Ok, so a day of mixed emotions. Obviously thankful that the family are safe around me and, for the moment, the house is relatively bicker free. The reality that we are returning to confinement in a few hours time hasn’t quite hit. As far as the kids are concerned, school, college and lycée are staying open, little will change. For my neighbour, sheltering with a elderly parent, the despair is tangible down the telephone line.
Twenty Twenty hasn’t been quite the year anyone expected. Had you asked me last November to foretell the future, my rose tinted specs would have seen me prepping the evening menu in our small, recently renovated restaurant overlooking the village market square. Being the latter part of the Toussaint holiday, the restaurant would have had an autumnal air, with pumpkin, chestnuts and locally caught mushrooms featuring prominently on the chalk board menu.
Instead, I’m staring at a diary full of cancelled B&B bookings and a kitchen cupboard stuffed full of long-life milk and 3 different types of emergency breakfast cereal. Ok, maybe I’m being a touch gloomy. There are lots of other more exciting edibles in my many cupboards and stashed down in the cellar. There’s even a little winter spinach thriving in the garden (thanks to grandma!).
As it’s nearly Halloween, we also have a locally grown (not by grandma) pumpkin. And as the saying goes, when life gives you pumpkins, make soup!