Provenciana by Apol Lejano-Massebieau

When she started her blog Provenciana a few years back, I wonder if Apol Lejano-Massebieau had an inkling that it would eventually be made into a book one day?

I regularly lurked at her blog when it was still up and her blog posts were always so well-written and well thought of, almost as if they were just waiting to be printed on paper. Which brings me to conclude that themed blogs are really the best, because of the discipline you impose on yourself to stick to your subject and to avoid those meandering "What did I do today" posts (ouch.)

"Provenciana: One Woman's Adventures in Making Life Happen, Wherever She Might Be" is a collection of Apol Lejano-Massebieau's blog posts which started around the time she settled in Provence with her husband in 2005. Provenciana the book actually ends pretty abruptly with a post on politics in 2007, and only comes up with a proper goodbye months later. Apol explains in the Introduction that there was no more need to chronicle her adjustments to a new culture when she had more or less adapted to her surroundings.

Good for her, but bad for us regular followers of her blog.

I recognized majority of the entries in the book from my blog reading days, but they still didn't feel stale or old. I guess it's like going through your favorite stories, you know what's going to happen, but you just like how the words roll of your tongue or the images they evoke in your mind so you continue to read and re-read them.

Strangely enough, it was Provenciana that eventually led me to discover Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence". Both are about Provence and both are rife with fish out of water tales from outsiders trying to assimilate themselves into a rural lifestyle, but the similarities end there. First off, Provenciana is written by a Pinay who only became interested in French politics when the French president was about to get a divorce (read: totally relatable!) But Mayle's books are also joyous odes to the glory of French cuisine and so it's not difficult to understand why I cannot choose which I like better.

The only thing I didn't like about Provenciana though was how "bitin" it was. I. Want. More.

All in all, Provenciana is a good read that will make you yearn for your own backyard where ducks and flamingos seem to co-exist peacefully and will make you wonder about your own great adventure in life

*Provenciana retails for Php550 a copy and is available at at Fully Booked Rockwell, Araneta Center, Bonifacio High Street, Greenhills (Promenade), Edsa Shangri-la Hotel and at Libros Filipinos Bookshop in Filipinas Heritage Library. Or you can buy your copy online through visionaria.wordpress.com free of shipping (that's how I got my copy).