Early Morning in Montauroux

This is Dave and Deedee sitting on the edge of the square up in the town of Montauroux. You can see over their shoulders the Esterel mountains, which border the Mediterranean about 30km to the south of us. It was a cool morning and very misty down in the valley where we live.

The village is medievel, about 14th century. The old part of town, where the girls go to school, is all crammed on top of the hill - the better to ward off maurading invaders. Four mornings a week we race up the winding, steep hill at twenty minutes after 8 in the morning, along with all the other parents in the daily car ralley to school. Driving very fast seems to be a birthright in France.

After dropping off Hannah at the ecole primare and Bronwyn at the maternelle, two mornings a week we take Deedee to the creche, or orphanage as Dave calls it. This picture is right beside the stairs leading down into the creche, and before we told Deedee it was a creche-day.

The creche ladies do not speak a word of english but don't seem to mind Eden's lack of French. After some serious separation anxiety the first day (who could blame her?) we arrived back after a couple of hours of Eden's "adaptation" to pick her up. We found a poor little thing with tear-streaked cheeks; she cried the whole time. When we asked her if she had anything to eat, all she could do was nod and say "pomme."