Still Passing Open Windows ....

Coping ...

Do you ever have times when you go through all the motions but it feels like you are 3 degrees to the left of everything? I just feel off; as if I can talk or write or drive but I could just as easily find myself mouthing contradictory platitudes or writing an email to ask if I can attend a function I have no intention of going to or driving in the opposite direction to that in which I want to go because there is not gap in the right lane and it seems too difficult to create one. Fighting the stream seems exhausting and has got me nowhere. Going with the current feels like I don't exist, feels like I am giving in to everyone else's wishes but I have no idea what my own are. I just wonder why nothing seems to be working out ...

Raspberries

And this is for Sam, another use for vinaigre au framboises:

After cooking duck or foie gras, take the meat out of the pan. If there is too much fat remaining pour some of it out. Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar and stir around to mix with the meat juices in the pan. Add some splashes of the raspberry vinegar and stir some more. Taste a little and add more sugar or water as necessary.

I have never cooked foie gras. It just seems too scary considering the cost and how quickly it apparently melts into nothing. However I do want to try this glazing thing with magret de canard. I lurve duck.

Tomorrow we are going for an election breakfast. There is an all night election party culminating with the official results around 4am and then winding down to breakfast. "But do we really want to go?" I asked H, "If he loses it's going to be depressing." H feels differently, he thinks we will get a good breakfast no matter the results. It's being held at a nice hotel. I'll try and take a photo of the spread but I have my doubts, I think it might just be dried up toast and the jam no-one wanted to eat by the time we get there. The plan, you see, is to go to gym first (ha ha ha ha).         

I still haven't decided if I will sign up for the Post-a-Day-athon that takes place every November - you can see I don't even know what it's really called - but I am going to try and post every day and see how I do.

I went to gym today so I can tell some gym tales. Another goal is to try and go to gym more often so my membership is not a complete waste of money.

First tale: H and I are talking about the showers. I ask H if the men's showers are separate. "We have these little walls between each one," he tells me. "And do you have doors?" I ask. "Yes," he says, "But some guys regard them as superfluous."

Second tale and another example of how different guys are from us: I'm waiting for H next to the fruit juice bar and he comes out and says, "There is a guy in there blow drying his ass." I have to ask, "And he's totally naked?" and H says, "Oh yes. Naked in the middle of the hair dryer section."

Third tale: This is Europe so most girls go naked into the sauna. This is fine. I went to an all girls' school and I can handle this. What I hate though is when all the Scandinavian types leave and I'm sitting on my towel and in walks a girl in her bikin. Then I feel like an eccentric pevert. It''s a bit like when you tell a friend all about your infertility treatments and she sits there and smiles for 3 months and then suddenly tells you she is 12 weeks pregnant. So all that time you were there naked on your towel, she was covering up with her full piece swimming costume. I love it when that happens. 

Comparing

On this day last year H and a friend went to a local wine show. I stayed home. I can't remember what I did but I remember going downstairs afterwards to see all the boxes of wine they had bought piled up in the car. I remember walking with H as he carried the boxes from the car into our cellar. For once I didn't mind staying behind. I was pregnant with our daughter.

This year I went to the wine show. I wandered around, feeling woozy after only 4 tastings, looking for food. The wine show takes place in one of the local halls and it is just trestle tables manned (on the whole) by men in faintly grubby jeans and faded t-shirts. It is funny to think that some really good wine is being sold in this church bazaar manner. On my food hunt I bought cassoulet, moutarde au cognac, vinaigre au framboises and a little tin of foie gras. Then H and friend joined me and added 3 little tins of terrine to the bags. I decided I was going to try and learn to cook in a more French style. I have no idea what to do with moutarde au cognac but apparently it's very good with white meat and useful for deglazing a pan after cooking a side of beef (not that I have ever cooked a side of beef). Vinaigre au framboises is supposed to be good in a vinaigrette for a salad with hot chèvre chaud and that I do make. I have a very stinky goats cheese in the fridge which smells like a fart every time you open the fridge door.

The point of this all is that last year I was home pregnant, this year I went to the wine show. Neither situation is better than the other. It is just my life.

Going to the market this morning to buy a roast chicken, however, was a whole different story. Everywhere I looked there were kids and babies in prams. Everywhere I looked I saw the father's sharp nose and pinched face repeated in his son or a mother's wild black hair reproduced in each one of her three children or a beautiful little girl with her mother's colour eyes. And each child I saw was like a knife as I thought that I might very easily never share that link with my kids, if I even get there. It was good to go to the wine show where it just felt normal and I could think of last year without a twinge.