The breakfast of a thousand jams

There's nothing linear about this journal; or perhaps the opposite is true, that this journal follows not just one but several lines of thought. Almost a year ago, I compared its structure to the opening of multiple browser tabs; it's that season again, within the month we will slope off again for a short holiday, and yet another set of photos will be abandoned half-sorted, another set of posts interrupted in full flood. This cannot be! I must get a grip...

Very well, then, it's October 2007, durham_rambler and I are in France, on our way back north, having spent the night in Chinon at the Hotel Diderot. We had arrived late and optimistic, and been found a room not in the historic and picturesque hotel itself but in the annex round the corner, quieter and less fancy, but that has a certain charm, too.

The following morning we breakfasted in the dining room. Jam, as I have remarked before, was a recurring theme of this trip, and the Hotel Diderot specialises in jam; they have published a book called Jam in the Cupboard, and sure enough, there is a large dresser packed with jars of home-made jam. Each table bears a generous selection of jams: fig & toasted walnut, quince jelly, rhubarb & strawberry, rhubarb & raspberry, Dundee marmalade, pêche de vigne (bush peach, according to my dictionary, but it doesn't mean anything to me), pêche de vigne & greengage, vine fruits, rhubarb & candied lemon: "And if your favourite isn't on your table, " read the label, "visit the other tables until you find it."

After this Gargantuan breakfast, where else could we go but La Devinière?