The Valbonne Monologues

I was asked yesterday whether I could tell when my flies were down. I said I could because they stopped buzzing around and just looked unhappy.

Nothing unhappy about me today though, for two reasons, firstly my flies are up, but secondly and most importantly, the first copies of the new book, The Valbonne Monologues have arrived, and I must say they look splendid, the hardback in particular.

There is a small problem though, the weight. No, not me, although that is another problem. I am hoping to take 70 of each down to France on the plane ready partly to satisfy the enormous pent-up demand for them, but they weigh damn nearly a kilo each, and that would amount to a rather large bill for excess luggage. Thus there was no option; a courier is booked to take the rest of them down to their rightful home, Valbonne, to where the redoubtable Peachy Butterfield is acting as my unpaid guardian. I have a picture of one today.

Literally a sensation

Yet another disgusting winters day yesterday, but diets and exercise do not stop for anything. I walked briskly down to the Black Rabbit on the River Arun to check out how the refurbishment is going. Slowly would seem to be the answer.  The walk was undertaken in the foulest conditions in which I have ever chosen to be out. Sideways drizzle is my least favourite weather phenomenon, then scurrying home for some gruel and scraps, about all I get to eat on 600 calories a day.

There is the prospect of some respite today and with Sprog 1 coming down, I believe I shall have the weekend off from trying to turn myself into a black hole and disappear up my own anus. That respite will also prevail through Sunday as that will be Mothers Day and we shall be going to The Bay Tree for a late lunch with Both Sprogs who are gracing us with their presence , mainly I expect because it will be a free nosh-up at my expense.

So this is the week that it all happens. 3 years ago on Monday I started to write this daily column for the first time and I am now approaching 100,000 hits on the website. It started slowly and has hardly picked up at all. It was the idea and got underway at the behest of Currencies Direct who felt, quite rightly, that a column offering such a rare insight into the lives if the people with whom I come into contact, would be a wonderful marketing tool, and so it has transpired. That it has also projected me into the exalted world of being a writer, an author, even a novelist was an unexpected bonus, but one I can now see was inevitable. Talent will win out, in its absence, bluster,bluff and self-delusion are quite helpful.

Then the same week as I hit the three-year anniversary for the birth of this column, the second book it has spawned will be dropped from the stalk of life like an unwanted tied on a mostly very suspecting public. Quite a few members of that public are expected to attend the launch next Friday and Saturday at Cafe Latin in Valbonne, if only to try to buy up as many copies as possible themselves in order to suppress widespread dissemination of some of the pictures it contains. I can think of two dozen people to which that statement applies. The inclusion of photographs was a master stroke. Anonymity is blown apart and people like The Wingco will be exposed to a torrent of interest in their antics. I cannot wait.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News