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Here’s another gem from MyMelange.com:

1.  Do your research. Check with each individual airline that you will be flying during your travels to find out the exact requirement and fee structure for both checked and carry-on luggage.  Many airlines, especially budget airlines, may not even allow one free carry-on – so know what you are getting into. You can also check with SeatGuru.com, which lists airline bag fee policies on their site.

But, I’d even go so far as to place a call to customer service for those airlines to confirm what they have listed on their website. And since these rules and regulations are subject to change at any time, it would be prudent to double-check again right before your trip.  Armed with this info, you’ll know what to expect – and the fees associated with not adhering to their policies.

2. Weigh and measure.  Armed with the information, you need to weigh and measure the dimensions of your bag after it’s packed to see if it will meet both the weight and dimension requirements.  And these budget airlines are no joke.  This is how they make their money.  If it’s 6 ounces over, it’s over.  But getting to your destination is just half the battle.  What happens on the way back when you have purchased souvenirs?  You’ll have no idea what your bag weighs then.  If you are that concerned, either don’t come back with anything you didn’t take with you or invest in a portable luggage scale.  The $20 investment might be worth avoiding an $800 overage fee. Lakeland do a great one!

3.  Have a back-up plan. Always pack a small foldable tote in your carry-on which can be used as another piece of luggage in a pinch. If you are facing huge overage fees, believe it or not, it may be a much cheaper solution to unpack a few things from your main suitcase and place them in the tote. This way you can check, or carry-on two bags that are underweight, rather than one that is grossly overweight.

Honestly though, one of the easiest ways to avoid this hassle is to consider NOT using airlines that have such confusing policies when it comes to bag fees and opt for those that have a more generous and cut-and-dried policy.  That $20 roundtrip ticket may not be worth the stress of trying to figure this all out and may end up costing you not only your sanity but an amount of cash equivalent to taking ten roundtrip flights.

SDEI/Suez is the French water utility for our part of the world – the Luberon Valley in Provence.

Anyone who has lived in the Northern Hemisphere for the last few weeks or watches the TV, knows that Europe is blanketed in snow and freezing temperatures. The ice and the snow has a knock-on effect into the infrastructure – not only primary ones such as airports, roads, postal services etc, but domestic ones such as the basic provision of water. Water cannot flow through frozen pipes and causes havoc when it freezes.

So it was that Madame was under heavy sedation at the Clinique St Roch and YT was sitting by the bedside. The iphone beeped and an email from our renters – ‘nothing to worry about but just to let you know that we have no water!’ Catastrophe!

Our friends Casey and Jen had just phoned and asked if there was anything they could do to help …..they both speak excellent French…… Casey jumped on the phone to SDEI.

French Customer Service kicks in: “There are over 1,000 homes without water. Either use a hairdryer or wait for the weather to warm up (that would be conservatively a fortnight!).

A pragmatic solution, or a crazy fob-off, you ask. I jumped into the Touran and came home, armed myself with Madame’s bright pink hairdryer and dug into the undergrowth to find the manhole and the two water meters.

10 minutes of the dryer on full blast – water!!

An addendum to this story is that over the past 10 days we have used the hairdryer a further three times, and, one fears, will need to do so again.

SDEI’s customer service may not be out of the Best-of-Breed training manuals but it sure is practical!

We returned from Le Renard to be greeted by an extremely icy entrance and even icier Rue de St Esteve. We parked it was dark, Madame slipped on the ice in the street. Whack! Pain…

After a few moments of stabilisation, we ventured off to the emergency section of the Cavaillon Hospital. It’s a Friday night, it’s a public hospital and there is a language barrier, especially when it comes to medical terminology.

We could not be more praiseworthy of the medical personnel. It was only moments after arriving that x-rays had been taken, diagnosis made, a consultation with an orthopaedic surgeon made, blood tests, cardiogram and a two hour stabilisation and pain management programme began.

Wrapped in an elastic a very drugged Madame was taken home for a painful night.

Early Saturday we armed the GPS and headed for Clinique St Roch, near to Cavaillon.

Although it resembles a Russian bomb shelter from the outside, once you get inside, it’s modern, scrupulously clean and staffed by some of the most professional medical personnel you could ever hope to meet.

From the admissions nurse, to the orthopaedic surgeon, nurses etc, the whole event was handled with compassion, sincerity and care. A 14h00 operation finished at 17h00 and Madame was wheeled back into the ward with three large pins holding a rod inside her humerus. Professional pain management and efficient nursing followed for the next 72 hours. Locals tell us that the French medical system is much maligned and there are many complaints – we found the opposite!

We are now in the middle of 6 weeks of rehabilitation – home nursing, physiotherapy (4xweek), chopping carrots, ironing, and generally keeping ourselves afloat. The local community is amazing – meals on wheels etc, you name it.

It’s been a helluva week/s. Snow, ice, extreme cold and all of this conspires to create some out of the ordinary happenings!

Let’s start at the beginning. We are decorating a beautiful Mas near Roussillon and it will be listing soon as an additional Bastide les Amis property for holiday rentals. An 8 hour stretch in IKEA saw us accumulate nearly one tonne of goods for the IKEA transport company.

Now, we all know that IKEA is an incredible concept and geared up for buy and carry. However, they do offer a facility to transport your goods when your little car is too small and you have bought too. You proceed through the checkout armed with many pieces of paper, your trolleys and a degree of exasperation to await being called by your secret code to advance to the delivery desk.

Your goods are tagged with Swedish efficiency and you receive more paper telling you that you will be called ‘by 19th January’ to announce a deliver ydate. And, you’d better be home! There are legions of stories of people who have not been at home and found piles of boxes on the sidewalk!

Finally, we got our phone call and slipped and slid through the snow and ice to receive the delivery. Sadly, only 47 of the 79 parcels arrived – we await the balance!

Meanwhile back at the Bastide, the development of the dolls museum has reached another milestone, painting the interior is complete! Now we have to finish off the shutters in the traditional village colour (Farrow and Ball ‘pigeon’), the carpet arrives on the 21st February and the population of the space commences.

Now for the next episode in our week…………

Au bientot: Lovonne and Simon xx

Down the D900 national road from Menerbes lies the old Roman town of Apt. To-day, it boasts a great Saturday market, an atmospheric old town and some great little restaurants, some dear friends but certainly is not a tourist hub.

Industrial areas encircle the town of 12,000 people and, unfortunately as a consequence of the European economy, unemployment is high. It was into one of these industrial zones that we went in search of the headquarters of the lighting company, Blachere. It’s situated just off the little road to the hill top village of Saint Saturnin-des-Apt and you can;t miss it – a huge green building covered in bright stars and twinkly things.

Blachere is a world leader in festive, Christmas and ornamental lighting. amazing to believe that this factory is not in Chine, but in Apt! Think Times Square, the Ginza, thousands and thousands of large Christmas displays are all crafted and manufactured in the Apt workshops.

We popped in. The wedding needs lights! The store is a wonderland and we picked out a few gems for approval.

A few weeks ago, Mark and Arnem came to stay for the weekend. Last week, the telephone rang and our friendly DHL man was in the parking area – ‘une colis pour vous’. Two cookery books tumbled out of the amazon packaging – Otto Lenghi’s The Cookbook and another Otto Lenghi Plenty.

It takes a lot to get Madame away from the latest Ken Follett or her Provençal books, but these have succeeded. This weekend saw two delicious creations -and they were vegetarian!

We have been busily painting the Doll Museum and, as happens, either you run out of paint at the moment critique, or the suggestion is floated that the final coat should maybe be a different colour to that originally selected! Of to our local paint shop Arc-en-Ciel in Coustellet and what do we find outside? An example of local creativity! Quite different you must admit!

Au bientot : Lovonne and Simon xx

So-named in honour of the great street food in the French capital, the Paris has long been a firm favourite amongst our family and friends – especially the boys. A superb lunch or supper dish, it is a baguette, with mustard, ham, viennas and melted cheese all grilled together and served piping hot with the obligatory tomato sauce (or if your name is Will, then you add Tabasco).

Over the weekend, Madame decided to lift the bar and created the Bastide -

Here we go:

Baguette sliced and smothered  in Maille 1747 mustard

Lay over sliced ham, folded to add quantity (this is more important than presentation)

Thinly sliced red onion (I’m told that the red one is very important for taste) placed on top

Sliced knackis (the French derivative of a good old-fashioned vienna sausage) on topSprinkle over grated Compte or Gruyere cheese

Use up the remainder of the onion on top

Grill in the oven till crisp (don’t burn – a catastrophe!)

Serve hot with lashing of Heinz tomato sauce, and if you’re feeling healthy, raw sliced tomato

Although Maison Olive is still full for another three weeks before it too closes for a month and the new terrace building episode commences, we have been luxuriating in the free time afforded during this time of the year when you can get things done.

Like fetching fire wood. Erica was here for a month. That means, plenty of fires! At this time of the year, the search is for small, dry pieces of wood. We managed to find some and not being able to wait for a delivery, we did the work ourselves!

January and February are really peaceful times when many restaurants and shops take their annual leave but the construction folk move into full swing with he deadline of the season approaching.

It’s also a time to enjoy our surrounds and look at what’s new in Menerbes….. I nearly forgot!! Madame has been given a new MacBook Pro by Erica, she has her iPad courtesy of William and my Orange fidelity points stumped up for a new iPhone 4GS. Tech support, is here and present.

Au bientot: Lovonne and Simon xx

Galerie Pascal Laine is an institution in the Luberon. Situated in Menerbes, Pascal specialises in contemporary art and has provded much needed publicity and exposure for many artists over his more than 20 years in owning art galleries (Avignon, Gordes and now Menerbes).

During December and January, Pascal Laine has been exhibiting works by the sculptor Nadine Fourre. Nadine was born in France in 1957 and settled in Japan in 1981 for some time. These influences permeate her work, and she has just finished an exhibition of her rock sculptures in Menerbes.

Elegantly crafted and, in some cases, quite spectacular, the works are a master class in balance and precision. Nadine collects her rocks from the Durance river and her driftwood from beaches around the Marseilles area.

We have reason to visit the Galerie Pascal Laine as Beachstone Interiors of Chatham, Cape Cod USA was purchasing a few pieces for clients.

Nadine goes to the source of the 740km long Durance (which is one of the main tributaries of the mighty Rhone River) high up in the glaciers of the Alps and she says that “if you place your ear to the mountain, you can hear the rocks swirling around as though they are in a washing machine!”, and then tracks her stones down to the Cavaillon region where she harvests them.

She is a resident of the tiny, atmospheric village of Eygalieres, a few minutes from glitzy St Remy-de-Provnce, in the heart of the Les Alpilles region of Provence. Fourre says that her art form does not yet have a ‘name’ but her and about 20 others world wide who practice this art form are gathering in Japan later in 2012 to formalise the genre.

It was fascinating watching Nadine Fourre teaching Erica of Beachstone Interiors how to reassemble the pieces when they reach the USA – an art form in itself and really steady, calm hands are needed!

Nadine’s work can also be seen on her website and via Galerie Pascal Laine. (www.galerie-pascal-laine.com).

“I just received the book Footsteps from Amazon!  So excited to relive our time in the beautiful Luberon.  I read that notebook over and over again while we stayed at La Maison Blanc…  I commend Simon on all the work he has done.  The historical tidbits and sections are the most fun to me.” – Nick, New York.

Coming to the Luberon this season? Your ultimate guide…..

NOW ON AMAZON!

When we started Bastide les Amis as a self-catering rental property in Menerbes, we provided our guests with a printed Guide to the property and some useful day trips and items of local interest which are often not carried in the more commercial and established Guide Books.

We’ve had such a great reaction and coupled with the growing readership of this website, we felt that we should expand the concept into a 100 page book. Lovonne’s beautiful photographs taken over the seasons, complement the words which give you a highly personalised view of the Luberon and surrounds.

From a [very] short History of Provence, to day trips, some quirky trips like discovering the secrets behind the ‘turnarounds’ (the roundabouts!) to ‘Finding your way around a French supermarket’, Footsteps has been designed to give you an insight before, during and even after your trip to Provence – no matter how many times you have been here.

Footsteps – the Luberon and Surrounds, is available from Amazon as a hard copy book or can be downloaded via the Kindle App on to your ipad, iphone or any other smart/tablet device. The price is €19.00 (GBP16.00;US$24.99;AU$25.00;ZAR206.00). Downloading the Kindle app is free – merely go to your favourite App Store.

*Currency conversions apply from US$ at time of writing, Amazon will provide their own ruling price at purchase.

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