Friday, July 26, 2013

Trevor

   There are several houses on the property where we are renting. Two others are short term rentals and another one was built by Trevor. He and his wife, Zetta, have lived there for three years. Trevor is ninety one. His house was a storage shed. He transformed it into a charming cottage that feels like a boat inside as there is alot of custom wood carpentry. It is probably about 300 square feet, has a deck where they eat al fresco throughout the year thanks to its orientation, an outdoor shower and pictures of boats he has sailed over the years.
   Trevor is wonderfully sweet. When I mentioned I wanted to go back to the coast to cool off as it has been nearly 100 degrees here, he offered to escort us to a "local's beach" as  anywhere on the French Riviera would be utter chaos this time of year. So, off we went-Trevor taking over Sidney(remember my GPS?) as navigator along with another friend and 4 kids. An hour and half of white knuckle driving over narrow, very windy roads, we saw the sea. I have never seen so many yachts in my life. We were in St. Tropez bay. This part of the Mediterranean is a cove surrounded by mountains, rocks and parasol pine trees. It is gorgeous and easy to see why the world's elite want to live there. Trevor lived on a schooner for many years in St. Tropez. His old boat was moored off of the beach we were visiting!  He showed us shipyards where he worked, pointed out his old houses and even that of Brigit Bardow who was a neighbor of his, way back then.
   We staked claim to a nice spot on the beach and dove into the crystal clear water. Trevor sat on the beach and watched boats, clearly reminiscing about the years past. There was a pontoon dock anchored about 500 feet off shore so we swam to it and enjoyed looking at all the multi-million dollar boats in St. Tropez. Helicopters buzzed around constantly. It was all so entertaining.
   After a while, Trevor went into the water for a dip. I caught a glimpse of him as I was not confident of his physical stamina- he is 91, after all- and he was hugging and kissing a man in the sea. It was a good, old friend of Trevor's from his St. Tropez days. What a wonderful sight it was! They were so excited to see each other. Yves was his name and he invited us up to his house for an aperitif which we could not make, but I was quick to offer to bring Trevor back down soon for a visit and a sail on Yves boat! That will be a memorable day- jut as memorable as Trevor helped make this one for the rest of us.
   Did I mention that my kids took a few handful of sticks over to his house and Trevor transformed them into 2 stick horses for them?

Water makes us all very happy

Yves(left), Trevor(center) and Trevor's old schooner(back right sailboat)

Trevor's hand built stick horses- Woody and Mustang

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