ONSET OF A DILEMMA

Word Origin and History for:  onset n.

1530s, "attack, assault," from on + set (n.); cf. to set (something) on (someone). Weaker sense of "beginning, start" first recorded 1560s. Figurative use in reference to a calamity, disease, etc. is from 1580s.

I confess I am having difficulties with what is referred to, in some circles, as the onset of old age. Does it begin with an awareness of how other people perceive one? When travelling on the London Underground, a while back, a young person stood up and offered me her seat. She was sitting in one of the seats, at the end of a row, which had the sign requesting people to offer up the seat to the ‘less able to stand’. It was the first time this had ever happened. On rare occasions, when I was younger, I too would offer my seat to someone I perceived as being less able to stand. The courtesy had now been reversed.

I am assuming that this change in perception has been gradual, although my own awareness of it was made manifest by the young lady offering me her seat. In that sense it was indeed an onset, an assault or attack on my senses. A mild one, I admit, but an attack nonetheless. So my difficulties arise from the question, how do I deal with this phenomenon? How is my behaviour to change to cope with this new self-awareness? By breaking bad? This would simply be returning to one’s activities during the 1960’s. Life in a narcotic fog, although pleasant, is no longer physically possible. The knees won’t wear it.  In any event a small degree of financial stability has crept into the equation. Not vast sums, but one is - as one often hears in certain quarters of Miami, New York and Tel Aviv – comfortable. I am touching wood as I write.

So now here is my current dilemma.

We are planning to go to Tours-sur-Marne, in France, to visit the Chauvet Family, who make an excellent Champagne, and celebrate with them, Le Saint Vincent. It seems that every year on the last weekend of January, winegrowers celebrate and give thanks to their patron, Saint Vincent. Legends abound as to the origins. It is said that one day St Vincent stopped at a vineyard to chat to one of the wine growers. His donkey started nibbling the young shoots on the vine with the result that the following year, the crop was far more productive. The Saint’s donkey had invented pruning!

This seems a very nice reason to have a day long feast and drink lots of the local product.

The Chauvet’s have very kindly offered up accommodation and I have made some of the appropriate bookings for the journey which take place from the Friday to the Sunday. It would be nice to stop for lunch on the way from Calais to Tours-sur-Marne and to stop in Paris for lunch on the way back on the Sunday.

My first plan was to stop in Laon (a lovely ancient town on top of a steep hillock) on the Friday and have a light lunch at a little brasserie  called Arsenic et Vieilles Dentelles.  On the way back I thought we could go through Paris and have lunch at Chartiers, a very nice large Bistro, cheap and cheerful. But then I thought what about a slightly more upmarket lunch, Au Petit Riche, par exemple, but then I’ve not been to the Eiffel Tower for ages, and there is Ducasse’s new Le Jules Verne, which is, as de Maupassant put it, the only place in Paris where one can avoid looking at the Eiffel Tower, and there is such a lovely view of the city. I then thought it would be nice to treat ourselves to a Sunday lunch at La Tour d’Argent where there is an equally lovely view of the city. I have been going on about lunch at La Tour D’Argent for some time. Unfortunately La Tour is not open on Sunday.

So do we go through Paris on the Friday in order to have lunch at La Tour d”Argent or opt for lunch in Paris on the way back, on Sunday, at one of the other three - Chartier, Au Petit Riche, Le Jules Verne?

Chartier

Le Jules Verne

Au Petit Riche

La Tour d'Argent