Odd French Jam Scenario

Jam jam jam jam jam. I’m looking at my Blogger stats right now. And I’m confused. I’ve been writing this blog for four years. I’ve discussed the antics of a range of celebs, described numerous creative writing exercises, detailed a plethora of bizarre anecdotes and detailed numerous techniques for developing blog stats. Yet, when I look at my own blog stats, the search terms (what people put into Google to be directed here) don’t exactly reflect this. Do you know what the top key search word is?

Yep. “Jam”.

I wrote this post  a while ago- a creative writing exercise where I linked one person’s opening line to another person’s closing line. It’s the only post I have written, to my knowledge, featuring “jam”. Other than this one. Whether the written exercise will satisfy the curiosity of Googlers is beyond me.

But, in the interest of developing blog stats- if it’s jam you want, it’s jam you shall have. There’s space to jam in a story, even if it is a sticky one. In fact, while you’re reading, why not have some background music to jam to?

Picture the scene. Some time in the early nineties. On holiday. South of France. Breakfast in the sun outside the caravan. Toast from the grill. Unusual margarine from the hypermarket. Authentic Bonne Maman French jam. You can find this in Tesco back in rainy England- Mum has always bought this brand, certainly for as long as I can remember. She unscrews the lid as normal. It’s designed to be lumpy jam, with chunks of strawberry mixed in with the jelly. She scoops out a chunk with the knife and lands it on the toast. And pauses.

There’s something in the jam. It’s small and black. It looks like discolouration at first.

“Eurgh,” says Mum. Her top lip turns up. She digs her knife in like a scalpel. She cuts out a lump and scrapes it onto the side of her plate.

It’s a beetle. A dead one.

I wonder what French peanut butter tastes like, and how secure their packaging procedures are. Jam is, for the next few weeks, off the choices.

It’s now, what, fifteen years later. I’ve moved out of my parent’s house. I just buy your standard Tesco jam. Mum still buys Bonne Maman. As far as I know, there have been no freebies since that summer.