The walk to Rasteau

A rather grey, but dry morning, we decided to walk up to the village of Rastaeu, which is a 15 minute walk to the opposite hill. Whilst an old village, it grew slower and is generally more 'modern' than those that we have visited on previous days. It is also on less of a slope, so the roads were made wider and there are subsequently more cars. There is a large town square with a few shops, including the inevitable bolangerie, where we bought our daily bagette.

At the highest point, there is the church of St Didier and a cemetary, with family tombs, where those from the same family are interred together. This seems to be a practical solution to the sprawl caused by individual graves with the added benefit that fresh flowers are abundant as people visit their relatives, who have died in living memory.

Before we left to live in Hong Kong in 2000, which was my third assignment in Asia, a friend that I had first met in Singapore in 1990, Guy Warrington, joked that I would be making the inevitable trip to IKEA. While we will only likely be in Rasteau for 3-4 months and this is a holiday home, it does lack some comforts to make it a home from home - like a proper chest of drawers. So this afternoon, we made the 'inevitable' trip by car, half an hour away, to IKEA. While we were there, on the basis that it is never to early to get into the Christmas spirit, we bought some Christmas tree decorations.