A horse to water?

There is an old expression “you can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink” which was illustrated in graphic fashion on a walk along the Brague yesterday morning, as you can see from today’s photo. Note the French obsession with health and safety, clearly a hard hat is not required over here.

Talking of hard hats, my self-appointed French Sales Manager, Currencies Direct client Master Mariner Mundane was up to his old tricks on Tuesday evening. His sales tactics are so brutal a hard hat is an essential item when he is working, but as I was the happy recipient of two more sales of my book The Valbonne Monologues, I was in no mood to criticise. Then yesterday before setting off to see the fireworks, another quieter personal firework moment occurred; I sold another book making it break even time.

You can lead a horse to water…

Last night then to Antibes to meet Roly and Poly Bufton to go out on their boat to witness the Cannes firework display in celebration of American Independence Day. The Americans always think they are celebrating throwing off the warm embrace of England, whereas the truth is that we celebrate even more the fact of getting rid of them. American food was the theme, so burgers to the fire.

Amongst the guests who motored around the coast from Antibes to Cannes in serene conditions, warm, calm sea and beautiful views was The Naked Politician, accompanied by his exquisite wife Dawn, who revealed that he is in the process of forming a new political party, now that his err… differences of opinion with Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue have been settled. He is a resident of Monaco and that is that. I know the name of the new Party but have been forbidden to reveal it, and on this rare occasion I am going to honour my promise to keep it under wraps, mainly because I want to be involved. This will be my kind of politics.

Earlier I had driven Bluebell, our ancient VW camper van down to Antibes with the idea of parking at the port and, arriving back into the harbour on the early hours with an excellent sufficiency of wine on board, to sleep in her and driving back this morning. Plan B had to be adopted as it became clear that the height restrictions in the car park precluded implementation of plan A. Parking instead about half a mile away on the ramparts of lovely old town Antibes, it was a long distance to carry a heavy cold box, so thirsty and sweating, we took a pint of Guinness en route at the Hop Store, by way of lubrication for the evenings proceedings.

The fireworks were magnificent and so much nicer viewed from the sea rather than having to sit cheek by jowl with hordes of unwashed garlic smelling French. So much nicer to sit on the upper deck of a lovely Fleming yacht with slightly fewer hoards of garlic smelling English. It was a little later in the evening that the Naked Politician revealed that he would be driving (well,  not he of course, but his lovely spouse) past our door on their way home. A dilemma; should we stay true to the old hippy ideals of sleeping illegally in a camper van in a car park, or take the opportunity of a lift home to a large comfy bed and toilet facilities? I was all for roughing it, but was overruled by That Nice Lady Decorator and so the hippy idyll will have to wait a few days when we head off to Italy for some Leonard Cohen.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News