A pink digger to take you home?

A small cognac is what I asked for, but it was at least a quadruple by English standards and thus lunch yesterday finished in a gentle haze accentuated by the aroma of a Monte Christo Edmundo cigar. In my opinion, there is simply nothing that can compare with the experience of sitting replete on a shady terrace in a quintessentially Provençal village, after a wonderful lunch, with a great cigar in one hand and a large class of amber nectar in the other. Peter Maile was right on the button when he summed up the south of France in one word; lunch.

I have worked it out. When there is a heat wave, one must alight from ones bed at no later than 9am, undertake ones constitutional and any irksome work tasks by around 11.30 and then prepare for the most important meal of the day before enjoying a siesta so that one can prepare for whatever the balmy evening can throw at you.

A pink digger. Perhaps Australian gays might like them?

It is too hot at midday to contemplate anything else, in fact I need some transport like that shown on today’s picture above, which was taken when the circus, which is still on in Valbonne, did a tour for the festival of St Roch earlier in the week. So I had just settled into my post lunch siesta pit when the skies darkened and I thought we were in for a storm. I was right. But it was the unscheduled arrival of man mountain Peachy Butterfield, that clouded the sky rather than rain, but it was really a storm of a different nature. Card Bordeaux was demanded. I suggested, rather disingenuously, a cup of tea, but he said ” a glass of wine please”, and thus another lost afternoon in France began.

That Nice Lady Decorator had said she was going to make a chilli, and you have to keep an eye on her otherwise the Tabasco gets emptied into the mixture and one gets into a sweat for three days. So by the time Peachy’s wife, the saintly Suzanne arrived back from work, a few late afternoon drinks began to develop into a full-scale drinkathon.

It did not take Peachy long to find fault. Unused to being able to enjoy quality wine, he said that St. Emilion Grand Cru, with which I had later unwisely saddled him, was “ok but a bit bottley”. Clearly there was insufficient of the cardboard with which he was so au fait, in other words not enough card Bordeaux.

Perhaps I should explain for the uninitiated. Quantity is Peachy’s watchword rather than quality and in his rather humble opinion the best way to buy wine in quantity is to buy it by the 10 litre box, where it is stored in a bladder. It is a cheap and nasty way to store and then consume wine, in other words right up his street. He is from the frozen north you see. They think a wine lake is a puddle of tears.

This lack of pedigree did not stop him holding court, as is normal when the wine flows in sufficient quantity. I think the highlight was when he said “I came on the bus this morning but I managed to pass it off as an asthma attack”.

So after more than 5 weeks full on partying, what is on the agenda today? Yes, 2 more parties. I need to go back to England for a rest, although Currencies Direct clients are harder to find, but perhaps the offer of a free book for anyone who signs up for an account, which they can do by clicking the link, should lure out a few back sliders.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News