Eye Surgery and a Gap Year in Gascony

Halfway through my degree one of my retinas fell off, washing my hair over the side of the bath on Christmas eve I stood up with a grey shadow over my eye. By the end of Christmas day I was in Moorfields hospital having major eye surgery and being told that I had a rare and hereditary nasty. A bit of a shock at 21 to be told you'd be blind and in a wheelchair by 40. (for the record I'm not even close to being in this state and I'm 4 years beyond!)  A few weeks later it appeared that I wasn't going to be returning to college that year and I found myself with a totally unplanned gap year.

I went to France, to stay with a gloriously mad English family who lived in a ramshackle house on a hill in the Gers. They were surrounded by organic farmland and a menagerie of equally bonkers animals a motley crew of chickens and cockerels that woke me up at dawn every morning, resulting in the need to sleep with a pile of shoes at my bedside to hurl through the door and my hangover. We ate and drank like kings,  climbed cherry trees and bottled the fruit in eau de vie, confit'd just about anything that had once had a pulse even and force-fed geese for foie gras (something I probably would decline to do today)

Theresa introduced me to the organic farming, chambre d'hote owning Baradat family with whom I moved in to be Bonne and all round help. Not so arduous as it happened. I was treated like a family member. taken to concerts, out to incredible Gascon restaurants, to organic cooperative meetings and very much included in meals and market shopping trips, they also had a glorious salt water pool which where I wiled away most afternoons. But it was the food and the immersion in the incredible culture of France that I took with me, market stalls laden with soft fruit, cheeses from the Pyrenees, gateaux basque and other delicious Basque delicacies, incredible fruit and nut breads from le Pain Regain an organic bakery in Auch, Toulouse garlic and saucisson, soft and peppery with a glass of Floc before dinner. North African inspired dishes of couscous and tagines, So much variety and all delicious. I came trundling home in my little red maestro, nearly 2 stone heavier,  laden with good things and a head full of recipes.

I cannot begin to recount all that I learned from Christine about food or from Paul about organic farming and sustainable organic living. Suffice to say that on my return to Cirencester to finish my degree I was a lone and pretty loud organic advocate in a deeply establishment conventional institution. I also had developed a taste for some very non organic Gascon specialities