Grappling with grapes

The first evening in Valbonne had been ignited by the Wingco and his spectacular thirst, but Peachy Butterfield arrived at 5pm yesterday with the beautiful Suzanne and pronounced himself parched after a long journey. Those of you amongst the readers of this daily report who have met the man or have read about his exploits will have an idea of the result. Prosecco and rose was drunk in profusion to start, followed at about 6pm by a Grand Cru St Emilion (which seemed unaffected by being stuck mistakenly in the boot of my black car in 35 degree heat for the past month), a pudding wine followed by cheese, desert and then bed. Peachy restricted himself just to drinking from a box of red table wine which his insisted on calling “Card Bordeaux”. The wine was certainly contained in cardboard but was not a Bordeaux.

Peachy and Suzanne are (which means she is) looking after our house from next week onwards for the foreseeable future, due to my exile to England foisted upon me by President Sarkozy. If tax is fair I am happy to pay it, when it is patently unfair then I will do everything to avoid it, hence our move back to England. But let us not dwell on the depressing mid-term prospects, let us instead dwell upon the uplifting events of this week in the lovely Cote d’Azur and the benefits of Currencies Direct. My spirits were lifted as soon as I received this picture of the lovely Suzanne apparently enjoying the attentions of that nice lady decorators brother, Hugh Brampton. Surely there are other ways to eat grapes?

Surely there must be another way to eat grapes?

Peachy was on top form, discussing an alternative to the literary phenomenon 50 Shades of Grey. According to him there is a collection of books or stories called, 50 Shelves of Grey, where writers have reinterpreted some literary classics in the style of “50 Shades”. Amongst the titles that have come in for no doubt tender treatment are “Winnie The Pooh” right through the written spectrum to “Pride And Prejudice”. It was when he was talking about this interpretation of the former and how the particular story he had read concerned Eehore, the donkey, with some reference to him having honey smothered all over him. He claimed that in the new version Ehaw said he always comes when that happens. He laughed uproariously at his own joke, but I failed to understand its meaning. When it came Pride and Prejudice, discussions headed to a new low, so low that even I cannot report on it, mainly because my notes taken at the time are incoherent.

Lunch on Thursday has had to be postponed because frankly, we got a better offer. An invitation for a days sailing aboard L’Exocet and lunch on the beach somewhere had me pleading with old friend Peter “Pierre Le Grande” Lynn with whom we were going to lunch to let us postpone, which he did with very good grace, mainly because he was pleased to announce his new epithet for me; “Arun Del-Boy”. Gone now are the days when I was referred to as Boycie, another character in UK TV series “Only Fools And Horses”. I am at a loss as to how I could be mistaken for, or there could be any way I could be depicted as a scheming, tasteless, barely honest market trader, although it is true that in my youth I did have a market stall.

Today you will not be surprised to read that there is a plan to have lunch. The Master Mariner Mundell will join us together with any number of suspects that we decided to invite on a whim last evening. Some have accepted, some will plead pressure of work, some will ignore the invitation totally on health grounds, damage to that is.

Chris France