We Are What We Eat

We spent the past weekend in northern France, in the picturesque town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, with the Mister’s relations. His step-mother has a cousin in St.Remy Au Bois whose family have lived there for 20 years and now run a successful jam-making business. Their high fruit content jam is organic and delicious, delicately packaged up in little jars and sent off to the crisp white linen-covered tables of The Dorchester, Claridges, and St.Regis hotels, amongst others. They live and work in a lovely barn conversion with huge windows, open fires, and lots of dogs, in a bohemian whirlwind of paperwork, packaging and sticky jam spoons.

Long before this visit I had been itching to visit and see the jam farm idyll for myself. I was secretly hoping that we would be able to proffer our services in getting in up to the elbows in jam in exchange for bed and board for a summer (or longer).

This is something how I imagined our future might go: we’d prove ourselves to be confiture-confiseurs extraordinares, lending our marketing and new media savvy to the operation, and the distant step-relations would soon realise that we were utterly indispensable. They would start to plan for early retirement, knowing the business was safe in our hands. We could do all of the grunt work, thinking we were living the good life, and they could retreat to St. Barts or Martinique or wherever, living off the spoils of their genius idea to move to France and entice these poor overworked cityfolk to do their bidding and ensure a steady stream of income into their sizeable pension fund.

And you know what? I wouldn’t mind one bit. I would happily work my fingers to the bone to have what they have. Their peace, their independence, their knowledge of working for something they created and love and believe in.

As it was, the distant step-relations were utterly charming and had thrown their doors open to all of their friends that weekend, both local ones and those from their lives in the UK. They listened sweetly to our excitable chatterings about how well their jams would do in food festivals and markets across London, and nodded politely at us, even though I suspect they already knew what we were telling them. They blanched a little at the sound of an idea of ours to sell some jams for them in the newly revamped Brixton Village, but they took it pretty well, considering they probably haven’t visited Brixton since the 80s, and might still think of it as a hub of iniquity. They even invited us back to stay, so who knows? Maybe that pipe dream isn’t so far away. Of course, there’s still  the learning how to make jam bit to cover…a minor detail, mind.

The strawberries I tasted there were the sweetest I have ever eaten. Maybe, just maybe, it was a taste of freedom.

The Gods of Lust and Money

So: the government wants to measure our happiness. 

We’re supposed to be feeling full of beans in the midst of savage public sector cuts and rising unemployment for women and young people at home, complete chaos in Libya, more earthquakes for an already devastated Japan, predictions for catastrophe in Nepal and increasingly worrying world weather patterns, an indicator that we have really and truly fluffed our best chances of having a sustainable future on this planet. Oh, that and we’re all going to die next year. 

Brill.

There was a time during the past winter when I thought: there must be more than this. Going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, why would I do this? What am I doing here?

Now that Spring is here and the days are longer my thoughts are not quite so downcast. And of course I can appreciate the beauty of a British summer - I love Pimm's, Wimbledon, and have no problem with having a go at Making The Best of It. But as soon as it's not all Darling Buds of May I want to high-tail it out of here and my thoughts continually return to sunnier, more chilled out climes.

Sometimes I feel a bit like a mango in the fresh fruit section of a supermarket (bear with me here) - grown in a hot, tropical place, picked before being fully ripe, and flown over to sit in a chiller in grey old rainy old London-town. (I know, I know, there are better analogies. I can't find one right now though, so we'll leave that terrible one in.)

A Bad Analogy

 Is it London that I'm getting tired of? Maybe if I was living in the countryside the seasons wouldn't be such a mystery and I wouldn't feel so disconnected. But it’s more than the weather – after all, it’s been warm and sunny for the past week and I’ve still felt like I want to run away and bury my head in jam.

No, part of the problem is the feeling that I'm toiling away in the big bad city for, well, not much really.  I’m not managing to save, despite the laughable ‘London weighting’ portion of my salary. I’m not going to be able to buy property here.  I’m disillusioned with my job and the unfettered change that seems to be sweeping the sector. I don’t believe in what I’m being paid to say anymore. But annoyingly, despite being paid more than ever, it’s doing nothing for my happiness (nor my savings – I just seem to spend more). Finally, I’m fed up with fighting elbows, armpits and women with big bamsies (as my dear dad would have called them) on the journey in and out on the bus every day. Let David Cameron commute for a bit (for REAL, Dave, not with the car carrying your briefcase behind you). You stand up among the many baby buggies Cammo, and get jostled for a space to stand, by druggies, whilst listening to EVERYONE ELSE'S MUSIC EVERY MORNING via their ridiculously loud personal headphones. Or worse, their phones, with no attempt to make their musical experience personal at all. 

Not quite the overcrowded number 59 from Streatham, is it Dave?

Of course, I know I should be grateful for small mercies;

• We’ve got a little bit of green space to plant things in.
• My commute does not require taking the underground.
• The new Spanish upstairs neighbours aren’t anywhere near as fat and stompy as the previous ones, and they seem to be much less loud and bonky than in the beginning. 

Not to mention the big things, like:

• We have great friends here.
• I have nice colleagues.
• London is still full of bloody brilliant sights and people and I used to love living here. 

So what’s happened? If anyone out there is experiencing a similar crisis of faith, please share. Did you get over yours? Did you move away to run a knitting group or start a home school or pursue a long-desired career as a beekeeper? I feel I need some help falling in love with London again. 

Especially as we supposedly only have 1 year, 8 months and 4 days to go…

PS. Speaking of crazy bus journeys - check this dude out.