Amuse bouche... Holiday hopes

‘Do you know it’s a holiday in France?” Hugo asked his mother, Eleanor.

“Not today,” said Eleanor. “It’s later in the week.”

“The iPad said it’s today,” said Hugo.

“The iPad doesn’t know everything,” said Eleanor.

Hugo snorted with derision. Eleanor really needed to wean him off the iPad. Its surrogate parent role was no longer excusable.

“If the iPad says it’s a holiday, Does that mean we can go on holiday to France?” Hugo asked.

“No,” said Eleanor. “Not this year.”

She felt as deflated as her little boy looked.

“We could have a France holiday at home, though,” Eleanor said.

Hugo looked sceptical.

“We could make some nice French food,” said Eleanor. “Like those galettes pancakes you like, with the gooey cheese and the yummy ham. Or moules-frites.”

“You mean we could have chips?” asked Hugo. Eleanor had the strange feeling he was laughing at her.

Eleanor was painfully aware that her cooking and creating efforts failed to impress her only child.

God knows she had done her best over the trying months since school had ended, but nothing Eleanor achieved ever met the standards of the other mums on Hugo’s class WhatsApp.

“If we’re pretending to be in France,” Eleanor said, “We’ll call them frites.”

“Can we have them on pizza, like they have in France?” Hugo asked, hopefully.

“That’s actually Italy,” said Eleanor.

“Oh yeah, Italy,” said Hugo, wistfully. “Maybe we can go to Italy instead of France?”

“Mmm, not this year,” said Eleanor. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not fair,” said Hugo. “I hate the virus.”

His eyes filled with tears. Eleanor felt at a loss to help, and also a little tempted to tell her child that he’d been spoilt thus far in his short life with foreign holidays.

“We could put the frites ina baguette,” said Eleanor.

“Are you sure that’s French?” said Hugo.

“Well, it might be a kind of Irish thing to do with French food,” said Eleanor, “but it’s very yummy, especially with mayonnaise.”

“Mayonnaise is French,” said Hugo. “The iPad said.”

“Good old iPad,” said Eleanor.

“Will we have any holiday this year?” Hugo asked.

“We’ll go to Kerry, I think,” said Eleanor.

“Will there be frites in

Kerry?” asked Hugo. “Definitely,” said Eleanor. “Great,” said Hugo. “But I think we’ll call them chips.”