Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Maurice,' Samuel began, 'we are not going to the circus. They are bad places. When Daddy
was young he went to a circus and there was a lion tamer. And the lion ate the lion tamer.
And a clown.'
'What?' I said. 'I never said that. Maurice, the…'
'Yes you did!' Samuel cried, clearly irked that I was questioning his veracity.
'Did I? When?'
He proceeded to tell me exactly when and where and so, I thought, it was time for honesty.
I took them around the skeleton of the circus, I pointed out how underfed the animals were,
how they were probably mistreated, and that as soon as they could no longer perform their
'role' they'd be kicked out to who knows where. Ethically, I concluded, I cannot take you to a
circus like this, it's against my principles.
'OK,' said Samuel, still disappointed I think that the lion story wasn't true.
'Is Mummy going to try and rescue these animals, Daddy?' asked Maurice, always keen for
a bit of covert action.
'She would if she could,' I said. 'And I'd help her too,' I added, trying to soften the blow as
we walked back to the car.
Maurice's question was a reasonable one given our domestic circumstances, but the answer,
only two months after the circus had left town, was no longer as cut and dried as one would
have thought. Now that the weather had turned we were all - adults, dogs, kids and cats -
shut indoors, trying not to annoy one another, trying not to lose our tempers; it was a perman-
ently fragile atmosphere, like a rough saloon bar in the Gold Rush - one false move and the
whole thing could kick off big time.
Natalie had, for some time, felt under pressure from the sheer relentless routine of winter:
get up, get Samuel and Maurice to school, feed the cats, get Thérence up, put the dogs out,
light a fire, hoover the dog room, feed the cats, make lunch, muck out the horses, feed the
cats, put Thérence down, feed the horses, collect the boys from school, feed the dogs, feed
the boys, feed the cats. Even in good weather that's a punishing schedule, but when you're
effectively snowed in and it's minus whatever it is outside, it is bloody hard work, even when
I am there to help.
We were watching the French lunchtime news, which tends to ignore the smaller issues of
the day like war, terrorism and financial meltdown and instead concentrates on topics of vital
importance like olive harvesting in Corsica, the threat to oysters in the Camargue, the very
existence of foie gras. The thinking behind it seems to be 'Hey, it's lunchtime; each news item
should be food-related'. If Al Qaeda wants to get noticed in France they'd be advised to bomb
a cheese factory somewhere and preferably before noon. After the news there are endless ad-
verts (all for food) which we watch before the post-news, five-minute recipe of the day comes
on, which I like watching to see which news items have made it into the recipe. That's when
it happened.
