Notre Aventure Française, 2013: 15th September

Ann and Elizabeth received a ride to mass this morning with Gerard and Monique, some more non english speaking neighbours and who substituted for Jean who had to leave early, to the village of Côtes-d'Arey about 10 minutes away. The villages in our area share mass each week and each one's turn comes around once per month. Mass was somewhat extended by the replacement of the sermon with a discourse on Rembrandt's painting of The Prodigal Son, which was the subject of the Gospel of the Day.
The discourse went for some 40 minutes, all in French of course, and had Ann and Elizabeth in raptures. This was followed by a dual baptism and if they wanted a lift home they had to be part of it.

This afternoon had us on the "Flowers and Fruit Route" through the "Pays Roussillonnais" (the Roussillon Countryside). The plains and plateaus of this area are covered with fruit trees bearing apricots, peaches, cherries, apples, pears and strawberries and all ready for harvesting in the next weeks.
The villages of the area are festooned with flowers. Villages with names such as la Chapelle-de-Surie, St-Romaine-de Surie, Ville-sous-Anjou, Agnin, Anjou, Bouge-Chambalud and Chanas are all on the trail and were all bedecked with flowers of all types, both in public places and private gardens. Photos don't really do them justice, so you will just have to come and look for yourself.

In the village of Sonnay we came across "Le Moulin à Huile" (The Oil Mill), an ancient rape seed oil mill which was open for inspection with commentary and which we were able to listen to in halting English (for our benefit only). It was operated initially by horse power and eventually converted to electricity. It was operated clandestinely during WW2 under the noses of the Germans and eventually closed just after the war.