Temps frisquet

faille

Back from two-and-half weeks in Brittany--the area in France I mean, not that slapper at number 46.

We almost missed both the outward and return flights, receiving a "final call, for passengers..." on both legs. In the first case, CattleJet advised us to turn up thirty minutes before our flight, which was not nearly enough; in the second case, as we were quaffing Affligem at 5.40 euros a pop in the bar, I misunderstood the word "enregisterement" as meaning "check-in" (which we'd already done), rather than "boarding". We hared sweatily through the various hurdles between two countries, and were ushered across the apron by a man who told me that next time we would be "unboarded". We rushed aboard the plane with British booze-breath.

We found our seats. Kirsty was swearing and haranguing me. I nodded quietly through a couple of minutes of it before saying "Could we continue this at home please?"

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gorgerin

The regional paper, Ouest France, predicted "temps frisquet", and a day of leaden skies and heavy rain was further darkened by a man who, the girls said, appeared to be wanking some distance away from them on the beach. But after that, the sun shone strongly, and "Todger Man", as we named him, made no further appearances.

We had some civilised but rather drunken nights with a family we met the first time we went there ten years ago. After one of these, my daughter Jenny rather pointedly commented on the effervescence with which I was joining in with the bilingual bingo, making baseless allegations that I was drawling my well-meant help to the Frenchman who wanted to learn the picturesque English phrases that accompany certain bingo numbers.

I won a pair of large round black sunglasses which make me look like an insect. We carried our bottles of wine--mine, a cheeky rosé called "Shepherdess's Thigh"--from the room and continued the boozing as we sat round and played noisy cards with all the children, back in our chalet. "You were a little bit drunk, actually," said Kirsty, the next morning. "You and..." (the female of the couple we were with, who was sat next to me.)

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moechialogy

We set out one day to repeat a cycle ride to a lovely restaurant in Locmariaquer. We got a bit lost at a pine-edged beach, where we rescued a crab that was panicking on the road, having fallen off the back of a lorry. We tried to pick it up but it wasn't having it, so we shooed it into my bag and set it free on the beach, where it gratefully (if crabs feel gratitude) scuttled backwards under the sand and seaweed.

I nobbled passers-by to help us find the way. An Irishman pointed us in the right direction and we arrived at the restaurant. There was very little for my vegetarian daughters, and they had to have an unappealing cold aubergine pâté, while I raked into a delicious skate painted with some sort of dark, pleasantly mordant sauce.

The girls' pudding of banana split erased their unhappy starter. The bill--128 euros--was the highest amount I've ever spent in one go in a restaurant. I had to improvise a bit when the first card I tried was declined.

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ciborium

Jenny was very pleased with her hairslide from Carnac market. I was too.

We went to our usual crêperie. On the table behind us was an Irish couple and their two young children. I felt some sympathy for them, remembering the rather determinded holidays that can feel like work when you're with toddlers. I helped them with the menu. All they wanted to do was to avoid "strong" cheese. Afterwards, I went over for a little chat as we were leaving. On his plate was a fastidious island of egg yolk, around which he'd cut his galette.

Back in town, Kirsty, Fiona (aged fourteen) and I ambled along the seafront to its best bar. When Kirsty ordered a pichet of cider, the waiter bought three glasses.

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aristolochia

Mainly though, I read, dozed, drank and swam in the sea--which was an almost hallucinogenic aesthetic experience just before sunset, waved in a massive glistering and shimmering, feeling part of something luxurious and impossible, probably the closest I'll feel to anything spiritual in my life.

The other luxury was reading Huysman's Against Nature, a perfumed breviary of fin de siècle decadence, using the largest vocabulary I've ever encountered in a novel (although the word "novel" has to be bent almost to breaking point to accomodate Huysmans's work). I've noted down the scores of words unknown to me. Amongst these, "aristolachia" is a vagina-shaped plant formerly thought to aid abortion, which might be handy if "moechialogy"--the study of adultery--spilled over into its practice.

Back in Manchester Airport's "cafe" no-one's wearing a shift dress. Litter everywhere, picked at by a silent dark-skinned man with a grabber stick thing. The blacker the skin, the lower the income. Hectoring announcements from the train conductor in their strange intonation ("we will be calling at Lancaster"), announcing "station stops." Threats--which are never acted upon--that the "security services" will "destroy unattended luggage without warning." If only.

In Lancaster, I notice the Lefthanded Antiflappage Skirt Tug. It's used by girls who have taken an over-optimistic assessment of how their flimsy skirts can cope with the gusty weather round here and are anxious to police others' gaze to just that point short of knicker.

There are also Trina developments but I will report back later about that.