As preparations for this trip get under way and the dream of voyage is overtaken by the nightmare of logistics, one tiny detail keeps slipping into my perspective like a bird in flight : Chalopin!

It is indeed easier to sit above the gold-red ramparts of Jeselmair in Rajastan and dream of making this your life than actually leaving your present life far behind you.
The economics of my situation are such that it is impossible to have my cake and eat it too. If I want to travel I must sell my home, full stop. Because it has to be this way, let us say that it is best this way; no wishy-washy decisionlessness for me !

And so here I sit in Chalopin, my home of ten years, under the vine in the garden who's grapes have not yet begun to redden, those great Noé grapes which are so delicious to eat and so dangerous to ferment, since Noé wine is notorious for the degradation is caused on the central nervous system.
Here I sit then on a cool August morning, mourning the loss of my home and my stability and country calm, Chalopin.
Chalopin! One hundred kilometres from Paris is all it takes to breath new life into you.
Chalopin! Haunted and protected from a thousand evils.
Chalopin! Where my cats play among the flowers and the trees and bring me their sacrificial gifts of mice and birds.
Chalopin!
The name has become synonymous with my friends and family with country living, deep cool wine cellars, rolling hills and that Northern Burgundy country grace which only old houses can have.

For three hundred years this house has stood here, a farm house which its builders would never have dreamt would be inhabited one day by Parisians looking for fresh air. Three hundred years. And I've been here for ten of them.
Will she even remember me?
Memories
In winter sitting before the monumental fireplace with five oak logs burning away the fervour of the night.
Taking the bikes down to the Yonne river or the lakes to swim away the dust of midsummer house repairs.
Making love in the garden, it's high chalk walls separating one from sight.
Getting up early in the morning in the spring to watch the birds flitter and sing at the feeder.
Every year a couple of doves come to live love and remake their world in the barn.

Summer evenings lamps are hooked up to light the ponderous garden, thick and rich with the heat of the day.
The barbecue is lit and a side of beef drowned by bottles of Bordeaux.
Hearing the heavy footfalls of the ghost in the attic over my head at night as she walked, protecting.
One neighbour is a delight, another a fool.
How can I forgive the S_t family for their racism and violence and noise?
A million thanks to the Svartzmann's, to Lucie and her parents and to Françoise and Arthur.
I hope to meet the brilliantly happy Alain somewhere on his bike tour from Paris to Peking.
Twenty eight granite steps of twenty centimetres each represent the descent into the wine cellar, who's vaulted brick soul has guarded my scented bottles safe and ageing.

Mair