Things had been a bit quiet in the Cupples, sorry Hellon household all day. The question, ‘a cup of tea darling’, which usually was responded to in the affirmative, was met with a stony silence. I had to get my own dinner, and even Shadow was told to ‘shut up’ when he whimpered that his water bowl needed filling. Guy was taken for a haircut which he did not want and Kitty’s PC was confiscated until Saturday at the earliest. The Sky TV controller was mysteriously missing so I couldn’t watch the world cup and I was made to do the morning school run five days in a row.
Eventually the kids begged me to find out what the problem was.
‘What is it darling?’ I enquired, pouring J a glass of rosé which I anticipated being thrown back at me – literally!
J - ‘So, you’ve been buying flowers for another woman then’.
‘What are you on about’, I responded.
‘You’ve been buying flowers for another woman. I’ve seen her note.’
‘What note?’
J – ‘the note inside that book.’
‘Oh that’, I said. ‘I just gave her some lilies.’
J – ‘Lillies? Lillies? I don’t get lilies. I get those things you grow in the garden.’
‘But they’re lilies - they’re Cala lilies.’
J – ‘I don’t care. You grow mine. You buy hers.’
At this point I had to explain to J that the note on the inside cover of a book, actually an art catalogue I’d been given, was a gift in return for some water lilies I’d given one of Angie’s friends. She’d been at Aydin’s first birthday party the previous Saturday and had asked me where the water lilies in Angie’s fish tank had come from and was disappointed when I’d said I’d bought them in England and didn’t know where to get them here.
It transpired that this lady (still don’t know her first name) has an enormous house in Tourrettes and has a couple of ponds in the grounds and whilst the ultra-expensive koi carp look good, something was missing – water lilies.
It was just a coincidence that I had planned to clean out Angie’s fish tank on the Monday and was able to thin out her lilies which were literally taking over. Angie took them to her when they were both doing the school run and the catalogue was sent as a ‘thank you’.
Now if you’re wondering why an art catalogue – it seems that the lady’s husband is a famous sculpture/artist by the name of Jean-Claude Farhi and I now assume I’m the owner of a very nice catalogue signed by a famous sculpture’s wife (still don’t know her name apart from Mrs Farhi) which is probably worth millions – the catalogue, not the wife! Her too, probably!
Anyway – the lilies were easy – the gift of a catalogue with a little ‘thank you’ note (see above) was very thoughtful of her.
It seems that the Farhi’s house in Tourrettes is a ‘shrine’ to his work – see some views of it at the following URL:
http://fcanarelli.free.fr/Farhi.html 
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