes or their three tomatoes for their evening cook up. You can see their cogs working.'Am I going to purchase one potato or go mad and have two?' Sometimes when leaving they stop to show friends their potato.'Take a look at this potato. What are your thoughts?'
Italian and Belgian house builders arrive en masse and attempt to drink the bars dry. Their boots covered in dust and still in their work clothes they swarm into our little bar laughing, joking and flirting with the staff and patrons then settle down in the back to a quiet rumble.
At around seven every night a good looking woman in her early forties ( who Julia has identified as the town whore ) arrives at our bar decked out in high heels, skin tight jeans and a see-through top that leaves nothing , but nothing to the imagination.
My feeling is that if you have got it you might as well flaunt it, and she does , in bucket loads.
Bar owners, their staff, and restaurant owners and staff all wander around to each others premises to have a good old natter whilst at the same time smoking up a storm. I'm now convinced that smoking is a condition of employment when it comes to French service industries.
Meanwhile old men and women stroll up and down the street, stopping at every eatery and bar for a chat while collecting their plastic bottle of water from the town fountain. There are always dogs working the street, children playing, the odd cat going from restaurant to restaurant and pigeons doing acrobatic fly-bys down the main run way.
Directly over the road from the bar is a Pharmacy which does a roaring trade . We were aware that the French are a nation of hypochondriacs however it's not until you have spent a few days plonked down directly opposite the front door of a Pharmacy that you really start to come to grips with what's going on here. These guys just love the place. As we sit swilling down another red endless stream of punters file through the front door of the Pharmacy and exit ten minutes later loaded to the gunnels. The proprietor must be making a small fortune. And that's one facility that doesn't close on the dot of seven. It's all free anyway with the wonderful French government catering for every Frenchman's sniff.
Julia tells me this ex-pat surge to Provence was accelerated by some English guy writing 'A Year In Provence' back in the eighties.
All I will say on this matter is that we will enjoy our week here and leave satisfied.
As to the thought of contemplating a longer stay in these parts, forget it.
We both agree that a move such as that would do our heads in.
Every day is just a repeat of what's gone before.
It's OK for us, as we lap up this lifestyle then simply fold our tent and move on.
In my opinion these beautiful southern French villages are locked in a time warp.
If you hang around one of these places for long enough you would become a basket case or worse.
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