We’d arrived in France the previous day (I’d written six and a half pages while travelling – and ) with the purpose of Mum doing a short French course, and I was going along due to being my adventurous self, and because a short cookery course had also been mentioned, rather than doing the language learning bit. And this was how day 1 began:

At 8.15am, I went over to the breakfast room – where there were big bowls of granola, jugs of orange juice, 1 long baguette, what I think was marmalade, and a bowl of fruit. At 8.40am, a woman in a fluorescent jacket wheeled a bicycle past 1 of the windows; we went back again, by which point a man (early 70’s, glasses, mainly bald, American) who had a bright yellow diary with ice cream cones on it came in; everyone was tested on their French (1 by 1 in a separate room), and I had a chat to a couple of people called Alex and Anamika outside (when Mum came out she did something I forgot). A woman with glasses had a newspaper entitled ‘Aujourdi en France’; Mum was assessed (and I asked her to write in my notepad what she’d been told when she came out: – which was ‘I am told I am between classes and she stated that she thinks I am studious, analytical and I have the potential to be in the superior class. She said I should try for this morning and see how I get on’), went off into the class, and I was told by a woman with gingery coloured hair that the cooking class thingy began from tomorrow and someone called John-Paul would be doing it, I couldn’t sit at the back of the French class (the woman with gingery hair told me that the group needed time to get to know each other) – and at that point I couldn’t remember where my own room was, so I went and sat outside at 10am, while a dog (somewhere) was repeatedly barking. The woman with gingery hair came out and showed me a panorama photo of somewhere on her camera and then went away again; Alex came out and said hi (he’d got some coffee and was going back to his room); and then John Paul appeared and asked if I would like to come to the supermarket with him. 

We went to a Carrefour Market in his car – (and he told me this was a small 1, and that the medium 1’s are called ‘Super Carrerfours’, and the big 1’s are called Hypermarkets, and then said he’d forgotten the list) – and he picked up lots and lots of bags of salad, and then lots and lots of avocados. There were ready prepared cheese boards (i.e. came on a wooden board), shrimp, and prawns, and oysters on the fish counter, enormous quantities of pepperoni/salami, he told me he lived in England for 18 months but it was 40 years ago, I saw some ‘Boyaust Naturels’ (which looked like the outsides of sausages), packets of fois gras, there were rolls of pigs blood on the delicatessen, rolls of wallpaper in the home section, basketballs, footballs, table tennis balls and rackets, a flat pack trampoline for €99, 50 litre bags of compost for €7.90, and John Paul signed the receipt (they do use chip and pin but he still signed it). I asked about the different supermarkets, which are Aldi, Lidl, Casino, Lecler, Super U, Carrefour, and Simply; and once we got back in the car, I asked about plastic bags – they have to use the reusable bags and he told me in more detail, but we got back (at 11.30amish), he unpacked the stuff, put an apron on, and stuck a big white chef’s hat on me, and then began rapidly chopping up onions. 

Some really thick chunks of ham were in a small bowl, the onions were finely chopped and put in a saucepan, and maize semolina was put in a small pan of water, he separated an egg and whisked it up in a bowl with red vinegar and ‘huile de tournesol’ (sunflower oil), Anamika was playing the piano – really well – in the room next door (she’s doing grade 5), and then he put 2 tablespoons of ‘farine de blé type 55’ flour  in the pan with butter and the onions, some red wine, salt and pepper, and a glass of water and then let it boil (he said ‘the alcohol must get off’). He got the shrimps (which were for dinner) out of their shells (you have to take the heads off and then sort of peel the outer bits off), and while some wheat grains were boiling in a separate pan, he put the chunks of ham and the now purple stuff (which is called oeuf meurette) that had been in the pan, into little glass dishes (about 1 inch tall and 2 inches across), and then cracked an egg on top of each of them before putting them in the oven (and then he began laying the table – he said they bake for 10->15 minutes and should solidify, but not too much). He said ‘Sauce Moutard’ (i.e. mustard sauce) is made from mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, and oil, and Anamika had come into the kitchen again by that point, there were rectangular chunks of the semolina in a dish of tomato sauce in the oven and another dish of chunks in a sauce of cream, parsley, semolina and garlic; and then everyone came in for lunch, and I asked John Paul what the names of the various things were (‘polenta se percil et garlic’ was the white stuff, ‘oeuf meurette’ was the purple-y coloured pudding, and ‘polenta et tomate’ was the red stuff). 

After lunch, Mum and I went for a walk, and most houses had big gates at the front of their driveways, it was really really hot, and there was a lovely little stream wiggling along next to a path; a rather overweight man (mid 20’s – and looked like he was struggling) jogged past with his phone playing some loud music, I took some more photos of the stream…

…and a very sprightly looking Jack Russell terrier was walked past by a woman also pushing a pram; there were some signs on wooden poles next to the path with signs on suggesting activities for families and individuals, several people were fishing, 5 dogs were playing in a field nearby, some trees had phrases such as ‘je chante’, ‘j’ai calme’ and ‘je sublime’ painted on their trunks, there were allotments noticed as we made our way back, and I forgot when we returned to our room.