An Enchanted Valley

An Enchanted Valley is a wonderfully vivid trip through rural France with author Edward Harper and his cultural historian lover as they search for peace, tranquility, and beauty.
We had been in the village for six years now. The house was finished. We knew every nook and cranny of the area within a twenty-mile radius. The ebb and flow of the village had become a part of our lives each summer. The ten-year-old daughter of the lascivious school teacher had bloomed into a voluptuous teenager whose boyfriends roared into the village on scooters. Maurin's little dog no longer appeared on our doorsteps as his house stood shuttered and empty, the center of a vicious fight over the inheritance.
But much remained the same. Every year the chatelain celebrated his birthday with a picnic and barbecue on the edges of his exotic forest. An immense pig was roasted over a pit and more than a hundred people attended, a mixture of his military comrades including the retired colonel of the regiment and some aging, but still menacing looking, paratroopers in their red berets. Gallons of Burdic in unmarked bottles chilled in ice-filled barrels stood next to tables with great washtubs of salad and gardianne, the superb spiced stew of the region.