Suntanned members and New Zealand

So, to lunch yesterday at Trattoria 4, the new Italian restaurant attached to the Bastide de Valbonne, to commiserate with Peachy Butterfield and the beautiful Suzanne Butterfield on the occasion of his birthday. He will have you believe that he is in his early 40’s, but that does not sit easily with his knowledge of crap 60’s pop. Check out “My Pullover” by, reputedly, his favourite singer Jess Conrad. That Nice Lady Decorator has him in his late 60’s, but I think she maybe underestimating. Suffice to say that, despite being an excellent luncheon partner, if someone was to suggest that his age had a 7 in it, I would not be surprised.

It was an enlightening lunch, the pinnacle (I may come to regret use of that adjective) being his revelation that his sunbathing habits had affected his gentlemen’s sausage. It seems that if one sunbathes naked, one must expect ones senior member, normally in repose in such circumstances, to be nicely tanned. However, when roused, it seems that the wrinkles disappear and one is left with something dangling between ones legs that resembles a raccoon. You know the sort of thing, lots of white areas interspersed with those that require suntan cream. However, that is a concept to far beyond the realms of the remit of this family blog to be considered.

I did have one mishap; I was unwise enough to leave our shopping list on the table whilst we had a sharpener Chez France, and discovered when I returned from lunch that, apparently, I needed lube, dildo batteries, edible crutch-less panties, fluffy handcuffs and Peach Juice. I think the last one could lead me to the culprit

I have not blogged for some months as I have been busy getting old myself and travelling. San Francisco was notable in that this was where our suitcase was sent on a tour of the Napa Valley rather than being left at the hotel for us to pick up on the way to New Zealand.  Two days into a world tour and we were down to one suitcase. Amongst the places visited was Auckland.  After a couple of days of acclimatisation, we set off in a hired car to visit Rotarua, pictured today, for its Maori culture and fascinating hot springs and rock pools, which were frankly fantastic.

The rock pools in the Governers Garden at Rotarua

The manager of the hotel in Rotorua asked where we were to visit next. “Hamilton?” he said with a degree of incredulity that I found worrying. “What’s the worst thing about Hamilton” he asked, “Its above sea level” came the answer, and he was right. Luckily were only meeting the train there but that night was long.

Despite being fascinating, it is a backward, beautiful and very annoying country. Where else in the world, apart from some of the less moderate, predominantly Muslim nations, would restrict the sale of alcohol on Good Friday? Even Jesus, I suspect, would have found it easier to get a drink than we did. It’s like this; on public holidays over Easter you are only allowed to buy a drink if you have a “substantial” meal. We had arrived in Wellington, which I had not expected to be stuck in 1950’s Welsh Methodist Church ideology.  Oh well, “2 fish and chips and two pints please.”. But it is not as easy as that. You have to buy another meal with every drink! So with more and more plates of increasingly manky fish and chips each, were ordered,  all thrown away, I worked out that by buying fish and chips each time I wanted a drink, it was costing me £12 a beer at todays Currencies Direct rates, and adding substantially to the mountain of food that must be wasted. The debris must have been visible from outer space.

It gets worse. That lost bag in San Francisco, our stop over on the way, gave me the heaven-sent opportunity to spend up to £600 each on my Amex card due to their travel insurance policy. Some insurance recompense for the irritation, I thought, so I set off for the shops for a spot of free retail therapy, however the New Zealand Government have decreed, in their wisdom,  that no shop may open on Good Friday unless it sells bread, fuel or souvenirs. There is only so much you can spend on these areas, but somehow we managed over NZ$1800, around £850 although frankly, the awful eau de Cologne forced upon me by That Nice Lady Decorator will be festering in its bottle for some decades methinks.

Chris France