I am back.

Or more exactly: I am back closer to an internet connection. Still somewhere down south, albeit in a more family-oriented settings.

These five days in the boondocks were absolute paradise and helped reminding me that, was the choice to come down between: big city and the internets on one side, friends, sun, fresh veggies, cheap wine and homegrown on the other, I’d easily slide toward the latter as a permanent way of life.

During my blissful stay in the heart of French Aveyronais region, I:

• ate lots of delicious homemade food including chlada felfel, aligot, moroccan brownies and much more.
• spent entire afternoons on a sun-drenched deck reading, chatting, smoking and overall doing absolutely nothing requiring electricity or a phone line whatsoever.
• stunk to high-heavens of lemongrass essence the entire time, but didn’t get bitten by mosquitoes once.
• spent hours excitedly exchanging musical tips and hundreds of bad-ass 70’s funk tracks
• had to climb up a ladder to get to my bed (when I didn’t opt to stay in a hammock outside).
• walked through a [small] open field of odoriferous plants with strangely shaped leaves and got to sample last year’s crop.
• realized that buying and fixing a house somewhere deep in the country, away from civilization, wasn’t only a way to live a healthier, cheaper and simpler life: there are a few perks on the side.
• spent a whole night playing poker while a fierce Summer thunderstorm raged outside (complete with flickering lights, blown fuses and all).
• met Chucky, the mellow schnauzer, who has never been quite the same ever since he accidentally ate half a pound of mushrooms found drying under his master’s bed.
• made two gallons of frozen margaritas and brought a few more converts over to the church of the Holy Citrus Tequila Cocktail.
• did many other things that shall remain safely out of read from potentially underage eyes…

Back in P-town this week-end.