Snow found in Gourdon

Despite twice getting lost or “misplacing the route” as that nice lady decorator chose to put it, a large group of hung-over New Years Eve revelers tried to do the right thing and work off some of the excessive consumption from the night before, or even from the preceding week, or indeed in some cases the previous year by having a good walk up the beautiful area in the hills behind Gourdon, between the almost snowless (with the notable exception of my picture today) southern alps and the warm and sunny hinterland of the Cote d’Azur in the hinterland of Cannes.

There was still a great deal of discussion during the walk and especially at a post walk beer stop back in Gourdon about the events that had been visited upon us or rather me on New Years Eve. Regular readers will already be aware and many no doubt upset that my book had been very severely treated by many of my friends in the run up to Christmas, and things did not improve yesterday. Mr Clipboard, who had brought with him the copy of my book which he had bought the day before when it had been mightily abused verbally before been burned, having paper planes made from some of the pages and providing some low quality humour for the large contingent of under achieving public schoolboys present. One does not want to go into details but the insertion of a finger through the cover of my book at a strategic point of my anatomy to imitate a rather large penis captured in yesterdays photo in this column gives you an idea of the level of sophistication of the “humour” involved. Public schoolboys, don’t you just love them?

After the very pleasant walk which had a very good turnout of around a dozen people, many of whom had been present at ours for the new year celebrations, we dropped into a small Auberge at Gourdon for that beer.  Amongst our party was the Wingco, still smarting from the revelation (which I felt it my duty to repeat yesterday in the full realisation that said revelation would not find favour) that his wife was an avid reader of this column.

He made this clear by the support he offered Mr Clipboard who continued his abuse of his copy of my book, already bereft of more pages which like the many paragliders above Gourdon had taken to the wind in the form of paper planes again, although the people in flight above this spectacular hilltop village with its views right down to the sea who had taken to the air had made that decision themselves. The pages of my book were not afforded such choice. Anyway, whilst the public schoolboys amused themselves at my expense by using some of the remaining pages as serviettes to mop up spilled beer, I took in the wonderful surroundings, and once the Wingco and his fags had tired of their juvenile humour, I managed to take this picture of a fat man and his friend which I mentioned earlier. I am not prepared to answer questions as to which is which, or who is who.

Wingco finds a new friend

Like an oasis after ten days in the desert I can see redemption a few days away as I intend to have ten days of rest and recouperation from drinking and partying starting on 4th January, after the final social gathering of the festive period and before travelling to London to headline The France Show to sign copies of my book at the exhibition courtesy of Currencies Direct on 14th,15th and 16th January at Earls Court.

Chris France