Lavender

Lavender lavender everywhere but not a drop to drink!!
Or was there?



Journeying along the Lavender road from Riez to Forcalquier
in the oppressive heat of the South of France, Rusty our
very old but faithful little camper was screeching
desperately for a new drive shaft. We were on desolate
roads and could only chug onwards promising her some
TLC when and where we could find some!
In the back, two tired and sticky children were getting
restless with the game of ‘who would be first to see a purple
field.’ A difficult task for boys who had no vision as to what
a lavender plant actually looked like, coupled with acute
boredom.



Suddenly there it was…purple…
Parking up, Tom rushed to pick stalks to stick into his
holiday scrapbook. The lavender not only looked stunning
but there was a heady, almost sickly aroma in the
air and….. it also made a noise!
Each mound of lavender was infested by hundreds of bees
and crickets and Tom, the intrepid David Attenborough,
was in his element!




Now in the ‘deepest, darkest’ lavender country, the typical
scenes were unfolding. Fields of plump, striped bushes
disappeared into the distance. Old, tumbling, grey stone
bories sat smugly amongst the flowers, adding even more
charm to an already 'picture perfect' postcard scene.



We journeyed on to Sault where the road became dryer,
steeper and windier with every turn of Rusty’s grating wheels.
We arrived a little later than we had planned and searched
desperately for somewhere to park up for the night. Brand
spanking new, gleaming white camper vans were sandwiched
into every available piece of terra firma. Finally, Rusty
squeezed her red, old and extremely dusty little self into the
last space of the evening and was sneered at with utter
contempt from our whiter than white neighbours. Their
colossal vehicles seemed to house petite retired couples
accompanied by small fluffy lapdogs.
Their faces were painted with expressions of sheer horror
when our two raucous boys emerged or rather exploded
from our tiny van complete with scooters, swing ball and
plastic boules.

Exploring the town was a little disappointing. We had no
intentions of buying lavender bags made from typically
garish Provencal
fabric, hideously painted chirping ceramic cicadas or soaps
of every possible colour packaged in corrugated cardboard.
The view, however was the icing on the proverbial cake. It
was stunning. Fields upon fields of lavender disppeared into
the distance over the Valensole plateau.



Up early, as usual, thanks to small children’s unfathomable
need to rise at the crack of dawn.
We walked along the road towards the charmingly old
fashioned lavender festival, where everyone and his cow
seemed to congregate.

The festival was opened by a ‘Grande’ procession. Red
faced ladies, donning lace edged bonnets, hitched up their
enormous petticoats and squeezed their voluptuous bottoms
onto the saddles of their old bikes. They pushed away in
unison with great gusto accompanied by shrill laughter.
Adolescent boys were next, clad in plus fours and waistcoats.
They were more self conscious as they heavily cycled off
into the woodland on their wooden contraptions.



Behind them thudded the biggest bulls that I had ever
seen pulling heavy slow carts overflowing with lavender.
A couple of small girls held the reins of their horse as they
sat on their leather seats at the front of a rickety wooden
waggon. Their woollen shawls were casually flung over
their delicate shoulders and their hair bespecked with
prickly lavender stalks, as if straight from the set of Little
House on the Prairie.



After devouring the biggest crepes yet seen, our two boys
set off eagerly to the soap making demonstration, sugar and
Nuttella still encrusted on their lips. They thrust their hands
into the bag of soap chippings to do what boys love to do best
…make a squelchy mess. Squeezing the wet soap flakes into
shape was sheer bliss before adding a handful of dried lavender
and finally a rough little piece of rope from which it could hang.
There were carts of lavender, parked at every corner.
Bunches were pulled out and spilled as people greedily
grabbed handfuls and roughly arranged them into
manageable bundles to take home.



At the end of the day, walking back along the hot streets,
our own arms full of bunches of dried lavender, we stopped
for frites at a nearby bustling café. This turned out to be
part of a bottling factory. Inside the store, little glass bottles
were lined up in a spectrum of gloriously outrageous colours.
There were bottles of fuchsia pink candy floss syrup,
gregarious green of apple and of course the shocking
purple of lavender syrup.




We now added a crate of bottled syrups to our already
laden arms and before heading back to the van, took a
sneaky peek into the bottling factory next door. Here the
gorgeously stubby virgin bottles sat on stationary conveyor
belts, some with their tiny ceramic stoppers flopped open
as if gagging for some coloured syrup.





Incidentally, the syrup, dare I say it, was surprisingly tasty
and drizzled over ice cream whilst perched on Rusty’s back
step was a blissful end to a hot day spent slap bang amongst
the Lavender.
Rusty’s already untidy interior was now carpeted with a
mass of crunchy lavender heads and the boy’s extremely
unattractive congealed globs of soap swung from our tiny
kitchen sink. Perhaps we should have invited our neighbours
in to share our pudding with us.
Maybe next year!

Buttons and Buckles
(Useful bits and bobs of information about lavender).

Recipes
Cooking with lavender
Lavender creme brulee
Lavender, orange and almond cake
Lavender muffins
Strawberry and lavender sorbet
Lavender shortbread
Honey and lavender ice cream
Lavender rice pudding
Lavender and honey lamb

Health and Beauty
Information about lavender oil
Health benefits
Neal's Yard Remedies
Jo Malone
Crabtree and Evelyn

Lavender farms
Isle of Wight Lavender Farm
Snowshill lavender
Long Barn
Yorkshire Lavender
The Lavender Fields
Jersey Lavender
Norfolk Lavender
Ornbaun Gibson Ranch

Books
Lavender
Creative ideas
Projects
The Lavender Cookbook
How to grow lavender
Growing and using lavender
Easy recipes for remedies
The lavender garden
Growers guide



Travel guides
Rough guide
Undiscovered France
Lonely Planet
DK




Lavender visits in Provence
Perfumerie in Grasse
Abbaye de Senanque
Valensole Plateau
musee de la lavande




Films
Ladies in Lavender
The Lavender Hill mob






Happy travelling! Happy eating!