Inflated opinion?

She held out until nearly 7.30, not a drop had touched her lips and then the decision was made, the Queens Legs and a pint of Guinness. Personally, I was hard at work organizing various Currencies DirectCurrencies Direct activities but I must admit to be weak-willed enough not to argue with a democratic decision, made by the nice lady decorator, the one with the only vote.

That we had to take sprog 2 with is and buy him his first drink is apparently considered normal, but I am compiling a bill ready for if he ever gets a job. Sadly this will be some years away due to his college course being somewhat extended. 2 years? Seems to me that 6 weeks of full on tuition should be enough but I am told rather forcibly by his maternal protector it is not.

Earlier, my worst fears about my probable role as a construction engineer (read labourer – see yesterdays column) dissipated as the normal sunshine was absent and thus that nice lady construction supervisor had lost some enthusiasm for making my life a misery by the enforced mixing of cement.

So we had a couple of pints of Guinness whereupon that nice lady decorator declared that she could not be bothered to cook so a take away Indian from The Kashmir in Valbonne was the swiftly concluded stand in for home cooking, much welcomed by my good self.

My picture today is taken of my swimming pool, adorned as you can see with a range of very tasteful of inflatables. That nice lady decorator can be seen in the background taking a few moments from her busy schedule to ensure that the inflatables were all pointing in the same direction. These were her idea, a tasteful (in her words) adornment for the swimming pool, a range of cheap plastic blow up cartoon characters. A cruel observer may conclude that she had an inflated view of well, you know, an inflated view.

Today I must go to buy a new wheelbarrow. This is the standard of task with which I am charged. Although I had managed to avoid the tedium and sheer hard work of mixing cement, another task was allotted to me. It involved raking over a piece of ground churned up by a tractor digging up a good chunk of the lawn for new drainage. When I use the word rake, it is something of an under statement as I managed to collect a wheel barrow full of rocks, so heavy that they punctured the tyre of the barrow. It is not a task at which I excelled. As the Reverend Jeff might say “some fell on stony ground”.

So what is in store this week? The Antibes Yacht Show starts on Thursday but the weather forecast is not good. April is statistically, along with October, the wettest month but will the organisers be down hearted? Surely not, where would they be without water? There are plans to attend one if the four days but only if the promised water stays away.

Lunch with Currencies Direct French supremo, postponed last week due to infantile illness will hopefully be reconvened and the joys of lunch in the South of France celebrated in a way that will shortly become a treat rather than normality because of the extended time I shall have to spend in the UK for the forseeable future. Each lunch now becoming a more poignant moment given the rain lashed hell that will doubtless await me when I set foot back in England later this month. I can hear you all saying there is a drought on back in the old country, but never mind, I guarantee it will break spectacularly as soon as my plane lands.

Chris France