Salute to the decorator

That nice lady decorator is a totter at heart. The expression “Totter” in this context has nothing to do with the wearing of high heels under the influence of alcohol. It is a term  I learned when in my teens when I was bringing my unique talents to bear in what I liked to call the waste disposal business.  Yes I was a dustman for sometime after passing my A levels (shocking according to my pals at the time) and turning down a place at somewhere called “Swansea University” which is surely a contradiction of terms. But I digress, the term was used to describe those poor unfortunate people who cannot resist a good look at piles of refuse and collect items of supposed use from the steaming pile of garbage at the tip.

That nice lady decorator cannot resist a car boot sale or a second-hand furniture shop, so it was with a sinking heart that I accepted and obeyed the command to hitch up the trailer and drive her to the second-hand store in Antibes, where she had seen a dining table she liked. “But we already have a big dining room table” I exclaimed, however it seems that we don’t like the existing one and need a different one.

As if this was not enough to bring my day down, having loaded the bits of the new dining room table into the trailer, I was about to head home when I was appraised of a change of plan. She had decided that now that as we are the proud owners of a new dining table, we obviously needed new chairs to match. “But we already have 12 dining room chairs”, I whimpered.

So after visiting a second second-hand emporium and loading the 11 new chairs  she had bought into the trailer (imagine, there were only 11, how will we cope?) it was back home to allow her to begin painting them all. Now call me stupid but if you want to have painted table and chairs, why not just buy them in the colour you want? Or better still paint the ones you already have?  Why buy wooden furniture and then paint it all? Another question that has been lurking at the back of my style-challenged mind is why paint all the furniture in the dining room the same colour?  I was sufficiently unwise to allow that question to leak out of my mouth. I do not want to talk about the consequences.

Anyway, after minor surgery and the application of some plasters, I began work on and select a picture for today’s column and to prepare for an afternoon with Tony “I invented the internet” Coombs to christen his new smart terrace. It is a lovely construction with far-reaching views over his estate, up to the perfume capital of Grasse and down to Mediterranean. Well, you would be able to see the sea if the diving board had been built along with the pool he promised he would build in the last millennium. It is rather a sore point for his fiery but dazzling red-headed wife Pat. I mentioned it once and I think I got away with it.

Another image from post lunch stupidity earlier in the week.

Being Sunday, I will not berate you all today about opening an account with Currencies Direct for all your foreign exchange movements. That will be left for next week. There is half a plan to venture to the beach today but with temperatures predicted to be 28 degrees today it may be a little too hot. This bit especially for my readers in the UK.

Chris France