Porcini, Sex and a Fond Farewell

My final days here and Switzerland is giving me a terrific send-off worthy of the Queen Elizabeth starting out on a new voyage minus the bunting. 

It’s mushroom season and Saturday saw Mr. Jules and I up with the larks foraging in the woods above….well I’m not allowed to say as it’s a secret.  Friday night we received A PHONE CALL with A TIP-OFF from Fausto, an Italian technician on one of Mr. Jules’ trusty teams.  He has been feeling sorry for our pathetic attempts to find what the locals call “bolets” (porcini).  In fact last year we threw in the basket and didn’t go at all.  Being a short Italian he has two distinct advantages when it comes to mushrooming:  a) Close to the ground and b) Being Italian he is by birth a forager.  We came home with four kilos of porcini.  My first sign.

As we were foraging Mr. J. jokingly remarked that we were becoming one of those older couples who  replace sex with joint “activities”.  I knew what he was getting at.  August has been a rocky month with a lot of highs and lows namely a long low period during which Mr. J. had a ding dong with some contractors and was seriously worried about one of his projects.  Like most men this meant a long time down under in his Man Cave whilst the rest of us kept out of his way and waited for him to emerge.  It was a long ceaze and there were many angry phone calls and tense moments – only normal when you work from home – but this did not lead to anticipatory moments in the antechamber.  In fact it was rather thorny. 

A girlfriend once told me about an ex-husband who used to try and convince her to have sex with him by saying:

“Go on, you won’t feel a thing.”

The irony being just that.

Today on my run I decided, for no logical reason, to go up a track that in all of my 17 years of hiking/running/chasing kids in the woods above our house I always (wrongly) thought led to the dusty old gravel pit.  And finally I found THE LAKE.  The one  people had been telling me about for years and that I didn’t believe existed.  Now, today, two days before I leave.  Surrounded by bullrushes and yellow flowers it sits languidly between the leafy Jura and the snow-tipped alps to the south.  I stood spell-bound basking in the discovery.  What a gift from nature.  My second sign.

All will be well.

I can go now.

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