Literal translation
I am in my five crosses.
Meaning
to be between forty and fifty years old
Explanation
This way of stating one's age relies on a folk counting image: crous, the cross, refers here to a mark drawn, one per decade, to keep count of the years on some makeshift surface, in the manner of a notched tally stick. To be dins mi cinq crous, in one's five crosses, means having reached the fifth of these ten-year marks without passing it, in other words being somewhere between forty and fifty years old. The phrase belongs to a broader set of Provençal ways of placing one's age by decade, a common discretion in many rural forms of speech where stating one's precise age is avoided. Choosing the word crous, cross, in place of a plain numeral, gives the expression an almost ritual colour, as if each decade crossed deserved to be marked with a sign. It is used in ordinary, mildly playful register, often as an answer to a direct question about age that the speaker prefers to sidestep with this indirect turn of phrase.