Wind, Weather Apps, and Warm Bread at the Flea Market

I already knew before the weekend even started that I would be tired.

At work I was covering colleagues who were on holiday, and for two weeks it would continue like that. Four mailboxes to manage, different countries, different offices, different people asking for things at the same moment. Spain maybe open, maybe closed. France the same. Nobody really knows until the emails stop arriving.

I kept thinking about Friday. Everybody around me was planning a long weekend while I was preparing myself to work quietly alone in the office. But honestly, sometimes I prefer that. If nobody works, nobody bothers me. I can finally finish things properly. At least that is the theory. Monday always arrives faster than expected.

At the same time my head was somewhere else completely — at the flea market.

The boxes were already prepared in the garage. Clothes folded carefully, decoration things wrapped, little household objects I no longer wanted at home. My sister-in-law had done the same on her side. We are both like that. We do not enjoy too many things around us. I like when objects leave the house. Selling them, giving them away, it is equal. It feels lighter afterward.

But the weather was becoming a complete obsession.

Every few hours I opened another weather application. German stations. French stations. One showed wind. Another showed rain. Another promised only clouds. We searched for the “best” weather station as if somewhere there existed one honest person telling the truth about tomorrow.

The problem with wind is that it creates work.

Rain also, of course, but wind is worse sometimes because suddenly your clothes are flying everywhere and the plastic covers move and people walk quickly past your stand without stopping. We had transparent plastic sheets ready, not dark ones, because I still wanted people to see what was underneath if we needed to protect everything. We were organized at least. My husband already prepared the trailer behind the car so we could load everything in the evening if we decided to go.

Still, I was not motivated at all.

Eight or ten degrees outside, standing all day in one place, waking up early in the morning, cold hands, cold feet. I kept thinking maybe it was better simply to lose the money for the rented space and stay home. I rented five meters. My sister-in-law too. I already have my own tables, but the space itself costs money.

And yet I knew that if we cancelled, I would regret it.

That flea market is always well known around here. Normally in May the weather is pleasant already. This year everything feels strange. Even when the temperature says twenty degrees, outside your face still feels frozen because of the wind.

The funny thing is that once I actually arrive at a flea market, I become happy almost immediately.

It is never only about selling things. It becomes something else completely. You meet people from the village, people from nearby villages, people you have not seen for months. Some negotiate dramatically for fifty cents. Others tell stories about old jackets or plates. My sister-in-law and I always stand on the same line as two of her colleagues, so it becomes almost like a little outdoor party.

We already planned that we would drink a small bottle of crémant together during the day.

And the food there always destroys every good intention I have.

I tell myself I will eat normally, then suddenly someone offers fries, someone else brings cake, then there are merguez sausages grilling somewhere with ketchup and harissa inside fresh bread, and all day long you continue eating little things. There is also the local tart from our area, the one with white cheese and cream, almost like a French pizza. Everybody queues forever for it because it is really good.

We never take sandwiches from home. Never. It would be stupid with all that food there already.

I do not buy much myself at flea markets. I actually feel relieved not having too many things anymore. But there are serious flea market people who arrive at six in the morning hunting for antiques and treasures. I watch them with amusement. I have no patience for that.

My oldest daughter was planning to help us organize the stand in the morning before leaving for one of those walking events with friends — ten kilometers through fields with different checkpoints where people stop to eat and drink alcohol along the route. Apparently now everybody carries extra bottles in backpacks because the official drinks are not enough. I laughed imagining the atmosphere after ten kilometers.

Even she was worried about the weather.

The whole weekend already felt full before it even began.

On Friday my husband’s friend was coming to install another outside toilet near the pool. They planned to work together at home, and in the evening I invited his wife for dinner because she is also a good friend of mine. Then Saturday my sister-in-law’s daughter was arriving from Paris for the long weekend, so we would all eat lunch together.

Everything was moving at once.

And in the middle of all that, we started speaking about playful thinking and imagination and solving problems, which honestly made me laugh because my brain is already constantly searching for solutions anyway.

I think I do that naturally. If somebody has a problem, I immediately begin trying to make the situation easier somehow. Maybe not always the perfect solution, but at least another angle. It also calms me. If I find a solution, my body relaxes immediately.

Because otherwise I worry too much.

That is my problem.

Sometimes I think problems create bigger problems if you keep staring at them. You think too much, you become stressed, and suddenly everything feels heavier than it really is. Then you sleep one night, wake up the next morning, and somehow the situation already feels smaller.

I notice that especially when buying expensive things.

Salespeople understand psychology very well. They know if you leave the shop without buying immediately, maybe the next day you will never return because during the night your excitement disappears. My husband is more sensitive to that than I am. He could sign immediately if someone convinces him enough. We had one expensive bad experience years ago, and since then I always say no, let us sleep first.

The next morning usually the answer becomes clear.

“Do we really need this?”

Most of the time the answer is no.

I think maybe my accounting work changed me also. Numbers need to be correct. Even a small difference is still a problem. You spend energy searching for where the mistake comes from. Sometimes I become too serious because of that. Too focused on correctness.

But I still love fun. Really.

If I need to be serious, I am serious. But I do not want life to become only that.

Maybe that is why I liked the ridiculous idea about making laptops turn on only if you sing to them first.

I imagined an entire office at eight o’clock in the morning, everybody singing different songs just to start working. Honestly, my laptop would probably refuse to switch on because I hate singing and I sing terribly. But the image made me laugh.

My computer would complain about me anyway.

Too many windows open constantly. Weather applications from different countries, emails, searches, random ideas. If something comes into my head, I open another tab immediately and leave it there. Then another thought arrives. Another tab. My computer probably thinks I am crazy.

Especially this week.

One morning I had weather forecasts from Germany and France open at the same time and still managed to choose the worst one for tomorrow.

And then there are the little things at home that make me smile without reason.

My cat, for example, always sleeps beside me during Teams meetings until somebody suddenly speaks loudly through the laptop. Then she disappears immediately to another room because she cannot stand the sound. She is too sensitive for office life.

In the kitchen there is almost nothing on the counter except the coffee machine. I realized maybe that is already a solution itself sometimes. Make coffee. Sit down. Breathe. Stop thinking for five minutes.

Or open champagne instead.

Celebrate the problem before solving it.

Honestly, that also sounded like a good idea.

I do become serious when I am stressed though. More quiet than funny. People close to me see it immediately. My husband always knows if something is wrong without me saying anything. At work also, after enough years together, colleagues recognize stress just from someone’s face.

Some people carry stress permanently. You feel it around them immediately. Sometimes it is easier simply to solve the problem yourself instead of asking them for help.

And when I am in groups, I often stay quiet too long.

I can have a good idea and still say nothing because I am shy or not confident enough in the moment. Then afterward people tell me, “Why did you not say that earlier? It was a good idea.”

But once the moment passes, it is easier for me to speak.

Maybe adults lose creativity a little bit because everybody wants to be correct all the time. Serious. Efficient. Reasonable. But imagination is useful. Ridiculous ideas sometimes become real solutions.

Like the story about repairing a broken kitchen cupboard using sculpting clay because replacing the wood was too expensive. It sounded absurd at first, but it worked perfectly.

Life is often like that.

The strange solution becomes the right one.

At the end of the conversation we somehow started speaking about viruses on cruise ships and holidays. I remembered years ago when we travelled to the islands with the children while they were still small. One after another we became sick in the hotel. First my oldest daughter, then my husband, then me, finally my youngest daughter. At first we blamed the food because sometimes your body is not used to another country, another cuisine.

Then we realized the whole hotel was sick.

One place, same restaurant, same swimming pool, same air. Viruses move fast like that.

I thought again about flea markets then.

Hundreds of people standing close together in the cold wind, carrying coffee, eating sausages, laughing, bargaining over old jackets nobody needs anymore.

And somehow all those small ordinary things — weather apps, champagne, transparent plastic covers, coffee machines, frozen fingers, too many computer windows open at once — they become the real memory afterward.

Not the stress itself.

Just the feeling of trying to organize life while still leaving a little space for fun.