Make our garden grow

Provence is lush.  Lush and slightly overripe at this time of the year.  Vineyards boast fully mature grapes, lavender and poppies are all but forgotten, rosemary and thyme line the country roads with not a thought to their overgrown presence.  Big, flat plane tree leaves are rusting with each passing setting of the sun; the omnipresent crunch underfoot erases any denial that autumn is desperately trying to nudge summer to sleep.

Our afternoon retreat.

Today we ventured out to the plot of land Ben's landlady keeps as a garden.  Once past the paved sidewalks of town, squashed figs littered the roadside, and I had to be very careful not to step in the baking, rotting piles.  The sun in Provence is fairly oppressive during the day, and so anything that isn't actively growing is actively decaying.

Jardin.

The garden plot is down a slender, grassy path.  Many locals own a similarly-sized plot of land in this field; there is little to no green space within the town itself.  Some plots appear to be overgrown, while others look carefully tended.  During the year, Ben and his landlady take great care of her plot, but between June and now, no one has been here to tend to it, so it's a bit weedy.  I wish I could say we came to weed; we came for the cats.

Photogenic kitty.

A half dozen or more feral cats live in this garden, and as soon as we arrived, they all came scurrying from under the brush to eat the cat food Ben poured for them.  Most of the cats were extremely friendly and curious, almost dog-like.  If you know me, you'll know that I'm fairly obsessed with cats.  All cats have their own distinct little personalities.  I think most are bent on world-domination, though would settle for a nice place to nap.  These cats were no different.  They hissed and yowled at each other, chased each other through the grass, but then quickly tired and plopped in the shade to purr themselves to sleep.  I think people should be more like cats.  Always leave someone wanting more, don't be so quick to please or be so fast to form loyalties.  Find a nice place to take an afternoon snooze.  

I named this one Scallop; he/she was very talkative.

Ben is the cat whisperer, so once they sniffed him out, we were joined by an eager handful of felines.  Most have names, and have been living in this garden for most of the time that Ben has lived in Pertuis.  Ben's favorite is Hibou, and Hibou does indeed look like an owl.

Benjamin et Hibou

We ate a picnic lunch and settled in the sun to read.  The heat wasn't so bad under the shade, but the mosquitoes ate up our legs pretty badly.  The whole time I felt like I was playing hooky from school or work, and I had to actively remind myself that I'm not supposed to be anywhere right now; it's ok to relax.  It was hard to completely relax though, with all the kitties lurking around us.  When a cat is present, I can't resist playing with it.  My favorite was this scrawny little thing that I named Tater Tot.  Tater was clearly the runt of whatever litter it came from and wouldn't eat while the other cats were eating.  She (no idea if it was a he or she, so let's go with she) wasn't scared of us in the slightest, so I returned her affection.

Tater Tot the Bold

I don't know when I'll have another chance to spend a hot summer afternoon in a garden with a bunch of curious kitties.  Soon, the autumn will truly descend on Provence.  And soon we'll move north to Lyon.  Classes will start for both of us, and any cats we see will probably be mean street cats or fat house cats.  Summer must end, as she always does, but I think her welcome is over at this point.  I know I'm ready for crisp air and a legitimate excuse to wear scarves and layers and a little more responsibility.

But at least we got to play with some cats today.