Zelda Leon: Où est la boulangerie?

My sense of direction is reliably unreliable, especially when in the car. I can only get to our local shops because it’s five minutes’ walk and I have to make just two turns. Any more complicated than that and I’d have to take a flare gun with me in case I couldn’t make it back again. The Husband has a near-infallible inner compass, but he’s easily distracted. It’s like driving with a three-year-old, only disconcertingly one also in control of the car. Now in France on holiday, every journey is like Show and Tell. But instead of “Look — tractor!” it’s “Wow, did you see that roof?” or “Ooh — I’d have that.” As if a Frenchman is about to spring out from behind a bush to offer us a free house.

On our way to the station to pick up Ben’s brother and his wife, who are joining us for part of the holiday, we miss the turn off for “La Gare” and are now making a second loop round the ring road.

“Ooh, is that an old shul?” The Husband says, as ever keen to instil some enthusiasm in The Teen for his Jewish heritage.

“Dad, can I use your hotspot,” responds The Teen, now adept at ignoring all parental questions.

“Can we please focus?!” I say, though really I, too, am distracted by the need to look out for a baguette-buying opportunity. We are staying in a beautiful old water mill. The only drawbacks are: a) it smells of damp, and b) we have found the only village in France without a boulangerie. My favourite prayer is: “Give us this day our daily brioche”.

The smell reminds me of the first holiday we took together many years ago in a seaside village in Brittany. When we finally arrived, we were struck by what smelled like sewage. Luckily, the stench turned out not to be sewage at all; it was rotting seaweed. We literally could not get to the beach without slithering across it. On the plus side, it was raining almost all the time, so we didn’t want to go to the beach anyway.

The cottage was poky and reeked of damp plus the only loo was down steep, dark stairs off the kitchen. On the wall was a wooden plaque inscribed with the uplifting thought: “Be not afraid — Jesus loves you”.

As I lay awake the first night, trying not to breathe in too many mould spores, I didn’t feel comforted by the thought that Jesus loves me. Ben and I had been seeing each other for six months but he still hadn’t said he loved me. I recall thinking: “maybe this holiday will be the end of things for us? I’m the one who found this horrible house in this smelly village, so it’s all My Fault. No wonder Ben doesn’t love me.” I cried quietly into my pillow, listening to the combined sounds of the rain pouring outside and Ben snoring inside.

The other problem was that Brittany is the epicentre of treif cuisine. Everywhere we went had huge signs announcing: Specialités de maison: Fruits de mer! Jambon de pays!

I’m quite partial to grilled prawns in garlic butter, but even I don’t want to eat an entire platter of squelchy things that look like they might at any moment hoik up their shells like unwieldy skirts and shuffle off the plate. So we ended up in crêperies a lot, which is OK but you’re in and out in half-an-hour. Ben takes all of ten seconds to decide if this time he wants a galette filled with fromage et tomates or, what the hell, live dangerously, and go for fromage with extra oignon.

Then we read of a lovely sounding place an hour away. No problem: I could navigate using our vast double-sided fold-out paper map. Inevitably, the place we wanted is just on the other side so I have to keep flipping the entire map like a gigantic crêpe to see which road to take.

We pass through a pretty village called Ploumilliau, with pink, lilac, and blue hydrangea bushes everywhere. I instruct Ben to turn left. Then on for a while to another T-junction, where it’s left again.

We continue for several miles then come to the next junction.

“And left here.”

‘Really?’ Ben was incredulous. ‘But won’t that bring us round in a circle?’

‘No, this is the way.’

Ben looked at me sideways and said nothing.

“Ooh, this is pretty!” I said, as we approached a village with lovely hydrangeas planted along the verge.

Then we got closer to the sign.

“Bienvenue a Ploumilliau”.

We had spent almost an hour driving in a huge loop so are no nearer the gourmet restaurant we had set our hearts on. Back to the crêperie we went…

But somehow, the episode makes us turn a corner emotionally as well as geographically. The fact that the house is so hideous and we practically need crampons to descend the vertiginous stairs to the loo starts to become comical.

The stench from the beach and driving rain add to it and we find ourselves giggling constantly, united in the face of rotting seaweed and fruits de mer.

Now, if I give Ben a direction that seems unlikely, even if we’re in the wilds of Yorkshire or South London, he just gives me that sideways look and says, “Ploumilliau?”

 

Zelda Leon is half-Jewish by birth then did half a conversion course as an adult (half-measures in all things….) to affirm her Jewish status before a rabbinical board. She is a member of a Reform synagogue. Zelda Leon is a pseudonym.