Strawberry Sauce

This morning I decided to head to where the strawberry plot used to be. There are still a few plants entombed in the undergrowth and, hanging from their stems, a few strawberries – bright red lanterns, lighting the way for the slugs. After much perseverance I managed to pick a largish bowlful – some admittedly pre-owned – and a few with the previous incumbents still in residence. These were duly washed and sorted and are being boiled up as I write (sans insects). They are destined to become a flavoursome strawberry sauce that le Comte will use in his trifles when he cooks for our summer guests. Jam they will never be. Years of strawberry-boiling have taught me there is no hope of getting the mixture to set. Pectin is unobtainable here and the French have replaced it with a disgusting product called gel-sugar which will never find its way into my jam cauldron. So instead I make conserve. That is, I have conserved the strawberries in sugar-syrup and a little lemon juice from the citronniers in the courtyard. The result is delicious, but runny.

Until recently I had a little job two days a week in a tiny office on the other side of the Cevennes dealing in parts for the oil industry (no, I couldn’t quite believe it either, but there it was). I was working mostly to keep le Comte in golf balls (he has a nasty slice) and to get out of some of the lawn-mowing. However, oil is not what it used to be (most of it now being in the Gulf of Mexico and on the beaches of Florida) and I was made redundant. (Redundant! Moi!??) Conseqently, I took myself to the Assedic – now renamed the Pôle Emploi (what on earth does Pôle mean?). That is, the dole office.
I arrived early but still waited in a longish queue only to eventually be told that I first had to register by phone or internet, after which I would be convoqué.
I have considered the translation of this word long and hard but it can only mean summoned. As an obedient citizen (no point being otherwise), I went home and did as instructed. I was summoned almost immediately, first by post and then, just in case, by email. With the letter they included a questionnaire booklet to complete before my appointment, the answers to which they must surely have known already as I am presumably on a computer somewhere.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my passport to present. As avid readers will know, it is at the British Embassy in Paris being renewed. (Ha! Sounds better than Peterborough, doesn’t it! And so it should as it also costs twice as much.)
Anyway, wandering the streets and fields of la France without a valid piece of ID is practically a capital offence. This is why French men carry those sweet little bags – to hold all the paperwork they are required to keep with them. I explained the whereabouts of la passeporte and told the pleasant young man who had been given the job of interviewing me, that I had received a postcard informing me of it’s safe arrival in Paris.
‘Ha!’ he pounced, ‘and where is zis postcard?’
‘Eer, at home on the kitchen table.’
‘You should ‘ave it wiz you to prove you are in ze process of renewing ze passporte.’
‘Really?’
‘Mais oui.’ He threw out his arms to express the complete obviousness of this fact.
Good grief! Even after living here all this time I managed to be surprised. The law of doing everything twice wasn't going to apply here. I would have to come back at least once more.
‘I cannot open your dossier wizout zis postcard,’ explained the pleasant young man, shaking his head regretfully. ‘I can do nozing.’ Well, this at least seemed to be true.
The postcard turned out not to be the half of it, I was lacking several more important pieces of paper, apparently, obtainable from the oil office and elsewhere. It keeps you busy, being unemployed in France.

End note: Last Thursday – when the sun was out – the French went on strike again. This was ostensibly to protest about the proposed increase in the age of retirement. More likely, someone had read the long range weather forecast and was wanted to build up a good base tan before the really hot weather set in. Some people manifested, of course, waving their placards up and down les rues de la France, but I have read that the coast road was also blocked solid.