Two Hundred Kilos of Mussels and a Week of Possibilities.

Between a busy family weekend, a daughter’s flower-selling challenge, changing seasons and a possible spa day, Sylvie has plenty happening in her corner of France.

By Sylvie, France.

Sometimes, when you have a week of holiday coming, you imagine that you will have time to relax, go somewhere nice and perhaps do something different. But when I look at everything we have planned, I am not sure how much relaxing we will actually do.

The weather is already changing here in France. We have about 12 degrees, some rain, and the mornings are getting darker. My husband is preparing the swimming pool for winter, and we have plenty of things to do in the garden before the cold weather arrives.

My youngest daughter is coming home, although not for very long. She has an appointment to cut and colour her hair, then she will return by train before coming home again for the holidays. She has her own plans now, including a trip to Paris with a friend.

And this Sunday, we have something rather different planned.

More than 200 people are coming to eat mussels and French fries.

Two Hundred Kilos of Mussels.

Every year, we help with a big meal organised through the tennis club. It is a very popular event, and people come to enjoy mussels and fries, with as much as they want to eat.

We expect more than 200 people, and we calculate approximately one kilogram of mussels per person. That means at least 200 kilograms of mussels to prepare.

You can imagine the quantity!

On Saturday, there is already plenty to do because all those mussels need to be washed and checked. Then, on Sunday, everything must be ready for the guests.

The mussels are cooked in very large pots with white wine, onions and cream. You cannot prepare that quantity in an ordinary kitchen pot. You need several enormous ones.

A professional chef now takes care of the cooking, with people helping him organise the ingredients and preparations. About five years ago, we cooked everything ourselves, and that was also successful. But having a chef makes things more practical because we can concentrate on serving everybody.

And serving more than 200 hungry people is not a small job.

My husband and I help with the preparations, the service and the cleaning afterwards. We have to carry food, collect dishes, remove empty bottles and make sure people have their drinks.

Sometimes you arrive at a large table and everybody starts telling you what they want. One person asks for this, another wants that, and then somebody else adds something.

At some point, I have to say, “Stop, stop, stop, stop. Can you repeat, please? I don’t remember.”

You cannot remember everything when so many people are speaking at once!

The guests eat first. We only have our own meal when everybody has finished, and even then, we have to eat in smaller groups because somebody must continue serving drinks and looking after the tables.

It is a lot of work, but it is also nice. You see people you have not met for a long time, and between carrying trays and returning to the kitchen, you can stop and have a little conversation.

Last year, the dessert included homemade ice cream prepared by the chef. I do not know what he is planning this year, but people always give very good feedback about the food.

For 20 euros, with unlimited mussels and fries, I think it is a very fair price.

Of course, there is one person in the family who has found a much easier way to enjoy the day.

My daughter has decided that she will come only to eat.

She will sit, enjoy herself and have a good time while we do all the serving.

And I have to pay for her ticket as well!

The Daughter Who Has Flowers to Sell.

My youngest daughter has another challenge at the moment. Through her studies, she has to sell little boxes containing soil and flower seeds.

The boxes cost five euros each and have been prepared by people with disabilities. The idea is also to encourage flowers that attract bees and help pollination, so there is a positive environmental purpose.

But the students are not simply given the boxes to admire. They must sell them.

The minimum is 30 boxes, and my daughter told me that selling 50 could give her extra points towards an exam.

So she came home with her boxes and immediately started asking us how many we wanted to buy.

My husband wanted to know why we needed them and what we were going to do with all these flowers.

I understand his question. We already have a garden, and now winter is coming. But the flowers can be started indoors and planted outside when spring arrives.

My sister-in-law bought two boxes, her grandmother bought two, her sister bought one, and we bought two.

I am already imagining what will happen if she cannot sell all 30.

I am sure that, at the end, I will have to buy the difference!

But this is supposed to be a learning exercise. She needs to approach people, explain the product and convince them to buy it. That is not always easy, especially when you have to sell 30 or even 50 boxes.

I suggested that she should take advantage of the tennis meal on Sunday. There will be more than 200 people there, so she has plenty of possible customers.

She could even ask Frank, who has a large garden. Perhaps he needs several boxes, not only one.

We were laughing about how many flowers he might be able to grow in his vegetable patch.

The boxes can also be used in pots, which makes them quite practical. I think that by spring I may have several pots filled with flowers.

Whether I planned to have them or not is another question.

My daughter has also started going to a fitness club. She has been going for about three weeks, and at the moment she is keeping it up.

How long will it last? I don’t know.

Perhaps she will surprise me.

A Holiday That Might Not Be a Holiday.

Next week, I have some days off, but we are not planning to travel away for a proper holiday.

My husband has to organise his holidays a year in advance, which I find incredible. How can you know exactly what you want to do so far ahead? Things change, and the children make their own plans.

My youngest daughter is a student now. She has her own activities, her friends and her trip to Paris. We have our holiday at home.

I also prefer not to travel during the school holidays because everything is more expensive. So we will use the time to do things around the house.

There are windows to clean, the vegetable garden to prepare for winter and wood to cut in the garden. Depending on the weather, we may do some of the cutting on Saturday with family members.

But I would also like to have at least one day when we do something enjoyable.

My husband and I are thinking about visiting a spa in Germany. It is a very large one, about an hour’s drive from home, and we have never been there before. We have heard good things about it.

Perhaps we will go on Wednesday.

Another possibility is a trip to Strasbourg with our daughter. There is a Titanic experience using virtual reality, where visitors wear special equipment to explore the story of the famous ship.

That could be interesting because it is something different.

And, of course, we would probably go to a restaurant afterwards.

When Janita asked whether the family would be more interested in the Titanic or the restaurant, I said both.

I think the restaurant might help everybody agree to the outing!

But nothing is decided yet. It depends on the time, the weather and what everybody wants to do.

Perhaps the spa. Perhaps the Titanic. Perhaps we stay home and clean the windows.

We will see.

A Thousand Safari Photographs.

Last week, a friend visited me after returning from a safari holiday in Tanzania with her family.

She has been home for about three weeks, but she still has stars in her eyes when she speaks about the experience.

She took more than a thousand photographs.

She started showing them to me, and after a while I told her to stop.

Not because I was not interested, but because perhaps one day I will go there myself, and I want to have some surprises left!

She showed me the landscapes, the animals and the beautiful lodges where they stayed. Some of the accommodation was really luxurious.

But she told me something interesting about the photographs. When you look at the pictures, you see bushes and landscapes that do not always appear so special. In some ways, they could look like countryside near home.

In reality, she said, the experience was completely different.

She saw giraffes, antelopes, monkeys and other animals. They had the same guide throughout their safari, and she was very happy with him because he drove carefully and adapted the experience to the group.

Other vehicles sometimes travelled much faster over the rough roads, but their guide took his time.

That makes a difference when you want to enjoy what you are seeing.

She also described a village visit that felt too organised for tourists. She had hoped for something more authentic, although she said the food was very good.

At the end of the safari, the family travelled to Zanzibar, where they spent four days relaxing.

The sea was apparently so warm, more than 30 degrees according to my friend, that they preferred swimming in the pool to cool down.

She also showed me photographs of the beautiful white sand on the beaches.

That part sounded very nice.

But to reach Zanzibar, they travelled in a small aeroplane with propellers.

When she described it, I was not so enthusiastic.

I am not sure I would like to fly in such a small plane!

The holiday sounded wonderful, but it was also expensive. September seemed to be a good time to travel because there were fewer families on holiday and the prices were perhaps a little lower.

It has certainly given me something to think about for a future trip.

France and South Africa, Not So Different.

During our conversation, Janita and I also spoke about what has been happening in France.

I have been very sad to see the demonstrations and the damage shown on television. There are genuine problems that people want the government to address, including the cost of living and difficulties in education.

I understand that people have concerns and want things to improve.

But I do not understand why some people use demonstrations as an opportunity to burn buildings, break doors and destroy things.

Seeing damage to old buildings is particularly upsetting.

My youngest daughter is planning to travel to Paris with a friend next week. They booked their tickets and accommodation before the recent trouble, and now I am not very happy about the timing.

I think they have chosen accommodation in a good area, but naturally I would prefer to know that everything will be calm.

They have already paid for their tickets, and she still wants to go.

We hope the situation will be better by then.

I also saw reports about hotels receiving cancellations because tourists are worried about visiting France. That affects much more than the hotels. Restaurants, shops and other businesses depend on visitors.

And when buildings are damaged, somebody eventually has to pay for the repairs.

Janita told me about similar unrest that South Africa experienced some years ago, when people broke into shopping centres and warehouses and stole goods.

She remembered seeing a video of somebody pushing a stolen refrigerator along the road. Other people apparently took food, clothing, shoes and household goods, with some of the items later appearing for sale online.

We were both surprised by some of the stories.

I had seen something on French television about somebody trying to sell a single shoe.

Janita immediately wondered what had happened to the other one.

It was a strange detail in a serious conversation, but it made us stop and think about how absurd some situations can become.

We also compared petrol prices.

I explained that we sometimes drive across the border into Germany to fill the car because petrol can be cheaper there. A few weeks earlier, German drivers had been coming into France for the same reason.

It changes depending on the prices.

Janita laughed because, in South Africa, she cannot simply drive across a nearby border whenever petrol is cheaper somewhere else.

That is one advantage of living close to another country.

We spoke about political promises too. In France, there is discussion about retirement ages and how governments will pay for everything they promise.

I keep coming back to the same practical question: where will the money come from?

Janita recognised the problem. She said that political parties in South Africa also make many promises, especially around election time.

Our countries are very different, but some of the concerns are familiar.

One Country Gets Darker, the Other Gets Hotter.

The weather is another difference between our two countries.

Here in France, autumn has arrived. The mornings are dark, the temperature is dropping, and soon we will change our clocks for winter.

I do not like this period very much.

When the clocks change, it will become dark earlier in the evening, and the days will feel shorter.

Janita told me that South Africa does not change its clocks. Their time stays the same throughout the year.

At the moment, she is enjoying, or perhaps enduring, temperatures of around 29 to 32 degrees.

I could hardly believe it.

Here I am preparing the swimming pool for winter, while she is wearing a T-shirt and trying to stay out of the sun.

She said that earlier in the week it had been only 12 degrees in her area, and now it was more than 30.

That is a big difference in just a few days.

I told her she must need so many different clothes, and then she has more washing to do because she wears different things every day.

Meanwhile, parts of southern France have been experiencing serious flooding. I had seen reports of houses with water reaching very high levels.

It worries me because the south has also experienced very dry periods, and then suddenly there is too much rain.

I enjoy visiting southern France in spring or summer, but I would not want to move there permanently. I feel that the weather problems are becoming more difficult.

We spoke about climate change and what these conditions might mean for the next generation.

It is not a pleasant thought.

And yet, even while discussing weather problems, we were comparing the simple things: when the sun rises, when it becomes dark and whether there are clouds in the sky.

I asked Janita whether she had blue skies.

She said there was not a cloud in sight and promised to send me a photograph.

I think I will appreciate that picture when I look outside at our grey autumn weather.

Perhaps a Little Time to Relax.

So, there is quite a lot happening.

My daughter has her flowers to sell, her fitness club and her plans for Paris. We have a tennis meal to prepare, hundreds of kilograms of mussels to wash and more than 200 people to serve.

At home, the garden needs attention, the swimming pool must be prepared for winter, and the windows are waiting to be cleaned.

And somewhere among all of that, I would like to enjoy a little of my holiday.

Perhaps we will visit the spa in Germany. Perhaps we will go to Strasbourg and experience the Titanic through virtual reality, followed by a nice restaurant.

Or perhaps we will simply stay at home and finish the things that need to be done.

When Janita wished me a lovely spa day and an enjoyable Titanic trip, I had to correct her.

“Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.”

Because with our family, you never quite know what the week will bring.

But first, we have 200 kilograms of mussels to think about.