Jolly boating weather

Being incapacitated meant that my cunning and well laid plans to avoid the first day of Jubilee overkill lie in tatters. The first part of the plan worked perfectly. I knew that the satellite signal to Sea Breeze, the boat upon which we enjoyed a fabulous day out yesterday during the Jubilee Thames Pageant, would be intermittent and as a result we would not be able to see it, and so it proved. What I had not bargained for was that the nice lady decorator had recorded it all. That and I was ill enough not be able to leave the house yesterday and was thus subjected to the full scale of the madness. All this fuss over a tube line.

I know we Brits do ceremony very well, and it is a remarkable event but 4 days of non stop coverage? Why can’t I see edited highlights? ten minutes would have done it. Perhaps my judgement is clouded by being poorly, and talking of cloud there seemed to be rather a lot of it in London and a good deal of rain (long to rain over us?).

Where are the sun decks, the champagne, the sunshine?

Today’s picture was taken of the TV showing the Jubilee Line pageant with me in a permanent foetal, man , position on the sofa. This is boating UK style in summer. Mid June and everybody wrapped was wrapped up in scarves, hats and wrestling with umbrellas and trying to keep out the wet and cold. This is a classic example of the British stiff upper lip spirit which I have lost, in fact my lip is quivering like a jelly at the prospect of returning to such hardship. Boating in the south of France by definition tends to be a much more rewarding experience.

Compare the spectacle above with what we experienced on Sunday for example. There I was in shorts, stripped to the waist, muscles rippling in the warm sunshine, glass of champagne in hand, gazing out over the sunny Mediterranean. The choice was what to have for lunch and what factor of sun screen to apply. Compare that with the weather on show in the picture. The choice is what gauge of galoshes to wear and what industrial strength umbrella to employ. No chapsticks required in the south of France.

It being a bank holiday in the UK meant that I had little work to do today on Currencies Direct. I have a policy of respecting and adhering to holidays in both the UK and France. In France this means there was hardly any work done at all. Three bank holidays in a month in France, none on the first or last day of the week means “Le Pont”, known as “the bridge”, so if the holiday lands on a Tuesday or a Thursday, there tends to be a lot of “sickies”, extending the weekends nicely.

The South Of France English Theatre continues tonight for 3 nights in Nice, tickets are available on the door. Last nights performance was cancelled due to a thunderstorm but the last three performances of this Ira Levin masterpiece will be well worth seeing. It is a well acted and directed play and welcome here in the South of France.

At last the air is clear and full summer will now take full effect as soon as I recover from Man Flu. My thanks go out to Pinman who thoughtfully researched the issue of Man Flu and came up with this website which explains perfectly from what I have been suffering. I am vindicated as it is clear from the research that women can never truly comprehend the horror of man flu as it attacks only the XY chromosome carrier, thus women are immune.

Chris France