Peter Mayle Books

I just finished reading Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle and I really loved it. Stephanie suggested not reading it, as she said it was more of a novel, a little different from his other books, but I think that's what I liked about it. Not only did he offer dozens of wonderful suggestions for restaurants and hotels in Paris, Provence, and the French Riviera, but he also wrapped them around a pretty compelling mystery about a missing Cezanne called Woman with Melons. Anyway, I took lots of notes about these places he suggested and hopefully will have some information about traveling to Provence in the spring of 2008.

I decided that renting a car in Provence wasn't a good idea, at least certainly not one out of Avignon. It sounds like the TGV will take you to Avignon from Paris in about 4 hours, but then getting out of Avignon to go further south sounded like a real pain. It sounded like the drivers are rude and bad; would make a person nervous to be driving there. Anyway, I loved the book and am ready to start my next one called Anything Considered. I've already finished A Good Year (the movie was better) and Acquired Tastes (not a novel). I also rented the A&E presentation of A Year in Provence. It's rather boring. A couple that are supposed to be Peter Mayle and his wife when they moved to a farmhouse in the countryside in Provence are the "stars." But they get into ridiculous situations with their neighbors and townspeople. I watched the first disc, Summer and Fall, and will be watching the second disc, Winter and Spring, today. It's moderately interesting, but mostly I'm watching to see Provence.

And then about my weight: I'm hanging in there at 127 1/2. I fluctuate between that and 129, which is scary because that's only a hair before I would be 130, and then it all just falls apart, so I have to be vigilant. The problem is that we are able to go several days with eating frozen, light pizzas and soups, drinking coffee by the gallons all day long, but by the 4th day or so, and after we've each lost a couple of pounds, then we go out to eat because we're dying for something really good. We are currently adverse to cooking (at least I am because of the lengthy clean-up), so when I get down to 125 1/2, which I have a couple of times, we go out and eat and then I gain a couple of pounds. And the other problem is that when we go out to eat once, we tend to continue eating out for 2-3 more days. Interestingly, even when we've done this, I still haven't gone above 129.

The other temptation is movie popcorn. We like to go to the movies and go almost once a week. But I absolutely can't resist the popcorn. I always want a big bag with "butter". We both feel it brings on the weight, but I still get it - every time. And then, even though I'm full of popcorn, we go out to eat afterwards. After writing all this, I honestly wonder how I've managed to stay below 130 as I'm not exercising at all. We keep saying we need to get out there and walk and we have had some lower temp days, but they are fluctuating with very high temps too, so it's hard to get into the routine. Heck routine? We haven't walked once this fall yet. Course it's 92 today, so I'm not exercising in that heat!

And I hate to spend money on a gym membership. We had a free, beautiful facility in Henderson, NV when we lived in Sun City, but seldom used it, so I'm sure that the novelty would wear off with a membership and we'd end up spending money for nothing.

A Good Year in Provence - The Provence of Peter Mayle

My blog is supposed to be about my thoughts when I'm walking because I hate walking, or any exercise, and I thought by purposely thinking about things as I walked, and then blogging those thoughts, it might make it more agreeable. It hasn't. Anyway, we are planning a trip to Europe in spring 2008 and I just watched the movie "A Good Year" with Russell Crowe. Although it was panned by the critics, I thought it was a wonderful movie and fell in love with Provence, France. I wrote down all the names of the locations for the movie, and then found this perfect website about all those various locations. I didn't know I could add it to my blog, but did, and here it is. It doesn't fit here under this theme, but it's okay.

As far as the weight loss, I noticed that my last entry was August 5. It's now September 6, one month later, and I now weigh 127 1/2. I'm up a couple of pounds and I'll have to keep an eye on it now. We've begun eating out again and when we do that, I gain weight. So does Bob. The exercise doesn't seem to make much difference when it comes to losing weight. Bob golfs 3-4 times a week and it doesn't help him lose any weight. He's not walking the course, but I've ridden with him and he clocks several miles just walking to and from the cart and bending over to pick up balls and clubs from the ground. When I was walking religiously, I could walk 5 miles a day and never lose weight if I didn't also restrict my eating. It's a very sad thing. Eating is one of the great pleasures of my life and I have never been totally successful in not thinking about it, like I suppose permanently skinny people do. I think about eating all day long. I'm drinking a lot of coffee these days, and chewing fat free gum (which is a joy - NOT) to try to ward off the urge to eat. Sometimes I'm successful, but mostly it's just agony.


A Good Year in Provence - The Provence of Peter Mayle