Garden design trumpeted

She was trying to save money which is of course what I offer with the opening of an account with Currencies Direct, but whereas that is to the benefit of customers at the expense of their banks, what she was trying to do was benefit herself, probably to buy another packet of cigarettes at the expense of SNCF.

Sprog 2 had “mislaid” one of her phones either at the Blue Water Yachting crew lounge at the Antibes Yacht Show where they were serving free drinks or the Hop Pole, the Irish pub in Antibes where they were serving drinks you had to pay for. My bet is that if the lost phone is to be found it will be at the Yacht show, ie the venue where the free drinks were being dispensed rather than the pay bar. I suspect that as she takes after her mother she would have spent considerably longer at the free bar. She was being sent back to Antibes yesterday in disgrace to see if she could find the phone and I had given her the train fare only to watch her walk past the ticket machine and onto the platform for a smoke. Thus no attempt to buy a ticket. Her excuse, that the machine does not take mere money was a difficult one with which to argue, and I had a flash back to my younger and equally impecunious days and had some sympathy. She will talk her way out of it if she is caught, she always does.

One of the exhibits in the lounge was some kind of plant being twisted into weird and wonderful shapes and tormented by some trumpets as my picture today depicts. I know how they feel about trumpets, not my favourite instrument, but what it all means I will leave to a higher authority. Regular readers will know my feelings about modern art fooling most of the people most of the time.

Last night we were invited to partake of a curry courtesy of Lisa Thornton Allan, a vegetarian by inclination except for her love of carpacchio of beef. However, a curry implies cooking so I was resigned to a being presented with a lentil curry correctly as it turned out. One of the guests was the as entertaining as he is unreliable (OK, that’s a bit harsh, he just “forgot” to reply to some emails I sent him) print guru Simon Asserati. Crazy name, crazy guy and occasional user of crazy words. He was endowed with form in this area from birth. Tthe simple addition of an “m” at the start of his surname may have given him a supercharged start to his life but its absence has clearly left its mark. Last night he mangled the English language again, this time with the never before heard (by me) word “revolise”. What does this mean? As the subject of the conversation in which this exciting new word was used was Cuba, perhaps it was a combination of revolution and revitalise?

The sabbath then, a day of rest? At least it has dawned without rain, a welcome release from a wet week. I wonder what joyous gardening jobs await me? I have a quite different “plot” in mind, stroll down to Valbonne Square, sit in the sunshine with an expresso and The Sunday Times and watch the world go by until midday, then a sharpener followed by a leisurely lunch somewhere. However, as I finish this column I can hear that nice lady decorator crashing around in the garage “digging” out a garden fork and a spade, but what really worries me is the pick axe that has been dusted off and is lying there malevolently with the sole intention of ruining my Sunday.

Chris France