Odour eater failure

For weeks there has been a nasty smell in the hallway where the dogs sleep. Naturally I blame the heinous hound Banjo because he is always to blame, he is the smelliest dog in Christendom. For the last week I have been trying to feed him odour eaters but he has, as usual, been entirely uncooperative. I tried hiding them in slices of ham, chopping them up with his food, but he is clever, evil and clever, so far he has not eaten a single piece. The worst thing about it is that he has managed to transfer the smell into my tennis shoes. That nice lady decorator had the audacity to suggest that perhaps it is my tennis shoes which have been stinking out the hall, and that odour eaters might be best applied to them, but she is being stupid, how on earth would tennis shoes eat odour eaters?

Another stiff walk in the beautiful Valmasque forest was required yesterday morning to continue to counter the effects of all that northern food I was forced to consume last week, and to set up a thirst and an appetite for lunch on the beach at Cannes. This time of year it is pointless to take the car because parking is a nightmare, so we take the train, which gets from nearby Mouans Sartoux to Cannes centre in 17 minutes.

We lunched at Plage des Festivals in Cannes which was excellent and surprisingly not that busy for a weekend in August. I had planned to take a picture but the technicalities of taking a picture on my phone and storing it to place in this column seem to have eluded me, at least yesterday, and as the weather was slightly disappointing I have used a photo taken at the Poisson Rouge in Port Vendres on the French/Spanish border on our recent camping trip.

The Red Fish at Port Vendres

I managed to steer that nice lady decorator away from her customary requirement for a pint of Guinness on the way back to the station, which is something of a first, and was looking forward to a siesta, but one phone call destroyed that idea. The call was from Rupert Scott, and before I knew it I was hearing that familiar refrain “Is the pav open?”. This is fairly simple code for can I come round for a drink. It is not as if we have any choice because usually the call is made from his car parked outside our gates, so pretending we are not at home was not an option. Suffice to say that when I went to bed at midnight, there was a scene of utter carnage in the web and the pav. This was not entirely Rupert’s fault, although I dud say I thought the vodka was a bad idea, but was compounded by the arrival of at least a dozen teenagers who thought there was a party going on, and they were right.

It turns out that they were friends of my children, en route to somewhere else, so they only stayed long enough to empty my drinks fridge like a horde of locusts. I attempted to use this opportunity to explain to them the value of opening an account to trade foreign exchange with Currencies Direct, but I fear most of this missionary zeal fell on stony ground.

Today, although in desperate need of a rest we are invited to a barbecue in nearby Plascassier, where no doubt once again we will be forced to take strong drink. This is of course against my better judgement but hey ho..

Chris France