In which Mark strenuously attempts to explain that a sabbatical is not a holiday

I was panting. I was sweating. I was cranking hard on the well-worn pedals of a balky bicycle, hoping that its rusty chain wouldn't snap. Meanwhile, gliding effortlessly on the bicycle beside me, a genial grape-grower with cigarette-stained teeth asked me a question that I have come to dread: "Are you on vacation?"

The simple answer, of course, is "Non". But that simple answer just doesn't seem to satisfy folks. Their skeptical squints demand that I explain more fully just exactly what I'm doing here in the south of France, if I'm not on holiday. I'm forced to find some way of convincingly articulating that fact that I'm actually working when, by all appearances, I spend my days sampling soft cheeses and noodling around on the internet.

And at this particular moment, I needed to do so while pantingly pedaling my way to the top of Le Grand Bessillon (which is the highest point for miles around and, even on days in which winter woodsmoke is shrouding the valleys in a sweet-smelling haze, offers a spectacular view). I was riding with Ollie and Jerome. Ollie is my plumber friend – although, really, it doesn't seem quite right to call him a friend exactly. Friendship usually implies a certain reciprocal give-and-take, and thus far Ollie's been doing all the giving and I've been all the taking. It might be more accurate to call him my patron or my benefactor or something. Anyway, I was riding with Ollie, who was popping wheelies on his fancy new top-of-the-line mountain bike, and Ollie's friend Jerome (the grape-grower) who was on Ollie's other mountain bike. As for me, I was astride the bike I found in our garage, with its creaky gears, balding tires, and squishy brakes that squeal like a terrified schoolgirl (and they would be squealing plenty, about an hour later, on the harrowing off-road route that Ollie chose for our descent down the side of the mountain).

I try to explain: "No, I'm not on vacation; I'm on sabbatical." And I'm fully aware that when I say stuff like that out loud – especially when I say it to rural tradesmen who work with heavy tools all day long – I might as well be saying, "No I'm not wearing a skirt; it's a sarong." And so, I press on.

But how exactly can I talk about my sabbatical without sounding like a slacker. Do I say that, although I teach at UBC, I only teach one or two classes anyway, and so it's no big deal that I'm just not teaching this term? Do I say that, although the main part of my job is to do research, it's not actually me personally who spends the long hours in the lab collecting data, and so it's barely noticeable when I disappear for six months overseas? Do I tell people that, on my sabbatical, I'm mostly expected just to stare at a computer screen and write?

Or do I take a different approach and assert that the objective of a sabbatical is not just to provide me with more time to write, but also to supply the sort of mental stimulation that will promote scholarly productivity for years to come? And do I offer the patently self-serving opinion that, in my case, that objective is partially satisfied simply by being here in the first place?

Yes. I do offer that opinion, and I truly believe it. Although I didn't say it exactly like that on my ride with Ollie and Jerome, that is why we're here: To shake our brains up a bit. And no, I don't mean "shake our brains" in the way that my brain was juddering like a jackhammer on that rocky ride down the mountainside. I mean that, in some eventual way, I benefit intellectually from the accumulation of all these new and unpredictable experiences. Whether it's an unexpected night of existential anguish in Aix, or the dizzying array of raw goats-milk cheeses at the local market, it's all part of the package of reasons why an overseas sabbatical ultimately pays off.

Which means that (and, again, I realize that what I'm about to say may undermine my assertion that a sabbatical is not a vacation) in order to fully repay the taxpayers' long-term investment in my overseas adventure, I really do need to do more than just stare at my computer screen. I need to struggle with the language. I need to get stranded by unreliable automobiles. I need to immerse myself in the weekly open-air market, where people are selling everything from cheeses and sausages and olive oils to hunting knives and chainsaws and queen-size mattresses. I need to spend a muddy Monday morning loading and unloading a truckful of aromatic oak branches that will, for the rest of the winter, smolder unconvincingly in our fireplace. It's not just an errand that has to be done. It's my job.

Just like, when someone invites me go bicycling to the top of a windblown peak, it's my job to say "Oui". And when Ollie chooses to plunge down a precipitous route for which neither my bicycle nor my aging skillset is suited, it's my job to fearlessly follow. That's what I'm being paid to do – to shake my brain.

My job is not, however, to flip my brain over the handlebars or to slam it ferociously against a rock-strewn slope. And, happily, I didn't. Despite the irresistible tug of gravity, and despite my foolhardy faith in a bicycle with wobbly wheels and howling brakes, and despite the fact that I'm no longer much of an athlete but am instead just another aging academic on sabbatical, I remained intact. Barely. There was a moment toward the end of the ride, after we had passed the hilltop chapel of Notre-Dame de Grâces and were hammering headlong down the rocky remains of the ancient Chemin des Pénitents – my thighs cramping, my wrists aching, and my brakes shrieking like a wounded weasel – that I came close to losing control entirely. But I didn't. Five minutes later, Ollie and Jerome and I dismounted our bicycles beside a fountain in the central courtyard of Cotignac, and sat down to enjoy an espresso outdoors under the winter sun.