Worthing, the blue rinse capital

322,511. Not sales you understand, just the sales rank at Amazon for my first book “Summer In The Côte d’Azur”. This seems to me to be a triumph but then I have been drunk a lot over Xmas.

With yet another monotonous grey day in prospect, I cracked and began looking at winter sun breaks. All the reasons why we had fled England and sought solace in the south of France manifested themselves again in a dank and dismal morning with sideways drizzle. God,  there are times when I hate England, and these feelings were exacerbated after a trip to Worthing, the blue rinse capital of the Cote de retirement in southern England. I still cannot believe I had to go there but I am certain it was not to see a retirement home, absolutely certain, I think.

On the way back we unwisely ventured into a pub called the Coach and Horses, on the way out of Worthing (yes I escaped, no Currencies Direct customers to be seen) for lunch where we were seriously underwhelmed by a poorly cooked lamb shank, one of the easiest things to cook, a horrid mess of fried stuff masquerading as the bar platter for that Nice Lady Decorator and a half decent club sandwich for Sprog 2 who had accompanied us, and as a student, was prepared to eat anything that was free. The poorly lit, scruffily decorated pub, boasted the worst Christmas decorations I have ever seen. The fake Xmas tree, gaudy red and gold tinsel everywhere, horrid candelabra with some bulbs fused, magnified the Xmas feeling in a spectacularly negative fashion.

That it took an hour and twenty minutes for this distinct lack of feast to arrive was attributed to the fact that the pub had a big influx and food order just before we arrived, and it is true that there was a party of 6 who also waited an hour for food. With that Nice Lady Decorator beginning to digest her own intestines, a major incident was avoided by just a few minutes. I doubt we shall venture there again.

On the way back I tried to take a picture of the fields around Arundel but only succeeded in taking a photo of the water in the fields, so here is one of the cathedral in Arundel taken when the sun was last out, in September.

Cathedral and pub, what could be more English

Last night we settled in front of the fire to watch the first series of Not Going Out, which surprisingly Sprog 1 enjoyed. Parents of teenagers will know that normally, as soon as one of the ‘rents (that is teenage speak for parents) reaches for the remote control ,it is a sign that they should return to their rooms, plug in their laptops, phones and headphones and be unsociable until the point where the ‘rents doze off or lose interest, I dozed off and awoke to see something called “Made In Chelsea” on the screen which has mysteriously replaced my selection after I had been momentarily overwhemled by the sleep wizard. Sprog 1 had been over ruled in his desire to keep watching by Sprog 2 for no other reason than she is a woman with all the hysterical emotional baggage that implies and he is a laid back easy going chap. That should excite some comment.

Today we are invited to lunch, hurrah! It does not happen in Arundel in quite the same way as in Valbonne where a luncheon invitation is almost unavoidable. Apart from a few pub lunches, this is the first lunch to which we have been invited since the enforced move to the UK earlier this year. Old pal Barry King and gorgeous wife Ann have invited us to their house in Pulborough, so a breakthrough, as long as they do not turn out to be vegetarians. That would be too much to bear when one needs copious amounts if good old wholesome fattening English food to ward off the horrible weather, and to stop me hitting the “book now” button in line for the sneaky break to the Canary Islands, which I nearly did yesterday morning, and may still do.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News