Lovely meal

I had a wonderful time around at the gîte this evening; Claire had cooked a couple of goats' cheese and vegetable tarts, and we started with some tomatoes from Fabrice's garden - green tiger, orange and red ones - which really brought home to me what I'm hoping to achieve with the potager.

They were very good about me not eating meat/bread/sweet things, and not drinking alcohol or fruit juice. The nearest I could explain is that I'm trying to avoid getting diabetes [which is true; with an uncle and cousin who are insulin dependant, it's a real risk], my French doesn't go far enough to say that the diet I'm [mostly] following is aiming to smooth out the peaks in blood sugar so that the strain on the adrenal glands is lessened. I don't think I'd manage to convince too many English people about that; my acupuncturists both think it's a great idea, and I'm certainly feeling an enormous benefit.

I don't know how open to alternative/complementary medicine they are in France [in Germany I would have no hesitation (should my German be up to it, which it's not!) saying that I'm following a doctor's recommendations via a book recommended by my acupuncturist, and that I'm taking various vitamin and mineral supplements as well and Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs], so I tend to just say 'the doctor recommended it', which is true but not the whole story.

It also gives a bit of legitimacy to what I feel can come across as just plain awkwardness, and makes me feel less of a freak for not eating/drinking things that in all conscience I know don't suit me.

And it's not a weight-loss diet (sadly)!

They understood that I can't eat meat, and the rest I'm avoiding for health reasons, and were perfectly nice about it. I don't think they can envisage not drinking coffee, and were astonished that you can get an English person who doesn't drink tea!

We chatted about this and that, and Eric was telling me about his job in IT for the marines; he's a civilian now, so they don't have to move house every three years, which is a huge relief for them all [particularly Marianne, I suspect!]. He also told me that the English invented humour; I don't think he was joshing me, but it seems so unlikely - he said that a Frenchman escaping the guillotine brought back humour from England.

Having watched the TV programme that was playing in the background, I can believe that their TV is a certain way behind some other nations, perhaps? Lucien was loving the act that spent about three minutes pretending to be drunk and spitting water at each other; but I suspect it truly is aimed at small boys!

Eric, Loïc, Fabrice, Claire and Marianne all seem to have a much more developed sense of humour, and there was plenty of joking; it's nice that I can make a joke and someone gets it, for a change!

Claire and Marianne were so sweet; they walked me home - I would have been perfectly happy walking by myself, but I think the influx of strangers for the vendange probably made them more cautious than they would ordinarily have been. It's weird: I was fine, but after I got in I checked the house all over! I think some of their spooked-ness transferred.

I couldn't have explained if I tried that I'm used to walking home in Brixton (without too many bad incidents, and thankfully each time something might have happened I had an attack of really bad attitude and escaped unscathed), and small-village France doesn't hold too many terrors for me.

We saw an owl, so I regard that (without any supporting evidence) as a good omen!

Goodnight, and I hope you sleep as well as I think I'm going to.