Lazy days basking in the warmth of the Côte d’Azur
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EVERY year around this time, we head off to France. It’s the only thing I feel really strongly about. It’s all I ask – two weeks or a month anywhere that’s warmer than Scotland, and where I can converse freely in the local language.
Surely I don’t need to tell you the sacrifices involved in uprooting two children, just released from school, from their daily dose of Cbeebies and long lies to spend long sunny days by the pool, doing pretty much what they like, and with no restriction regarding bedtime. No, I didn’t think so, but hey, it’s not that easy – at least not for me.
As we all know, children tend to hijack the emotions when the first twinges of guilt kick in. I stood accused of taking them away from their best friends for close on a month. No thought that they were getting to spend quality time with mummy as well as an immersion course in French, which I have to say – OK, boast about – they are taking to extremely well.
And the price: the pungent smell of Camembert seeping out from under the kitchen door like a stink bomb. I detest the stuff at the best of times, but, on a clammy evening, the kitchen is not where you want to while away your hours.
However, that would appear to be my only sacrifice when going to France; my husband loves the stuff, and I have to try and divorce that ghastly pong from all my olfactory memories of the place.
I love France, most particularly the south-western corner, the Côte d’Azur, and were the gods to smile benignly upon me, I would spend the rest of my life there. I can’t really explain the reason for it. Yes, of course the weather is a plus, but it’s more than that. I don’t need to patronise the latest “in” restaurant or club; just being here, living quietly, taking time out from the regular work pattern that forms most of my calendar year, is enough to restore my energies.
Pity it wouldn’t restore my vocabulary. Sadly, advancing years have depleted my vocabulary repository, and just the other day I found myself telling someone how much I detested handkerchiefs, when my real vitriol was reserved for “flies”. The words are too similar, was my excuse, but this is what’s creeping up on me.
The children, on the other hand, love this fascinating new language, possibly because it’s not being foisted upon them, and if they want to follow a conversation, they need to get with it.
Olivia practises her own strange version of the language on her “imaginary” friend: it’s total nonsense, but charming, nonetheless. Elliot, on the other hand, is determined to use me as his Thesaurus ready-reckoner.
I realise I’m not painting a picture of bucolic charm, as I try to describe our rural retreat in the hills of St Paul de Vence, but if I really wanted to I could, because it’s all here – provided you decide to opt out of real life.
As most of you will vouch, swapping one country for another does not mean exchanging one chaotic lifestyle for an idyllic existence; once children enter the equation, all bets are off. They still get toothache, they’re not immune from earache and, above all, they’re not as brave as they are in their own environment. All of which means that instead of more or less taking things easy these last few weeks, my senses have been in overdrive, terrified of letting them out of my sight, and screaming about the importance of suncream. I’ve probably given them a complex about the dangers of over-exposure to the sun, but rather that than have them pay the price later on.
Another minefield is diet. I’m a great believer in getting them to eat what’s available. Well, put it this way, there’s no choice. It’s not as if we have recourse to their favourite brands. It might take a bit of trial and error, but it’s worth the effort. I have them eating jambon sandwiches and tapenade on toast, but I know that, once we’re back in the UK, they’ll be screaming for sausages and roast beef.
I, on the other hand, will be screaming for my passport, desperate to get away again. In fact, that’s the only drawback about going away on holiday – the realisation that you’ve had your ration for another 12 months, and that you’re at the wrong end of it.
I am definitely a far better person when idling about, doing nothing and answerable to pretty much no one, yet it is not a situation I could envisage on my own home territory.
Perhaps it’s the sun. Maybe overexposure to its seductive rays is disintegrating my remaining brain cells. What else could explain my foolish belief that I’m several pounds lighter with a suntan, particularly when dresses that fitted snugly on arrival three weeks ago are now struggling to come to terms with the fact that they ever belonged to me.
Yes, it may well be down to the absence of full-length mirrors, something I fully endorse, but it’s also probably down to my newfound laissez-faire attitude.
I know that, sooner or later, I will start to miss my “real” life, not because I’m itching to get back to work and wear bleach-white shirts to enhance my suntan, but because we’re all creatures of habit who eventually need to get back to our own routine and environment, and also because, deep down, I’m sorely missing the pets.
To be truly content, everything has to be in place, and that includes all the things that make up your world, not just pets but extended family as well, and familiar tastes and activities like breakfast tea with sugar, driving my own car, and my local butcher.
Don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t take a huge amount of persuasion or adjustment to swap it all for life in France, but would I be really, really happy? Perhaps not quite yet. On the other hand, give me a week of dreich British weather and I might just cave in.
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