~

Brew equipment.

Probably never recover from this sadness. The lid!

As the malt was melting on the hob, I realised: The lid is still in England.

I'll explain. I've always had a number of homes. One of the more innocuous effects of frequently having to move between them is that my beer brewing kit has gone unused for the last 3 years. I've dragged it around the country in hope of brewing my 10 litres of beer; West Yorkshire, Devon, Bedfordshire. Each time I'm ready to begin the fermentatation some problem arises: I'm not going to be in the same place long enough to see the process through, or I've left some crucial item of the kit at the previous place I was occupying; the tube for releasing CO2, the instructions, and this time (as I only realised mid melting the malt extract and sterilising the container) the bloody lid.

I admit the strength of my emotion in response to this missing lid wasn't quite as great as is suggested by my opening sentence. And my recovery has been swifter than expected.

This emotionalism can maybe be explained by the title of this blog, clearly referring to Camus' existentialist work? Actually it's a reference to my new status of l'étranger, a foreigner in France.

Two weeks ago I arrived here by bicycle, with a change of clothes and some camping equipment. Today my box of posessions (including my incomplete beer brewing kit) finally arrived.