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After teaching English in Thailand for a couple of months (which I didn’t like too much, to say the least), I went back to Europe, this time to France.
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I got a job as a receptionist at a campsite in the Ubaye Valley, which is part of the French Alps, and afterwards I went to live with my girlfriend who owned a house in the southern Lot region.
However, the relationship ended badly, and it made me decide to leave the country. Every bad thing typically has a good side to it (although we often only see that in hindsight), and the good thing that came out of it was that I discovered mushroom hunting, which today (in 2026) is one of my big passions.
But, anyway, in November 2015, the relationship had literally devoured my body, meaning that I lost so much weight that I looked like a skeleton. I just couldn’t eat without vomiting, and already the thought of food made me sick. Fortunately, I could eat bananas, which until mid-December was about the only thing I consumed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
December 16, I left for La Palma, Canary Islands. I wanted to give it another try to make a living on the island, and a good friend of mine there offered me free lodging in his house, which could make for an easy start. So, off I went.
To be back in La Palma did me good. In addition, somebody advised me to — apart from bananas — start eating Jamón Serrano, which is a Spanish-style slow-aged ham. That went well, I had an appetite for it, and I was quickly gaining weight.
However, on Christmas Eve, which I spent in the house of friends, I was still only eating bananas and ham, and so that was my Christmas dinner.
That evening ended somewhat awkwardly, because the lighting on a Christmas tree in the hallway of the house seemingly short-circuited, caught fire, and subsequently set the tree ablaze.
It was actually me who discovered it by coincidence when I went to the toilet, and actually right on time. I called out, and together with my friends, we managed to extinguish it rather quickly, but in the meantime the whole house was filled with smoke and ash, and we needed to spend the rest of the evening outside on the terrace (which was a bit cold that time of year).
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It was a bizarre start on La Palma, and my friends couldn’t stop thanking me for discovering the fire on time, which made me feel that I perhaps saved their lives (and mine, I would say), or something, just because I happened to be there that evening.
If that’s true, I don’t know. Somebody else would have certainly at some point smelled the smoke, I guess, but yeah, maybe things would then have been in a more advanced and dangerous state.
But okay, strangely (but happily) enough, the day after, on Christmas Day, I could suddenly eat more than only ham and bananas. Perhaps that was my Christmas present. My appetite grew, and at the beginning of the New Year I was again eating normally.
