Carnet de Voyage: When I’m… 63?  

Travel notes from the real France. Carnet de Voyage is a weekly personal travel story in France sent in by readers. If you’d like to write a story for Carnet de Voyage, head here for details on how to submit.

September 2009. Two days. I had made it through 48 hours of French living since I had arrived in Annecy from Australia with my family.

On my way home from dropping the children at school, I paused in the garden of our wooden cottage relishing the leafy privacy but aware that the conflicting emotions of excitement and fear were battling for ascendency. The hours between kisses at the portail (gate) would fly which meant that I should be doing something, anything, to reduce my serpentine to-do list. The midday appointment with my offspring was non-negotiable. They needed a break from the unfamiliarity of language, people, customs and teacher expectations. School stationery rights and wrongs, too.

“Bonjour Catherine. Ca va?”

The owner of our rented wooden cottage had appeared beside me in our – her – garden, which meandered from her back door; past our tiny abode and her rudimentary one-string clothesline; underneath the handsomely attired hazelnut, pear and apple trees; and into a tilled and orderly patch bursting with vegetables, herbs and flowers.

“Oui. Ca va bien,” I reassured her. She was bringing me a selection of the day’s garden offerings in a wicker basket, and I listened attentively as she detailed what was what and what she recommended I should do with each product. I knew by then that she had six children and that in addition to a formal evening dinner, she prepared a proper, sit-down lunch for them plus any tag-alongs. The garden was not just a delight for my children keen to run and play hide-and–seek, it was her larder.

I spoke French and we had tossed aside formal language expectations, but my brain was still in a cloud of jet-lag, and I welcomed her willingness to take on more than her share of our discourse.

“Soixante-trois,” I heard her say.

Sixty-three? Ouf, surely not, but I strangled my rising guffaw when her expression didn’t change. Somehow amongst the peeling, chopping and cooking, we had wandered into more personal territory and decided that we were probably around the same age. She didn’t look like she was making a joke, and if she were, she was my first encounter with polished French ageing. But sixty-three? I was decades off that number. I had made the right decision in coming to live in an age-defying country, it would seem.

Think. Think. Think.

Ahh. Relief. She was telling me that she had been born in ‘63 NOT that that was how old I looked.

As food was the principle topic of our conversation. I tried hard to appear at least a little bit knowledgeable, but eventually just came out with the truth – that my husband cooked far better than me. She reacted as have all my French girlfriends since that day – with surprise and envy. I still don’t get that. In a world so dominated by male French chefs, why do women accept the role of chief chef so naturally? Perhaps worried by my revelation, she invited my husband and me over for dinner.

After our three-course meal in the formal dining room, we were invited into the lounge, where we were offered an infusion to assist with digestion. Called verveine (verbena), the leaves had been collected from one of the bushes outside, crushed and thrown into a pot with boiling water. It tasted like a refreshing mixture of camomile and mint. Clearly, my headiness upon departure had nothing to do with the non-alcoholic drink, but I did feel simultaneously pepped up and relaxed. Not only had we received our first invitation out in the Haute-Savoie, but we had also made it through this first social function: eating and drinking all that had been put in front of us and managing to find enough things to talk about.

Aside the vanity of youthful aspirations, I was motivated. Could I, too, learn when and how to sow, fertilise, trim, pick, cook and eat what I grow?

Assurément. I know how to eat. It’s just the rest that needs some work. 

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Over a decade ago, Australian-born Catherine embarked on the ambitious project to speak only French with her son despite this not being her first language. In the wonderful way that one challenge often inspires another, Catherine and her husband then decided that living in France would bring some authenticity to this social experiment. The initial one-year adventure with their three children turned into several and the purchase of a house on the Annecy Lake. Forevermore attached is how the family now views France. But you are in France, Madame is the first of Catherine’s three published memoirs of this period and their house in the French Alps is available for holiday rental. Catherine loves to engage in dialogue about bilingual education, moving across the world, her French buying experience and her writing. She can be contacted at [email protected] or on Instagram