My husband just doesn’t understand.
In fact, he refuses to believe me and this phone call home is not going at all like I planned. I want sympathy and clearly he’s not going to deliver.
“Look,” I try again, “this Vancouver Island culinary press trip is just so exhausting. I can’t eat any more. I can’t have one more freshly-shucked oyster, tuck into any more Cold Comfort ice cream or eat another speck of Salt Spring Island artisanal goat cheese…no matter how many times the cheesemaker does the happy gumboot dance.”
He laughs.
I try again.
“I’m too old for this. We’ve ate our way through Victoria, Saltspring Island and Cowichan and it’s only just past noon. I want to put on sweat pants, come home and flop on the couch. I don’t want to try one more cocktail with appetizers after spending a day grazing through food markets. I don’t want another glass of proseco or a special martini…no matter how perfectly dry.”
He chuckles annoyingly and says, “You know you love it.”
The man can be truly impossible.
I try not to sound huffy when I say goodbye.
Besides, it’s time to tuck into the Merridale cider tastings, the charcuterie platter and then go out for dinner…
Finally, after an entire long weekend of feasting in Tofino, Duncan, Cowichan Bay, Salt Spring Island and Victoria, I arrive home; knackered, thicker and completely spent, and quite determined that I would make up for all those debauched days and nights by sipping only water and nibbling on kale leaves.
Instead, I threw on my sweat pants, settled into the sofa beside the man who refused to understand me, and opened up the box of chocolates that I’d brought home from my sumptious room at the Magnolia Hotel.
I flipped open my laptop, scrolled through the past four days of photos and smiled. I licked some chocolate off my fingers and adjusted my waistband to their largest big-mama setting.
Kevin bit into another chocolate, “Honey. I’m sorry about your phone call the other day. I’m ready to listen. Please tell me again how tough it was, okay?”
Seriously. The man is ridiculous. What I have to put up with would try the patience of a saint.
I need another chocolate.
Ha Ha. You are too funny!
Sending you platters and bowls full of sympathy. (Do I get some chocolate now too?)
I’m not sure your apology is that sincere Miz Elinor. That said, I’m still quite willing to share some chocolate…when I get some.
Well, Colleen, I don’t know how you did it. I would be in misery unless I had the fortitude to only eat half or maybe a third, but I doubt I could leave any eggs benedict or smoked salmon or pastries or fruit …it would also be insulting the host, right? And who the hell could resist all those oysters?!? Yup, I feel sorry for you.
Finally! Thanks for the sympathy Martha. I knew you’d understand.
I was just saying to my husband that no one can understand a travel writer’s complaints unless they’re married to them. What was I thinking? Of COURSE they still don’t understand. PS Send me a chocolate. I love this blog post, one of my favourites.
Chocolates Carol? What chocolates? They didn’t survive the night.
Did I mention the dark chocolate crumbly cake in a dish topped with a big scoop of chocolate ganache that was waiting for me by my bed on the last night in Tofino’s Long Beach Lodge?
I came back after a ridiculous day and evening of eating, which I mistakenly assumed had ended in the glorious Wolf in the Fog restaurant (including multiple dessert tastings), only to find the aforementioned lovely little pudding.
I changed into my Big Girl pajamas and inhaled it while ensconced in my duvet. Yes I did.
I love ya, but I’m with the man on this one. Sounds like you are having a horrible time…
Gwen, I am finding it so hard to get any sympathy on this one. I feel so misunderstood!
You have my heart felt sympathy, Colleen, but the Island Food Tour sounds fabulous!
We just got back from a holiday in Spokane and Osoyoos. Breakfasts at the B&B in Osoyoos were awesome … each breakie was different. This was the last day: fresh Okanagan fruit cocktail starters with juice and coffee and chocolate banana bread followed by eggs benni (2 eggs! topped with out-of-this-world sauce!) on top of a ham slice on an English muffin accompanied by a huge mound of hash browns. Who eats that much for breakfast? Needless to say we skipped lunch.
And that Martha, is what separates regular people from people on a feeding frenzie culinary press trip.
Because on our last morning, after a breakfast of eggs benedict and smoked salmon and pastries and fruit, I would love to say we skipped lunch, but NOPE, we are then set up for an early lunch (at 11 a.m.) with fresh oysters, baked oysters with bacon, chanterelle pate on toast, pickled chanterelles and local beer (I think I’m forgetting a couple of things but that was more or less it).
Hey Big-Mama: You’ll get absolutely no sympathy from this food lover either. None.
You men are all the same! it seems I am doomed to suffer alone.
Don’t choke on an oyster.
Just so you know Mr. Bruce, those oysters were so fresh and lovely that there was no risk of choking.