Beaujolais Nouveau

I know the wine in the picture is not Beaujolais but read on please - we'll get there.

It’s BJ time here again. Now don’t be rude. I mean Beaujolais time. Despite wicked rumours to the contrary, the French actually keep some for themselves, mainly to sell to ex-pats like me who reminisce about the classic marketing ploy of the 80s and early 90s, when you couldn’t move in the City (of London) without sampling several gallons of the stuff….before lunch!

J had actually bought a couple of bottles last week and despite my protestations, forced me (yeah right) to drink some. It was actually very nice….if you like that sort of thing. Young, light and fruity. Just like me. It just goes to show. You can take the boy out of the dirty drinking habits of the past but you cannot take the dirty drinking habits of the past out of the boy. And good for me I hear you say.

With regard to wine, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am a plonker. And by that I mean, I prefer drinking plonk, or to be more accurate, I don’t mind drinking plonk. Oh to have a cellar full of Mouton Rothschild or Chateau Margaux or even Gevrey Chambertin, but I don’t and so I buy the wines I know look good. You know the ones – they’ve got gold labels, maybe even an award for being picked by Lidl or if you’re really lucky, they have a number on the label which makes it look like they’re a limited edition…….of two million bottles probably! But in my ten years down here, I have learnt to be discerning. I buy a bottle. Glug it down that night and if it is better than average at a good price, I hot foot it off back to the store to get the rest of their stock the next day. It works. I’ll have you know that I’ve been complimented on my wine choice by some very knowledgeable, or should that be drunk, people.

The other night we were to meet our female friend’s new boyfriend (fiancée as it turned out) and I was told to be on my best behaviour and to talk slowly as he did not speak a word of English….as if that would make any difference. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting him as I’m not too enamoured with the French (read my blog) but as I ‘welcomed’ him into our house and he handed me two bottles of Gevrey Chambertin, I suddenly felt the urge to snog him which he took rather good naturedly.

I’d been introduced to Gevrey by a dear friend of mine and probably have not had a bottle for at least ten years and so sipping that delightful red burgundy was a real pleasure, especially as I would have to save up for a bottle now I’m a poor pensioner.

Anyway, his wine choice and my previous knowledge of it, broke the ice. We drank several bottles of my plonk and kept his Gevrey for the latter stages of the meal. As he was driving he had to keep his wine input to ‘reasonable’ levels but not so his fiancée who demolished a bottle of Amaretto, as I knew she would. The fact that the Amaretto had been strategically placed in her sight certainly helped matters along. She has 'previous' you see!

As they walked off hand-in-hand to the car, I just knew that I’d made (or was about to make) his night. It was the least I could do after his very generous contribution to the evening. 

Happy Birthday To You.....

It was my wife’s birthday yesterday and I haven’t been able to say that for about 25 years. Yup – she’s well over her half century now and of course, and you wouldn’t expect anything less, she’s been hinting about her birthday for several weeks now. I’ve just ignored her as usual…. whilst making secret plans to take her to McDonalds for a slap-up meal. Unfortunately McDough (as they’re called in France) don’t do oysters or champagne so we had to head into Vence.

The day actually started with champagne. Dressed in my best dressing gown, which inexplicably has ‘George V’ on the pocket, I presented my still sleeping wife with champagne, crepes and a mug of tea. Classy or what? She watched the end of Breakfast TV and then demanded, I repeat, demanded, to be taken somewhere for oysters. I had actually planned to buy some from the local fishmongers but as I usually slit my wrists when opening them, I thought it was better to take her to a restaurant and then slit my wrists when I saw the bill. At least then, I would have eaten!

And so we headed off into Vence, accompanied by Guy who finishes at 12 on a Wednesday, so any chance of a romantic little lunch was well and truly screwed.

The Regence Café was all ready for us with its menu board outside showing ‘Huitres’. We sat at a sunny table and ordered (I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu to try and lower the bill) and then I went outside to try and calm myself, and work out my bank balance. I had a cigarette and a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau and soaked up the sunshine. By the time I returned, the champagne was flowing and I tried to distance myself from impending bankruptcy by watching what was happening outside.

The market traders in the square were busily trying to offload the last of their wares before the French disappeared off for their two hour lunches and the Brits disappeared into the nearest bars. Within minutes they were all gone – traders and potential customers alike. The sun still shone however and did its best to work its way through the last remaining leaves of the plane trees (the ones which have bark which looks like a leopard’s skin) which surround the square. These trees are magnificent. They are carefully sculpted each year by the council and look like works of art.

The sun also reflected off the walls of the houses and flats which border the square, with their facades all painted in either white, cream or light tan. No lilacs or shocking pinks here – it’s not allowed – thank God. 

The food arrived. An ocean of oysters on a freezer’s complete stock of ice. A pizza (for Guy) and a plate of Tortellini for moi. By the time I’d had a few more cigarettes and half a litre of Beaujolais, I’d forgotten about the bill and was again celebrating my wife’s birthday.

Happy birthday darling. XX

Kitty Cat

Lulu (actually called Lucy), our ginger/marmalade pussy has come home, albeit just for a few days.

We got Lucy about 5 years ago. J picked up two gorgeous little kittens from the same litter one day in response to Kitty’s requests for a cat and delighted that she had two rather than one, she christened them Lucy and Camille. Poor Guy, who ‘adopted’ Lucy had no say in the naming of his cat – it was Lucy and that was that.

A few months later, the feline sisters were packed off to the vet to be ‘done’ so that we wouldn’t have hordes of kittens running all over the  house – big mistake. The vet made a mess of one of the ops and poor Camille was found a few days later, as stiff as a board, in the cellar. When Kitty returned from school that evening I had to break the news to her. She immediately burst into tears and then stopped within seconds and asked, ‘can I have another one then’? Grieving doesn’t last long with kids!

Anyway, a proper funeral was demanded for Camille and the planning started although it had to be pretty smartish cause she was starting to smell a bit by now. I found an old shoe box and ‘manipulated’ Camille until she fitted inside it (a cracking job !!) and then we set about digging a grave. We decided on the terrace across from the front door so we could pay our respects as we went to school each day but as I started digging I realised I’d probably need a JCB as the ground was so hard and full of stones. After a couple of hours the hole was nowhere near deep enough to ward off marauding foxes, boars and Shadow and so I stopped for the night completely forgetting that Camille’s sarcophagus (aka shoebox) was on the roof of Julie’s car. Now I know what you’re thinking but no, she didn’t drive off it with it but there was an exceptionally strong wind that night and the following morning we had to go and find a missing body.

Once retrieved and with the kids off to school, I returned to the task of digging the grave and finished it after another couple of hours. That evening, we placed Camille into her grave, covered it with earth and piled many large stones on top of it. Finished off with some wild flowers and her favourite food bowl it looked quite nice – as pet graves go. The next morning we went to pay our respects and………graverobbers had been! The stones had been pulled back, the earth dug and box was empty. The bowl and flowers were still there but that was not much consolation. I wondered why the boar (it must’ve been a boar – even Shadow is too lazy to pull away large stones and dig two feet down) had not has ‘its meal’ the night before but maybe in boar world, digging is the thrill. I mean, you never know what you’ll get at the bottom of the hole. Imagine you’re a boar. You’re starving. You find a newly dug (and filled) grave and you dig and dig and dig and there at the bottom in a box is a ………dead goldfish!

Anyway, that’s all in the past and the story of the replacement cat is for another time but when we moved house (next door) the cats (by then we then had three of them) found it difficult to adjust. Eventually, after much persuasion the two newish cats moved over and Lucy, who disappeared for days at a time, simply refused to move to the new place where the good spots were already taken, so she stayed put despite the new neighbours insisting that they hated animals in general and cats in particular. 

She’s now part of the family over there but as they’ve gone off to London for a week, she’s turned up at the door each day, asking in her plaintive little meaow for some food.  We feed her, give her lots of attention, provide her with plates of sardines (much to the annoyance of the other cats) and Guy takes his long, lost cat down to his room where she sleeps at the bottom of his bed each night.

Poor Lucy has had a lot to deal with (including a leg hanging on/off by a thread) but she is still the best cat ever. She’s gorgeous

It's A Chill Wind ..........

....which makes Shadow put his paws over his ears. What am I on about? The weather of course.

I was reading today that some parts of the UK got a severe dose of the chills over the weekend with temperatures ‘plummeting’ to -6 degrees. Well, for those of you who think I’m basking in 75 degrees like I was last week, I’m sorry to have to tell you that we got the tail end of that Arctic blast which swept through the UK over the last few days.

On Friday night it sounded like the world was coming to an end as we lay in bed and heard crashes, bangs and wallops all around us outside on the terrace. I’ve never heard winds like it, even during  the ‘great storm of 87’! In the morning I was afraid to look outside but inevitably I had to, as Shadow wanted to go out for his morning ablutions, albeit after a bit of persuasion. I use the word ‘persuasion’ as he was lying on the bedroom carpet with his legs crossed and his paws over his ears. He’s not the bravest dog around especially when the weather’s not good!

I have to admit that the damage wasn’t as bad as I feared. A couple of heavy glass ashtrays had been picked up and thrown over the terrace. The washing was up in the terraces. A very heavy plant pot (with plant) was smashed and the pool was full of all sorts of things including millions of oak leaves. Venturing out later in the day I noticed a few fallen trees and telegraph poles but nothing serious, however, in the next department down the coast from us (The Var) they were really counting the cost with 100mph plus winds breaking everything in sight. The local officials are trying to get it designated as a ‘regional catastrophe’ which means it must be bad.

And then on Saturday…..it was lovely again. Weird! It was even nice enough for me and the kids to go logging in the woods. I’m always on the lookout for fallen trees because it’s a nice source of easy firewood, but this time, as I was chainsawing away on a piece of ground I thought was ‘municipal’, a French guy wandered up and said I was on his land and what was I doing taking his wood? A short Franglais conversation ended in a truce and a great Anglo/French compromise with me taking his wood and him taking down my car number plate! It’s registered to J so I’m not too worried. 

Overnight, in addition to the death throes of Jodie Kidd on ‘Strictly Come Prancing’ which initially woke me up (I had an early night), there was really heavy rain which wakened me at approx 3am. It must’ve been bouncing 3 feet off the terrace it was so fierce. And yes, Shadow had his paws over his ears again. We don’t need a weather vane – we just look at Shadow!

Then this morning, as I opened the blinds I saw the clouds down in the valley (see picture) which usually means it’s going to be very hot or, at this time of year, very cold (well, cold for us) and as I took the kids down to the bus stop we realised it was indeed a cold one – there was snow on the hills.

So, in one weekend we’ve had hurricane winds, lovely sunshine, heavy rain, a very cold snap and some snow up on them thar hills. Global warming indeed.

Monday, Monday

I used the above title for today’s blog because it’s Monday (pretty obvious) but also because they are playing a song on TV at the moment advertising something and the tune and the artists singing it were on my mind constantly all weekend…..and then it came to me – The Mamas and the Papas. A bit sugary for some but they were like the Seekers (before they became the New Seekers), only they could sing, and Monday, Monday was one of their best. 

Unfortunately I never saw them live but maybe that’s just as well, as when I see a group on TV either singing or more likely, their ‘Greatest Hits’ being advertised and I say that I’d seen them live, the kids roll about laughing. They think Abba was some post-war group (I suppose they were but very post-war) and Simply Red were something from the big-band era. Anyway it led me to think about the groups, bands, singers I’ve been privileged to see over the years.

My first wife, Fiona, and I used to go to some of the dingiest clubs in Glasgow but we still managed to see some of the best bands going. We saw Cream (with Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton), Humble Pie (with Pete Frampton and Stevie Marriott) and The Dream Police, who were a Glasgow group who hit it big, albeit briefly.

When we’d grown up a bit we were privileged to see The Carpenters (yeah yeah, go on have a go) and then Abba (loving me loving you – ahaaaa) both in Glasgow. I’m sure they were fantastic concerts but strangely I only remember the Carpenters because Karen died a few years afterwards and I just thought it was such a waste of a talented life.

Later on I went to Wembley to see Simply Red and the thing that sticks in my mind, about 20 years later, is that as soon as the group struck the first note, the sound was so tight. It wasn’t like a group of guys on stage playing instruments. The sound that came from the stage was like a full orchestra on a record. The sound was that good. It was amazing.

A few years down the road I went to Wembley again to see Dire Straights and also Status Quo and only a few years ago, I took J and the kids to London to see Busted. It was great. The music, and singing, whilst nowhere near as good as their records, was still electric and the whole of Wembley arena was buzzing. The atmosphere was amazing – the kids loved it. A few months later the group split up so it turned out to be one of their last gigs.

And finally, last year, I saw Norah Jones in an outside concert but it was rubbish. She’d only made a couple of records I’d liked so once she’d sung those I was off – I was fed up standing. How times change?

So who would I like to see now. Well Girls Aloud of course. I would just sit (I hope) a be mesmerised by those gorgeous girls, especially Cheryl whom I’ve never forgiven for marrying that creep Cashley Cole (the footballer). I’d also like to see Take That (without Robbie) because the standard of Gary Barlow’s songwriting is terrific and the concert would be really professional. Who else? Well, Simply Red are probably just as good as when I saw them before because Mick Hucknall wouldn’t drop his musical standards and finally, I’d love to sit in the audience with Celine Dion (yup – I know) because she has the most amazing voice you’ve ever heard.

So there you go – Busted to Celine Dion. Who can beat that?