Can anyone who belongs to a gospel choir contact me ASAP, I need someone to hallelujah in harmony so that the whole of the south-east knows that I avoided sunburn for 14 whole days. Normally I look like a Neapolitan ice cream come mid August. But this is 2013 baby, whack some aerosol cream on my head and call me Dame Blanche.
With that aside, lets just address the lack of welcome party at the airport on my arrival. I excepted better of you. I mean really. Despite this frankly shoddy performance, lets both pretend that we’ve got an awkward car journey home to do, and let me regale you with my tales aplenty.
Days 1-3 of Team Johnson Fun Bonding were spent pretending not to notice the fact that we were in the midst of a forest fire zone, and were therefore likely to have approximately the entire sea, including the odd slightly confused diver, dumped upon our unsuspecting heads at any given moment. There was also a nightly wrestle between wanting to go and party at the r@ve house across the valley, and not wanting to walk up the worlds largest hill to get there. Despite this, you’ll be glad to know that I still achieved a nearly constant state of reclination.
By day 4 my NBFFL (noo best frend 4 lyf) was a frog, whom I named Alfonzo. On day 5, I learned of his harrowing backstory, and decided it was probably time to get out of the house. What a tease that frog was. Less Imaginative Sibling tried to name him Freddy, but we came to the conclusion that it just didn’t quite do justice to Alfonzo’s colourful personality and playful wit.
Day 6 birthed the morning upon which we discovered the flashy bear claw salad servers. Four-six hours later, and we’d worked out why you never see a bear eating salad. This also explains their perpetual grumpiness, which we have now attributed to permanent low blood sugar.
Having enjoyed approximately 144 hours of relaxation, I awoke in the small hours of day 7 to the prompt conclusion that our house was indeed haunted and/or being burgled. Rising from below came what sounded like a chipmunk being trodden on by a member of slimming world in a stiletto, followed by what I imagine a cartoon bear to sound like, were it mourning in slow motion. (Which we told the plumber in fluent French the next morning, who probably went home and told his wife that some English people had been done good and proper by google translate.) Within twenty seconds I had decided that between one and three members of my family were being killed in their beds. First things first, I located my pyjama bottoms. I’ve seen enough CSI to know that you do not want to star in an episode entitled Knickerless in Nice. Next I did the brave thing and sat on my bed staring at the door for 15 minutes. At 2.20 am, I finally summoned my courage and crept downstairs, ready to confront our attackers, armed with an iPhone 4 some impressive panda eyes. Luckily for me, my father was already on the scene, and had contained our attacker, which took the form of a creaky tap. Which, in retrospect, is still a worthy opponent and efficient destroyer of both iPhones and make-up smudges. All things considered, it was a pretty harrowing night. Eventually I did manage to fall asleep, where I dreamt that Jesse Tyler Ferguson taught me to build a Gerbil assault course using breadcrumbs and masking tape. He’s still not tweeted me back with his opinion on what this could mean.
As a special “well done for being brave treat,” we took a daddy daughter daytime day 7 bonding trip to E.Leclerc the next day, laden with approximately 700 Casino ‘bags for life.’ Just because we Cannes. (If you didn’t give at least a dim courtesy chuckle, either google the names of French supermarkets, or punch yourself in the face.)
On day 8 we heard tell of a new monster down our neck of the woods. The local children refer to it alone as, “she of the reddened face.” I may or may not have also taken up jogging just before this happened.
On day 9 I made a new frog friend. We called him Toulouse, because he made cat noises whenever people came near. This, we decided, was probably to fool the French types into thinking he wasn’t a frog and therefore dissuading them
from relieving him of his little leggies.
Day 10. A valuable lesson to be learned. No sound can instill fear into the hearts of brave men more efficiently than that of an unseen mosquito.
By day 11 at least 70% of my body was one huge bite, as a result of the stealthy attack of the previous night.
On night 12 we had thunder and lightening. It was very very frightening (me… Mama Mia Mama Mia Mama Mia Figaro) Luckily, my mother is basically Julie Andrews in both Mary Poppins AND The Sound Of Music. And, as we have learned, you’re never too old to play bed swap if the elements are against you and you happen to be sporting a matching pyjama/ henna tattoo. You must, however, also live in a house where no one will threaten to attach you to the pool Hoover if you start singing about whiskers on kittens in the small hours.
By the evening of day 13 a nice lady in a tiny backstreet shop had offered to sell me her “ass milk soap,” which I will let you make your own minds up about. Then I had to sit at an adjacent table to a man wearing a Victorian swimsuit. It’s weird, but something about being able to see other people’s nipples tends to put me right off my escalope. We then had an evening of jazz thrust upon us by a man who looked like a slightly Frencher Chris Moyles. Given that the main attractions of the one street town seemed to be the soap and honey shop, and the durex machine behind the town hall, there truly was no escape. The pain of our evening was made worse only by the fact that we’d decided it was a good idea to leave the house dressed as the Von Trapp family. The hills were alive with the sound of rusty trumpets and my assorted foot related complaints. (I am all over the Sound of Music references this evening. I’m like a cloud that you can’t catch or pin down. I’m an unsolvable problem. You’d almost think my name was Maria…ella.)
Day 14 saw our return to England, home of the easy accessible, reasonably priced mobile Internet. “Welcome home,” our little house said, “Your fridge is now a mound of gently whirring fungus. We can’t explain how that happened. You might want to befriend the dettol. Nice to see you though. You’re one of the few people who can work a sunglasses tan and still look super sassy.”
That is The French Holiday according to Belle, chapters 1-14 (written during a 12 hour delay at a tiny Greek airport) (which will explain the delirium.) Thank you, and goodnight.
Xx
Sunsets And Suspicious Parents. 