Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

I’m not certain whether it’s a sign of laziness or simply just how life ebbs and flows, but over the last few years I’ve tended more towards a quicker form of writing, one that I can tap off with relative ease from my phone, while I ponder a scene in front of me, make my way through traffic, or simply want to show off a recent photo. Also, the addictive semi-instant gratification I get from the Instagram space has changed the way I write my news.

Granted; there was a fair bit of food-related writing over our first virus-filled year of weirdness. I think I was embracing the relaxed space I found myself in, and could appreciate the opportunity to get creative.

Sadly, in 2021, I dug myself an entirely new routine, one that involved baking in the morning, and binge watching Netflix in the afternoons. Until I had to return to work when my binge watching was broken up by afternoon naps and preparing dinner for the family that I wasn’t able to eat with them.

A little introspection might also highlight that this blog is no longer a reflection of adjusting to life in a foreign country. The change in content and style could also be that my ‘newsletter’ is no longer a desired read…. over-sharing and all that. Given my low level (unnecessary) opinions and trying to maintain a level of platitudes, it has become a seemingly forgotten space.

January 2022 has arrived with its usual diaphragm-needling perplexities.

With 🦠 news spiralling into an orbit with the sun(… I wish! Surely that would mean it’s imminent fiery death, non?), we have encountered more people than ever who have been sick. It has wrecked the festive season plans and honest-to goodness real-life lives of many, many families.

Since government has already thrown the entire paw-paw at the fan in an attempt to ‘do something’, with nothing seeming to actually stick, they do appear to be less inclined to force lock-downs, confinement’s and curfews. Understandably, given the financial implications.

As a result post-festive-holidays, positive virus🦠 statistics have almost hit a ceiling. I thought they had hit a ceiling last January already. I was wrong.

The holidays are now over and children have returned to school with teachers being absent daily- whether this is a French maladie affliction or quarantining staff, who knows? I had a teacher at my high-school who claimed that teaching was a profession more unsafe health-wise than nurses and doctors were in hospitals. I argued the contrary with her- many more diseases run around hospitals. I may have been wrong. Perhaps there is a need for teachers to stay home away from sick scholars?

While they are absent from school, the duPlessis girls continue on their scholarly routine as per usual. There are no substitute teachers, nor are there any lessons set from afar and nobody ever seems to provide any info as to how long teachers will be away for- my kids sit for 2 hours with no work to do, no access to space nor materials to work with given they have had no notification that their teacher would be absent.

Needless to say, I’m progressively getting more and more fed-up with my daughters’ education, which may provide necessary fodder for a “life in France” blog post some time on the near future now that my mornings have eased up. We’ll have to see.

Aside from kids off to school full time, hubby is at home 3 days a week. He is able to supply me with constant cups of coffee and dog-walking company when we can catch up with the various conversations about our day to day that many people get in the evenings.

Since our working hours account for a great portion of our day-to-day lives, it naturally means that any changes in this space have deep impact on my own mental energy. Proportionately, it accounts for much lamentations and conversation fillers.

No longer open for lunchtime at the pub, my working day now starts at 4pm, 6 days a week, so even a 20 minute date with my kids between them arriving home from school and me leaving for an evening shift has now flown out the window. When they leave for school at 7am, a tear squeezed from an eyelid, a choking voice saying “I’ll see you tomorrow morning Mommy”, my own heart crumbles like a feta cheese.

This is hard. I know I should be grateful for a job. I know that if it’s all-destroying, I should look for another job. I know that we have Sundays together (for now). I know that having an identity separate from my kids is also important. But that little choke on the other end of a phone call- it gets to me.

My December was extraordinarily busy. I guess I’ve grown complacent with an easy job over the last few years, so this time, with one chef less in the kitchen, my hours began to add up. I took pride in the fact that every single shift, the kitchen was stocked up with everything on the menu- an element which has been missing over the last 3 years due to a lack of interest. Given it became my reputation in December, I was raised to do what was expected of me, and do my job to the best of my ability.

The week of Christmas slowed down, and we as a family enjoyed a blissful weekend together at home. My penultimate goal was to get though New Years Eve, a highly anticipated party on the calendar, one which we are usually busy with at the pub. As well as our full regular menu, we offered a 3-course set menu of which the onus of preparation fell onto me. By the time December 31 arrived, my nerves were frazzled, my body exhausted but in anticipation of not wanting to fail, I was over-prepared.

Only for the evening to fall flat on it’s face in a very quiet non-event.

Needless to say the disappointment rankled. There is very little more depressing than an anticlimax resulting in an enormous waste of time, money and energy.

The reason for an absence of bums in seats is one I haven’t found an answer to. Perhaps people were wanting to party at home. Perhaps the general malaise of not expecting anything extraordinary and new as the clock ticked over meant parties were a non-event. Perhaps it was a financial reason. Certainly, from what I did notice when I finished up work just before midnight and walked home, the majority of restaurants were closed while apartments in 5 story buildings all seemed to reverberate with the dull thud of music and flashing lights.

The week following has proved to be one of similar lack-of-interest in going out for drinks or dinner. Students may be writing exams, European football is on a break, parents have their own stuff going on I would guess to be the reason for it.

I have had enough time in my afternoons this week to make up for the meals I missed eating before new year, and have spent time pondering poetic scribblings and imaging a what-if-I-was-a scenario.

If I was a smoker, I would paint a written picture, describing how I am standing outside a pub, a silent, dark brooding silhouette underneath the street lamp and a rainy night sky, dressed in dirty chef whites and a floury apron, tugging deeply on a cigarette while speaking into my phones’ microphone sending love across a cold continent, a chilly sea, a dry but warmer desert to you on the other side of a data network. Instead I am really standing in the cold doorway gazing at a church and Christmas lights, listening to the rain and a kid trying to drum in an apartment above.

But I’m not a smoker and I am deliberately avoiding the pieces of cheese I should be crumbing…

(Words written by me sent to a friend via WhatsApp who might have appreciated a message of concern).

This week of late starts and slow business has not brought forth much productivity. Granted, I made time for a run, I baked cake for a farewell meeting, I fed my family despite not being home to break bread with them, and I was able to write something albeit on my phone while waiting for somebody/anybody to order a burger. But no real concrete plans have been fulfilled yet, and afternoon naps have been like a drug: addictive; pleasing; wholly not useful. And coming ‘back down’ from that ‘high’ has been soul destroying.

Am I being too hard on myself in finding fault with my shortcomings? Am I of that generation that feels we need to be productive all the time? But then again, I’m also quick to feel overwhelmed if my plate is too full and I can’t commit to everything so it will be better if I find a medium somewhere in between.

No doubt that space will appear as if by magic some time as spring hits these marshes. By then I would have been assured to have put one foot in front of the other, whipped up more than one batch of crêpes, tea buns, crumpets, perhaps written a recipe or 2, some musings into the culinary sphere that could provide a route into a book.

And who knows, maybe by the time my Dad is (understandably) less weary to travel amid 330000 Covid cases a day, there will be an entirely new set of work goals to adhere to. (There’s a little teaser of information you will have to wait a month for 🤭😊).

My darling friends, in signing off this evening, I’m going to drop in my more recent social media scribble with thoughts on the changing of the year that perhaps you have not seen. My wishes are that this finds you in good health above anything else, and that perhaps this will be the year we get to sit and share a table again.