9.30PM – MÂCON, FRANCE

Millicent MyersLebegue

“Mâcon is a small town surrounded by wine country, about an hour north of Lyon in southern Burgundy. In the middle of summer the sun is still going down at 9.30pm and when we first moved here from Sydney I’d think it was still early then realise it was 10.30pm and we hadn’t had dinner. On a really hot day you get that pinky blueness in the sky as the light fades. Once my daughter, Lilou, is in bed, I’ll sit in our little garden, have a glass of wine and look up at the sky.

While our town isn’t technically in the south of France, it has that charming southern feel – the old stone houses, the pastel pink, green and yellow window shutters. There’s a big school, the CFPPA Mâcon-Davayé, where you can study oenology and viticulture, so lots of people come to learn and work in wine. That’s what brought us here. My husband, Arnaud, works in a little village nearby at a family-owned organic winery called Domaine Robert-Denogent. Like northern Burgundy, the Mâconnais region is known for its chardonnay and gamay but here you can get very good wines that are a lot more affordable.

Mâcon is a mix of born-and-raised locals, people from Lyon who wanted to get out of the city and lots of families. On my days with Lilou, who is three, we go to the park or on play dates. I take her to the local fruit shop and the lovely man there gives her fruit and practises his English with me. Babycinos aren’t a thing here but now that cafés are open again we go out for hot chocolates. Lilou’s bilingual and will sometimes correct my French, which can be annoying!

I’d always wanted to live somewhere I couldn’t speak the language so, as much as it frustrates me, I do love that I’m learning every day about the culture or just the different things people do. The wine and food are easily my favourite things about living in France – and the bread. An American friend of mine jokes that she could never leave because of the bread.”