French customs | Aussie in France

sunset_saint_petersbourg_reduced — Sunset over the Volga

I really love the long summer days in Europe when it doesn’t get dark until 11 pm. Of course the midnight sun is even better. We went to Saint Petersburg a few years ago in July and it was quite magic to actually watch the sun set at midnight. The problem is that on the last Saturday of October, we have to put our clocks back again and it’s so hard to have night suddenly fall at 6 pm even if it’s lighter in the morning. It completely upsets my biological clock and I’m tired for days on end.

Talking about time, that reminds me of another difference between France and Australia. When I was first invited to dinner here, I used to turn up on the dot in good Australian style. However, I soon realised that no one ever seemed ready when I arrived – they even seemed quite surprised to see me – and they certainly didn’t ever turn up on time when I invited them. It has now been explained to me that if you’re invited at 8, you must get there at 8.20 at the earliest and 8.40 at the latest!

My own relationship to time is somewhat rigid I must confess. I was brought up by a father who was always on time and a mother who was chronically late – she would have done very well in France. Relationnel is exactly the same. He doesn’t even wear a watch on weekends. I know why people are late of course. I’ve had time to study it over the years. They always think they can do one more thing before they go, such as shine their shoes or send an email (typing with just two fingers of course), take the rubbish out (not that I really mind, that is one job I am allergic to), while people who are on time know they can’t. It used to exasperate me terribly with Relationnel because there are some things where you need to be on time such as movies and planes. One day he told me “Je ne suis pas à une heure près” which roughly translates as “give or take an hour”. Five minutes, OK, even ten minutes, but an HOUR? After that I realised that I would have to change my way of thinking altogether.

Among English speakers, we always check when giving a time, “Do you mean French time or English time ?” It’s safer !

I can remember being in Troyes one year at Halloween and was surprised to find a restaurant decked out in black and orange because although Leonardo was born on 31st October, I had never seen any sign of Halloween in France. Then I heard the explanation on France Info. I love that radio because it keeps repeating the same news all day. If you get distracted by something else (and I always do), you know you’ll hear it again a little while later. It has lots of lifestyle and other interesting tidbits as well. I get a lot of my scattered knowledge from there. Far better than watching the 8 o’clock news with one of those annoying news readers who wear tons of make-up and carry on like film stars. Also, you don’t get the horrific pictures that you do on TV. I have still not seen any videos of 7/11. I’d be having nightmares if I did.

So, back to Halloween. In 1992, a costume company called Cézar bought out an American firm and found itself with a huge number of Halloween costumes. It opened a mask museum in Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Florent near Saumur in the Loire and did an amazing publicity campaign and that was the beginning of Halloween in France. It boomed in the late nineties before gradually fizzing out, probably because it lacks tradition here.

On Sunday, I heard an English woman at the market asking if there were any appropriately sized pumpkins but no one seemed to know what she was talking about. Speaking of pumpkins, they are excessively disappointing in this country. Usually big and tasteless. I bought a butternut in Romorantin last week – didn’t think you could go wrong with a butternut – but it was just like a bland squash. They only make soup with pumpkins here, but I’m not into soup. Some places have started selling what they call “potimarron”. I looked it up in the dictionary and it says « red hubbard squash, red kuri squash », not that I’ve ever heard of it. It’s not bad, but nothing like the Queensland blue. I still have a scar on one of my fingers from cutting up a pumpkin.

They do sell these neat little inedible squashes though. I found some in the Loire at 0.30 euros a piece. A real bargain. They’ll probably last a couple of months and are great decoration next to my forest floor with its autumn leaves, holly, pine cones and acorns. I even brought some moss home.

One of the first things I’m going to do in my new vegetable garden is plant some Australian pumpkins. That and raspberries.