One Whole Year

So we've now been here one whole year. Any regrets? Nope not one. I absolutely love it here and so does the rest of the family. I miss two things though - speaking in English, and Tesco (or other UK supermarket). There are just so many things that I can't get here - babycorn, muscovado sugar, Rooibosh tea, jelly, Marmite to name but a few. And other things we can get but that are exorbitantly priced in the "World Speciality" section - peanut butter, fajitas, and fish sauce come to mind immediately. Oddly, mangetout aren't very often available and yet you'd think with a French name that France would be its home.

Life here is very seasonal - everything from the obvious of what everyone's doing in a day (like at the moment it's harvesting and preserving), down to the fruit and veg that's available. Now that I'm used to this seasonality in availability of foodstuffs, I have to say that I quite like it. I've had to change from "oh this recipe looks good, what do I need, now let's go and buy this or that" to "what's available right now, ok we'll have ..." In other words, the available ingredients drive what's on the menu rather than the ideas coming first. I've found that it leads to a lot less wastefulness for us as we used to have a fridge stocked with just-in-case veg that we often found gone off.