More hits than Michael Jackson

40,000 hits. That’s what we are talking here. Since its inception a mere two years ago, there have been 40,000 hits on this site. This is a graphic illustration of how literary standards have dropped over the last two years. As the Wingco said to me the other day, when you were actively making records, if there had been that many hits on my label I could hardly have been  happier.

Talking of the Wingco, over lunch last week at the Auberge St Donat I mischievously congratulated him on seeing the light and attending by book launch lunch, bearing in mind he considers this column “ghastly” and thus the book that it has spawned would be viewed in a  similar manner. That moustache of his bristled with indignation “I am going to lunch, nothing to do with any book”, he exclaimed and then he went to say, rather forcibly I thought, something along the lines of hell freezing over before he bought such an item. It was at this moment that I suggested that perhaps it would make an interesting gift for someone he did not like, and from the look of his expression, I have a sneaking suspicion of what I may find in my Christmas stocking.

So the dreaded gardening could not be avoided, the bad back excuse having been flushed out early. It was very unfair that nice lady decorator to put that one euro piece on the floor and then as I stooped to pick it up triumphantly say “there is nothing wrong with your back”. My back does genuinely ache now, after spending a good part of the day slashing and machetteing my way through the undergrowth but I drew the line when she said there was room for more on the trailer. Was I wrong? you can be the judge from the picture below.

This is days of hard labour, outrageous on a Saturday, a day near to a day of rest.

By the time you are reading this, I shall probably be ensconced in front of the TV watching the Rugby World Cup Final, possibly at The Source Restaurant in Le Rouret, but at home if I don’t get up in time. It seems that quite a crowd will be gathering, Tim Bucktwo, the Wingco, Master Mariner Mundell, the Mona Lisa, that nice lady decorator, the Graves gardener and even the Cornish Tsunami himself Matt Frost from Valbonne’s very own French Mortgage Xpress. If you want to know why he is referred to as the Cornish Tsunami you will have to search an earlier episode of this column, there is a search option somewhere near the bottom, however if it is anywhere near a meal time I don’t advise it. Clearly the All Blacks deserve to win but the French have a habit of spoiling a party, much as they did at mine in the summer when the police were called, but that is another story.

There are now two trips to the UK lined up in the next two weeks, pesky children require parents to attend parents evenings, but of course a week apart thus necessitating two trips back to the cold and the wet at significant expense. At least there is the prospect of some decent real ale.

Last night the another failure on the abstinence front. I was nursing the bad back in the hammock when that nice lady decorator suggested a sun downer, and I only agreed because I thought I might get some relief. However, all she had in mind was a drink in the late afternoon sunshine, and like a man with no willpower I agreed, although the suggestion that she brought me a cold beer to the hammock did not find favour.

Chris France