Stack and Pack

On my bureau, the France stack is forming. It's the pile of things that will go in my luggage to our home in Mollans. Unlike most travelers, I tend to be light on the clothing and heavy--literally--on things. For example, plates.

Yes, plates. Last year, when I still had elite status with Northwest and got to bring extra poundage, I loaded up my suitcases well over the normal weight allowance. I brought over lots and lots--small salad plates, shallow soup plates and several dinner plates, all matching the ones already stacked at Maison Mollans in our kitchen. They were the cute IKEA plates, cups and bowls with the cream background, pink roses and green trim that Hallie--my most excellent friend and fellow Maison Mollans owner--and I picked up on a trip to the IKEA store outside of Marseille. Unfortunately, the pattern--perfect with the Provencal tablecloth and critical focal point to our decor--was unavailable on our next stop in Marseille. My local Minneapolis IKEA still had a few boxes of our dishes and so, the reverse importation process began. Our not-so-fine china set began its life in Portugal, according to the stamp on the back of each piece, and was shipped by the Swedish store to their outlet by the Mall of America. Wrapped in clothing and micro-fiber dustcloths from Costco, the tableware made its journey back across the ocean smoothly, chip and breakage free, via two hefty loads last year. Thank goodness most of them went then. With all the restrictons the airlines are posting this year, I'd be in big trouble. Now, I'm down to just three dinner plates. With what's already at the house, we'll be able to practically feed the village, all matchy-matchy.

Just as well to plan on eating in, we've already resolved not to go anywhere much this spring once we get to Maison Mollans, what with the euro and the price of gas. If you think we have it bad here, you haven't seen anything until you pay for a tank of gas in France. Each year, I have a tiny stroke as fill up our pint-sized Peugeot, do the math, converting liters to gallons and euros to dollars. And then I get over it. The roads are well maintained, even our gloriously scenic but twisty roads that spiral through the lavender and vineyards get repaved regularly. No pot holes or falling down bridges. A good portion of the hefty gas bill is tax, both to keep consumption down and to pay for the infrastructure that supports transportation. Since the folks buying the gas are the ones using the services, it seems to me a fair trade-off.

But, I digress. The pile is still small but it should accumulate at a rapid rate because May 12 is D for departure day. Books are going-I wouldn't want to bring anything too light. Since we don't have TV and I don't read in French anywhere as fast as I do in English, books from the States are important. Speaking of television, the pile also has the annual TV form from the local tax office. You see, in France they tax you if you have a set and so, each year, we have to fill out and mail in the form saying, "no, we still have no TV." They--the French version of the feds--can't seem to believe that someone would not want a TV that they could then tax and so, each year, they spend someone else's tax euros to mail us a form all the way to the US asking if, maybe, we've broken down and acquired one. That would be a no. I'll mail the form back when I get to France and save a few cents postage.

Doing nothing in the sunshine and walking to buy great, crusty loaves of bread from the Bio (short for biologique or organic) shop, gorgeous meat and chicken from the butcher down the street, and maybe taking a tiny drive to our neighboring vintner the Tyrands sounds fabulous right about now. Mollans is the perfect place to ride the euro's ascent and hardly notice.

Next up:

Some new finds in web sites for getting to Europe a bit more cheaply.