Un dimanche au bord de la mer (A Sunday by the sea)

Hubby and I are on our annual pilgrimage to Mauritius to see the family, this time it is extra special as his paternal grand-mother will celebrate her 100th birthday whilst we are here (more on that in another blog post).  At the age of 45, it is finally dawning on me, it is the simple things in life that derive the most pleasure.

During our many visits, we have never quite managed to make it to the place where hubby’s stepmother (who shall be known as ‘D’) spent most of her childhood holidays.  We had heard about this place on previous visits but never made it along as our Mauritian diary was always full.  I couldn’t really imagine where we were going but knew that it involved food, drink and not much else.  On arriving, we were greeted by the sight of the Badamier Tree (see above) and beyond that the view below – as I said at the beginning, it’s the simple things.

I was drawn by the view and headed straight to the end of the garden to get a closer view of the sea and feel the sand between my toes.  D regaled me with stories of her childhood, telling me how she and her cousins would be gone for hours in an Enid Blyton style childhood, climbing trees and searching for crustaceans to cook on the barbecue for dinner; returning home only when they were hungry.

As soon as we started to explore, I  understood exactly what she meant.  Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall would have been delighted with the amount of comestibles that we found on our discovery mission.

Sea Urchins

Teeny tiny mussels attached to a rock

Mussels up close

The foraging didn’t stop there.  Hubby told me that the seeds of the ‘Badamier’ tree are edible and D confirmed that they used to spend hours hulling them so that their mother could use them to produce some type of sweet pudding.

It took 3 of us to crack open just one Badamier

To be honest, I really didn’t think it was worth the effort; I also now realise why almonds are so expensive and will revert to just buying them from the shop.

Badamier fruits ‘before’ and ‘after’

We brought lunch with us and heated it up in the kitchen – chicken curry, dholl puri and some local Phoenix beer.  D collected the dholl puri on the way to the house, waiting in line for 20 minutes to give us our fix of this local delicacy.  They are also worthy of their own blog post (which of course will give me another excuse to eat a few more this trip!).  We then retired to the terrace to finish our beers, discuss Brexit and contemplate all that Hubby’s grandmother would have seen during her 100 years on the planet.