November Newsletter.

7am on a Tuesday morning. Solo parenting sees me up and out of bed doing hubby morning routine including opening all the shutters. It’s still pitch dark outside – and as I peer into the intruding black gloom, I find myself surprised because wasn’t it just yesterday we changed the clocks to give us a marginally ‘longer’ day?

The reality is we did that 3 weeks ago, and the curvature of the earth up at this latitude sees the disappearance of the sun a lot quicker when we’re tilted at this angle. The reality is that it’s already late November, and certain moments/occasions are looming on our calendar marking the passage of time with metronomic regularity that always seems less ‘metronomic’ and more ‘wave crashing surprise’- or is it just me?

Aside from

4 days to go before the Christmas market opens here in this little city, (and to those of you who have sprung the Christmas decorations, you’re wrong…. You could at least wait until the advent),
it’s a month to the winter solstice (the days will continue to get shorter but then we’ll turn the corner back to summer 🙃)
And less than 4 weeks until my sister comes to visit
Oh and 5 weeks till my second carpal tunnel surgery….
The RWC win still lingering with joy and delight in our minds

Aside from all of the above, I need to prioritise Christmas baking, calendar prepping and I need to get a few – okay, not a few. Let’s be real. A lot of words on the blog to mark November.

I’ve been wracking my brain for content for this month. I have vague snippets of news, mostly lamenting certain aspects of the European life we lead.

For example, we’ve all been feeling a little poorly in our health lately and with symptoms of fatigue, runny noses and coughs, malaise, headaches, and I’ve begun to doubt whether I’ve had covid, is it possible to nurture a cold twice in one month, is it possible that I’m battling SAD? (Seasonal Affective Disorder), or is it work stress? Or a combination of both, being that I work late, cycle home in the rain and spend my days recovering indoors and not going out for a walk to seek the (non-existent) sun(I feel like it hasn’t stopped raining since my birthday). I have consequently carved out time for a visit to the pharmacy to replenish my pain meds (a prescription for some kickass drugs for menstrual cramps has been eventually found after 3 months of poor filing) and to collect my first dose of Vitamin D… I used to scoff at the French and their wanton need to dose us with vitamin D ampules, but I have happily trotted down to the pharmacy this month in an effort to combat any one of the symptoms I’ve been feeling all month.

Floodplains – the river is there at the tree line.

With the level of rain that has been hovering over northern Europe lately, cycling has been a little hazardous too and last week I fell off my bike twice.

Twice.

Both occasions were because of water and the incessant rain. The first fall was less traumatic than it sounds- I literally slid gracefully to the cement floor in the cellar/garage space here at home. I landed on my ass and felt a little like a fool, and it was more comical than anything else.

The second fall was a day later while returning home midday after a meeting. My head a little elsewhere, a minor overcorrection of my wheel at a cycle path barrier saw the wheel sliding into mush alongside the cycle path and collapsing below me. I came down hard, the bike falling on top of me (I have a bruise to show for that) and my head smacked onto the tar and bounced back with such force I have battled whiplash in the fortnight following.

My immediate thought was “yoh, am I glad nobody witnessed that!” because it was that embarrassing, but my obvious reflection was my gratitude to a friend who tutted at my general avoidance of helmets last month.

When it comes to commuting en velo or otherwise, I need to take into account bags and stuff. Some people commute with laptop bags. Others (hubby) an entire backpack of a change of clothes, kids have heavy school bags, and I – to my chagrin- have a back pack to fit uniforms and other general paraphernalia including rain coats, gloves, self care products (I can’t wait to get home before I add lotion to my hands before the cycle home after a day of scrubbing pots, or pain meds, plasters and nail clippers) my kindle, reflective gear for night time cycles, wallet, glasses, EarPods- the last thing I want to have to include on my person is a damn helmet. So for years, I’ve always been reckless with my safety. (If you see me skipping certain small roads and traffic lights, you’ll know….).

But after J tutted about the absence of a helmet, and I bumped into another friend on her bike commute (and it took me 5 seconds to recognise her because of her helmet) and then realised most of my mom friends all wear helmets while cycling around town, I had dragged my helmet out of the storeroom as a birthday gift to myself.

And am grateful for it. In 10 years of cycling in this town I’ve not had as heavy a fall as I did last week; the way my head bounced back off the road instantly made me grateful to my friends for influencing me. You’d think speeding and crossing traffic lights illegally would cause accidents but even a slow cycle around a bend has its consequences. I’ve subsequently had to buy a new helmet because you never know how effective it will remain after one fall, but it’s still annoying to have to carry it everywhere.

Two other events have occurred this month that might be up for discussion or something to ponder anyway- if you’re not close by to have a coffee with me.

For one, I had a longish stint solo parenting for a third of the month while hubby had to travel to Botswana and SA for work. This left me with its own level of stress: having teenage kids makes life wholly easier as a solo parent- they don’t necessarily require lifts anywhere, they can take care of themselves for large parts of the evenings I’m not home, although should there be a burn or sharp blade incident, I’m not sure how I would cope. At least I don’t have to worry about home break-ins, although what the girls get up to on devices and an online threat is something that should sit with me.

Imaginary (but possible) crises aside, for a period of time, there’s an amount dietary deficiency going on when I’m not home to feed them- the reality of my Saturday split shifts after split shift Fridays means I simply can’t cook anything in advance for them, and they’re responsible for all of their own meals. As a result, they don’t eat vegetables, survive on simple carbs, frozen meatballs or fish fingers, and sugary treats, and then there’s the squabbles between them- Fifteen picks up most of the workload, while Thirteen wants to drink a coke at 10am …. You can imagine the drama, right?

Of course, let’s not forget the laundry that piles up in the wash basket, and the dog who doesn’t get walked. It might not be stressful, I will only take in as much guilt as I can before I shed it, but it’s still exhausting. I think, as a mother, we’re prone to worrying about our children’s mental health and not being available for them at least temporarily for a few hours – these concerns build up don’t they?

Following home stress, it’s hard to balance life if work has its own level of niggles, of which there has been plenty this month.

Again.

I’ve lost count of the turntable of chefs who’ve come through our doors. Personally, my thoughts have swayed between questioning whether my work place is toxic, whether I’m the problem, or if work ethics in general have changed considerably over the years. Perhaps this is also an affliction of a nanny government or a workplace here in France where it’s easy to find some sort of job, but walkouts or extended sick leave seems to be a common occurrence in my line of work.

A week before we head into the busiest month of winter, we were all marginally smug that we had a full complement of staff. Nobody wants to head into the Strasbourg Christmas Market period having to train staff so I’ve been feeling good that this period will run smoothly.

Is it too much to ask for??- a simple straight forward season?

Apparently it is, because what evolved from someone’s identity crisis in mid November continued to unexplained ailments, and ending up on a walk out during a 140 seater brunch in the space of 7 days.

And this is where I battle. In the first place, surely someone’s work ethic should be better than that? 4 months in his post, carrying an arrogance that can only come from a man (IMO), and yet just cannot emotionally find his space in a kitchen? I had had such high hopes for his success, but then when he packed his knives mid service and walked out, I naturally questioned myself. Are/were my own actions a possible reason for his breakdown? Apparently I don’t laugh and smile and talk enough. (FFS- apparently the language barrier didn’t feature in his mind). Have I not nurtured sufficiently? Or do I fight between my own insecurities and beliefs, weighing up what holds importance and what I can release.

This led me to express my thoughts on an Instagram story recently- being a Gen X-er must be the hardest of the Gen stereotypes at the moment- we are who we are, we’re working with the Millennials and weighing in their thing- which believe me, I applaud for the most part-, as well as raising Gen Z’s and their ability to demystify social media at the same time as be wholly affected by it. It certainly gave me a little more engagement that my typical stories bring. What do you think? Or is that entire line of generation stereotyping a fallacy?

This was following a third change in my shift schedule in one week, my 4th split and yet another weekend split.

And then, as I wrap up yet another month, I have to pass up on dinner invitations with my girlfriends as well as private catering requests just to be able to carve out some time for my own Christmas prep, and try to build up a few patience blocks to meander into town to enjoy the lights and a vin chaud at the Christmas Market- already my levels of tourist annoyance are high, and that’s just from the collection of cameras and posers at the bridge that I have to pass en route to work.

Honestly? I feel like I’ve done nothing but whinge this entire essay, and you have possibly received no joy from me this time, for which I apologise. Do you have any idea how often I want to stop by for a cup of coffee and a long chat with you? I miss idle chats so much, and while your phone number is in my phone, I just don’t reach out with a little message to say hi- we’re all in similar boats, aren’t we, spiralling around on these tempestuous waves giving us the ride of our lives. Are we all battling to stay afloat?

However, on that little conclusive note, I’m going to put this essay to rest and post it- even just to maintain the one essay per month that I have endeavoured to do this year. This particular one has little theme barre a newsletter, so if you’ve not stuck here to the end, I don’t mind. I have 2 and a half weeks of work left before leave and am wholly looking forward to walking the city flat (albeit while circumnavigating a million tourists) when Andrea flies in on the 18th. 10 days later I will be going in for surgery on my left hand- I’m hoping I can share news before then for December, even if its a happy collection of kitsch Christmas photos of me and ALL my girls wearing ridiculous Christmas jerseys in front of gigantic Christmas trees!

As I sign off, I’m popping in some Gingko appreciation photos from my favourite Strasbourg Place. (As in Square). The one that has a tree with buds only in the foreground is the Magnolia trees that are as equally Insta famous in March- the very first spring blooms as the sun encroaches. It serves as a reminder to me how much the seasons form part of my day to day, and just how much I appreciate that.