prompt

16-17th May

So, since staying up til dawn to complete a series of five drawings, my body clock is a bit out.

Today, my good friend (and *'twin Bro') asked me if I have booked another trip for the summer.

It occurred to me that, even though I was thinking of it, I have not booked anything.

That was a prompt. I need to have a trip to look forward to.

He suggested the pool, cocktail bar, hotel kinda thing.

It's not really me.

When I go away I do not want to be dealing with cleaning, packing, unpacking, cleaning surfaces, boiling kettles, opening and locking doors, being in a square room, in a square building, in a pool with loads of other 'estraneros' to negotiate...who are usually overweight and often drunk (bleugh) none of that. I do that at home (apart from public pools)

In my salt bath I had to ask myself, "What kinda trip can you do on your own, or with your daughter, that is not Portugal again, but is by the sea, is beautifully warm, and not too long sitting on a plane?"

Easy. I like tents. I like sleeping out of doors, I like sleeping under the stars, I like living out of doors. Living au naturel. I feel alive. It's restorative. No BS in nature (apart from the manure kind) I'm not keen on public pools. I love the Med. Azure blue. I'm not keen on the Atlantic sea. Wrong colour. Too cold

The most enjoyable holidays that I have had have been in **le sud de la France. It is overwhelmingly beautiful and it is warm enough to sleep under the stars the ***aesthetics are perfect to me. French women are not overweight and they sunbathe/swim topless on the beautiful beaches, because nobody gets weirded out over it.

I may as well make a plan.

* 10 years older than me. He had a twin, who did not make it to full-term. Our standing joke is that we believe that he booted me out of the womb (because I was too talkative)...only for me to come back ten years later to whip his ass and make amends. He is a descendant of the British painter Alfred Sisley, oddly and ironically. We both have the same symptoms of compressed spine with RSI, on the same side of our body.

**Southern France, also known as the Le sud de la France/South of France or colloquially in French as le Midi, is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea and Italy. It includes: Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the west, Occitanie in the centre, the southern parts of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the northeast, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the southeast, as well as the island of Corsica in the southeast. Monaco and Andorra are sometimes included in definitions of Southern France although they are principalities.[4]

Rock formations in Calanques National Park between Marseille and Cassis, among the oldest in metropolitan France

This area corresponds in large part to Occitania, the territory in which Occitan (French: langue d'oc) — as distinct from the langues d'oïl of northern France — was historically the dominant language. Though part of Occitania, the regions of Auvergne and Limousin are not normally considered part of the South of France.

Comparable to the term Mezzogiorno from the South of Italy. The time of midday was synonymous with the direction of south because in France, as in all of the Northern Hemisphere north of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun is in the south at noon. The synonymy existed in Middle French as well, where meridien can refer to both midday and south. The Midi is considered to start at Valence, hence the saying "à Valence le Midi commence".

Lavender fields are a well known feature of the South of France, mainly located in Provence

Nice, in Alpes-Maritimes, is often considered to be Southern France's best known city abroad, although it is not the largest

A view of vineyards in Vaucluse, producing Provence wine

Traditional landscape of the historical province of Béarn, in the current department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques

The biggest cities of Southern France are Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nice and Montpellier. The Pyrenees and French Alps are also located in the area, respectively in its southwestern and eastern parts. Notable touristic landmarks include the Roman-era Pont du Gard and Arena of Nîmes, the Canal du Midi, linking Toulouse and the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the natural regions of Camargue and Médoc.

The French Riviera is located in Southern France's southeastern quadrant. Several towns in Southern France are renowned for their architecture and geographical location, such as Roussillon, Cordes-sur-Ciel, Gordes, Rocamadour, Les Baux-de-Provence and Lourmarin.

***https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-18th-french/