Summer Lavender

The whole house shook from the jackhammer dislodging the sidewalk. When it stopped, the scream of a buzz saw scraping concrete took its place. For days, while the city updated power lines, our car had been trapped in the driveway by the newly-dug ditch and a pile of rubble. Workmen sawed limbs off the tree in the the backyard next door while our landlord and some other workmen tromped through our bedroom to repair a leak.

As soon as our house was empty the kids and I piled into the car and fled the clouds of dirt billowing down the street and the diesel truck idling right outside the windows. Chris wasn’t coming home from work until late and the temperature inside the house climbed steadily with the windows shut to keep out the dirt and exhaust.

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We popped a Harry Potter book into the speakers and headed east to Limburg Lavender, to sweet-smelling calm that seemed the perfect antidote to the ringing in my ears.

At just under an hour away, this charming cafe is a little further than I would usually set out for at 2pm but we had to get out of the construction zone! And it was lovely. Bike trails criss-cross the area (for future reference—that would be a great activity to combine with a trip to the lavender). Leafy sycamores shade tables alongside the fields. The kids played cars in the dirt, explored a small maze, we poked around the Mediterranean garden and the rose garden. We fed ponies and found stinging nettle (oops—ouch).

Many people lounged at cafe tables with a bottle of chilled rose or local beer. I ordered some lavender ice cream for the kids and a Provence Koffee for me, thinking I would get a lavender latte of some sort. It was so much more than i expected—regular coffee with whipped cream, a lavender chocolate, lavender cookie, scoop of lavender ice cream with lavender sugar on top, and a taste of lavender liquor. It was everything I didn’t know I wanted!

Isaac explored and Eloise chased butterflies down the long rows of lavender in bloom. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees and the warm breeze brought with it the sweet scent of warm earth and flowers.

The perfect afternoon escape.

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