Aigues mortes? over my dead body

When one has spent two days laughing and drinking, inevitably one only remembers some events sometimes afterwards, and so it was over the weekend. That nice lady decorator was in superb form up until having to be helped to bed on Sunday evening, providing much merriment for herself and a great deal more for her hosts and myself.  I realised that our host Nigel Graves had got off very lightly in this column over the past few days so I must reveal that I believe they were his underpants that she found in her bag after we left the beach.

If you did not follow the gory details as they unfolded over the weekend, basically the position is this; that nice lady decorator was on a mission to drink the bar dry of white wine at the wonderful beach resort at St Barths at St Maxime and took a fancy to any number of the pretty young waiters who were prepared to “serve” her. Later, when back in the garden of our hosts over a nightcap, she became aware that there were a pair of underpants in her handbag, the existence of which she could not explain.

Nigel will want to deny that they are his, but the voluminous size, unconventional colour and designer skid marks leave very little room for doubt. I don’t know who should be more to blame, her or him, so I will blame them both until they realise that they were in fact mine.

After escaping early yesterday morning, before the rose was opened, we set off in Bluebell heading west, aiming for Arles by late lunchtime. A charming city, with a huge Roman amphitheatre which is the subject of my picture today. Its main use at present is for bull fighting and I swear I saw that nice lady decorators’ eyes light up at the idea of male bulls being humiliated and then killed in savage fashion. I know this to be true because I am certain she bought a ticket for Sunday although she did not tell me. I am now waiting for the excuse which will take us back near Arles  this coming weekend.

Arles amphitheatre, the smell of blood from the forthcoming bull-fight caused a rather unnatural reaction in that nice lady decorator

Rather worryingly that nice lady decorator is continuing to go on about buying an Ipad. This would be an unmitigated disaster as she would then very easily be able to read anything I write in this column and administer suitable retribution, instead of maintaining a slightly disbelieving air when her friends mention what has appeared in print. This is usually during social gatherings so drink is involved and thus her memory is often affected, enabling me to get away with some major literary crimes. Actually there are some out there who believe this whole column is a crime against the literary world, Paul Kendall please stand up.

You will note that once again there has been no mention of my activities with Currencies Direct, who are doubtless continuing their work of saving you money on your foreign exchange, even while I am on vacation camping it up, so to speak.

Followers of my angloinfo blog Happy Mondays will already be aware that the new episode was published yesterday, click here to read it.

so as the day drew to a close we settled on a camp site near Aigues Mortes. I told that nice lady decorator that it was French for “over my dead body” but I don’t think she believed me. Tomorrow, Montpellier then Narbonne are in our sights before heading on down to Argeles sur Mer for another debauched night of fun with our gay Norwegian mates.

Chris France