Our stalwart president and international leader, Barbara, and Kaydie Vistelle, a French/American tour hostess from Gainesville, have spent this week with four other Journey Daybook alums touring several small villages, some of them very old, in Provence. Kaydie has booked the same old farmhouse for the years of her tours, the Gite des Tourtetelles, near Carpentras in the Vaucluse district of Provence – a green, rich, wine producing area. There will be two separate journey daybook groups, each spending a week with Barbara and Kaydie at the gite. Ironically, I have travelled and stayed in this same region over the years and in 2002 led an Adventure with alums (Gypsy and Lois) to many of the same places where the 2015 groups will be. Susan and Lilliam went on one of Kaytee’s tours in 2013. Mary and Jackie have posted several photos and some of their journey daybook pages to Facebook during this week and I have loved seeing them. I hope to include more of them as well as some descriptive text from Barbara in another post very soon. In the meantime, I have posted above a photo of Patty’s journey daybook page made at the wonderful Sunday market in Isle sur la Sorgue. The cool, fast-running Sorgue River runs throughout he center of this picturesque village. The Sunday market is an especially joyous celebration! The market “marchế” has a variety of food, handicrafts, and antiques. (Gypsy spent hours here in 2002 buying “brocantes” to fill up her colorful Cedar Key antique shop!) Patty’s approach to the market was of a more contemplative nature, reflecting the nature of the Journey Daybook Process. It is obvious that the beautiful Vaucluse region of Provence is especially inspirational for all of us! Jackie’s page, below, seems to summarize the bliss of her week’s experience in Provence.
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An interesting side-kite to Patty’s page is that the singer, who also plays the sax in this group, is from NOLA and is able to make his living playing at this market, the one in Saint Remy-de-Provence on Wednesdays and perhaps one other. The collaged page at the bottom of the posting is one we made as a group to help celebrate a special birthday of Francoise, the owner of the gite. She invited us over for an aperitif on Thursday which was a treat for all of us. Her family grows the best strawberries in the region.