An early Barth

The first thing to say is that as I am on holiday, there will be no mention of and no link to Currencies Direct in today’s column. It would be crass and anti social to do so, thus it will not happen.

To the tune of Summer Holiday, at least in my head, we journeyed to the resort of St Barth, on the edge if St Maxime thought thankfully without Cliff Richard, for a thoroughly enjoyable and impressively expensive day on the beach featuring lunch and a swim up bar, which even I, a determined non-swimmer, felt compelled to check out.

Later in the afternoon one of the cheeky children Liam, decided to offer some ice to his parents. The fact that they were asleep on loungers on the beach at the time should in no way belittle a truly heart warming gesture. To try to cool one guardians down when it is very hot seems a very laudable, and open-hearted gesture and in my opinion should have received a vote of thanks rather than the threats against his very being that resulted.

i was not in favour of drinking in the Barth until today

My picture today was taken at lunch looking over the swim up bar to the Mediterranean in the background, and I hope shows exactly how tough the camping life can be when on the road with Bluebell. Accompanying us are Iueuan the uphill gardener, now also known as the The Graves digger, the personal gardener to the Graves family, who eschewed pink today for an ensemble of check and hoops, that is until intercepted by the redoubtable Melissa Graves who explained to him in caustic detail his fashion faux pas.

Recent readers will realise the fashion faux pas are his hallmark, but this was a statement too far for Melissa who demanded he change before being allowed to drive us to the beach. The results were equally ugly but no one had the heart to say. he seemed pleased with the result however.

Last night I expected a muted celebration, fearing that the party had peaked too soon at the beach, but our host were made of sterner stuff, even to the extent of sampling the home-made vodka manufactured by Nigel Graves. Graves would be a very suitable name for anyone daring enough to drink more than four glasses could be heading for an early Graves. To top it all we had been drinking a nice Graves Bordeaux at lunch time, so I think there is a theme running through here that should act as a warning.

That nice lady decorator of course has never taken any notice of warnings of any sort in any circumstances, and nothing changed yesterday. I saw warning signs from the point of the ordering of the second bottle of white wine, and then periodically through the afternoon, and alas into the evening.

The discovery of some underpants in that nice lady decorators beach bag raised some rather ugly questions. How did they get there, why were the there and most importantly who’s were they. As they were not Y fronts that reached the armpits, they were clearly not mine so I am forced to conclude that another pretty young waiter has experienced the fright of his life and another beach venue will be off the list for life. Indeed, perhaps the whole coastline might be off limits for a while.

Today we head off west, with the ancient roman city of Arles in mind, at least to start with, but will go with the flow and see where Bluebell takes us.

Chris France