i was reading lately one very good book about an englishman, who is bying himself and for his wife a house in Provence, in the South France...
i d like to share some of the parts of that book with you
" With a gloom of january behind them, people in London were making holiday plans,and it was astonishing how many of those plans included Provence.With increasing regularity, the phone would ring as we were sitting down to dinner- the caller having a cavalier disregard for the hour's time between the France and England-and the breezy, half-remembered voice of a distant acquaintance would ask if we were swimming jet. We were always non-committal.(...)
The call would continue aloung a course that quicly became predictable.First, we would be asked if we were going to be at home during Easter or May, or whitcever period suited the caller.With that established, the sentence which we soon came to dread-'we were thinking of coming down around then...'- would be delivered, and would dangle, hopeful and unfinished, wating for a faintly hospidable reaction.
It was difficult to feel flattered by this sudden enthusiasm to see us, which had lain dormant during the years we had livedin England, and it was difficult to know, how to deal with it.There is nothing quite as a thick-skinned as the seeker after sunshine and free lodging:normal social sidesteps do not work. You are booked up for that week?Don t worry-we ll come the week after. You have a house full of builders?We do not mind;we ll be out by the pool anyway.(...)
If you do not learn how do say no, you will find yourself running a small and higly unprofitable hotel frem Eastern until the end of September."
(A year in the Provence, Peter Mayle)
