neighbors

Here in the Vaucluse (don't you love the idea of living in a Closed Valley?)  we are more than fortunate. Up the hill we live on, we have Provencal neighbors to our left,  who have lived in a house far larger than our cab anon for ages and ages, and on our right, a Parisian family with five grown and interesting children, and up the hill a bit, our closest friends here, an English couple who made superb wine, and still live in a ochre-colored farmhouse with a lovely stucco bunch of fruit above the door.
I admit it feels a bit like Manon des Sources when I walk through the length of our unplowed field (I like unplanned nature) to our spring: no water running at all, not a drop. I am told the quarry has plunged deep into the ground and sucked up all the water -- luckily, we have water from the town 2 kilometers away, and it is delightful to drink. I remember going down on my motorbike to fill great plastic jugs with water from the always running spring in the village, strapping the jugs back on my bike and hoping against hope (whatever that might mean)  that the dogs all the way up the hill would leave me alone. Sometimes they did.