Motion sickness

What would you prefer? An evening amongst old friends in beautiful surroundings , pondering the import of world affairs? or more likely gossiping about the foibles of friends and associates amidst a range of great wines and find food and clouds of good cigar smoke emanating from  a Cohiba or a Monte Christo, or an evening discussing septic tanks and drainage generally in French?

This stark choice faced that nice lady decorator at the weekend and from the way I have posed the question you will know the answer. Mr Clipboard is back in France to empty one of his many houses prior to its sale completing tomorrow. Obviously everything must go and I have heard rumours that several great wines remained in his cellar. I had lectured him about not moving these too far for fear of taking them away from their best, I deemed that from the wine cellar to the dinner table was the maximum distance one should risk and I was happily considering a convivial evening amongst Chateau Lafite, Pomerol perhaps even Chateau Petrus. This was all set last week until that nice lady decorator received the invitation from our next door neighbours, who are lovely charming people but with whom we have just one thing in common, our sceptic tanks have been condemned.

I should point out here that I have no executive responsibility for social occasions, also as I am not a decorator or indeed at all practical, for instance I do not own any tools, she owns everything and her experience in decorating and renovation over the years has enabled her to collect a good range of knowledge about the general maintenance of houses, so when the invitation to discuss err….going through the motions so to speak, she accepted with alacrity and cancelled our previous engagement. On this theme today’s picture of “art”  I found in a hotel in Juan Les Pins the night before last seems to sum up my distress.

Amazing what the French can fashion from a turd.

Delighted I was not. I accept that something needed to be decided about the literally shit position in which we have found ourselves but as Tommy Cooper said “timing is everything”. Thus at 7 30 last night, instead of heading to the feast and sampling some Sancerre we “evacuated” to our neighbours to testiculate (verb meaning to wave your arms around and talk bollocks – necessary as our French, especially that nice lady decorator’s is shall we say quite undeveloped).

It is said that knowledge enriches the soul, but I do not feel more enriched this morning, despite collecting much more knowledge, in fact I feel soiled. I now know uncomfortably more about the workings of these fosse sceptic as the French call them than I ever wanted, graphically engraved in my mind as translating seems to etch the details in my head in some kind of metaphorical indelible pen. Anyway, thankfully we have an answer; mains drainage.

That I must now spend this morning helping clear Mr Clipboard’s last chattels from his mansion, where I shall no doubt spot empty bottles of recently consumed fine wins and Armagnac, deliberately allowed to remain visible to rub it in is like a knife in the heart. I shall have to be satisfied that at least he will be using the services of Currencies Direct to transport the proceeds from the sale from Euros to Pounds stirling, although in a weak moment over a few drinks I did agree to setting the meagre commission I will receive for a nice dinner out.

So to summarise, we turned down great food and drink, the company of close English-speaking friends, an evening of sparkling wit and repartee for hours of sceptic shenanigans. I am not best pleased.

Chris France