It's been an eventful time of late, one could almost call it "hectic" but comparative to other jobs and lifestyles, thang is probably a little too strong.
Still, since Ruth departed we have left holiday mode behind and, for eight days at least, we worked fairly solidly to get the place up to scratch for Ros' visit.
I haven't yet outlined the character who is our boss yet for fear that I would not do her justice, yet on our second encounter with her I feel better placed to do so.
Undoubtedly she is the poshest person I have ever met. It simply oozes out of her skeletal frame which emerges from a cloud of cigarette smoke at almost every moment. The villa is littered with ornate ashtrays, we wondered why there were so many, everywhere you turned until we spent five minutes with Ros.
She is constantly fraught, in a rush, on the phone, chain smoking, having the worst day ever after only three hours sleep. I'd say she needs to slow down at her age, but because of the amount of plastic surgery, it is quite hard to deduce what age that might be.
I'm not painting the nicest picture of a woman who describes her work ethic in the garden as "working like a black". She's startlingly old school and not without her quirks, clearly at odds with having to rent her property out to holiday makers who will likely mess the place up and leave the grounds in the hands of amateur gardeners looking to have a pleasant summer like ourselves.
Yet she is kind of admirable in her forthright manner, scattish teaching methods, fleeting hurried visits. She is likely a little off the rails, is held up seemingly only by two dozen cigarettes and Coke Zero's a day. Definitely a little mad, possibly on the verge of a breakdown or possibly a heart attack. I like her.
We survived her 24 hour visit with husband John comfortably enough, although being drive two and from the airport by each was anything but. John has a glint in his eye, the easy manner of a man who had succeeded at life, knows what he wants and how to get it. If that happens to be getting to Marseille airport in under one hour and twenty minutes then he will, and i will cling on for dear life all the way.
Weaving through traffic at 100mph was the second life threatening happening in one week. Earlier in the week having discovered the trials and tribulations of attempting to dispose of a cracked, heavy, two inch thick glass table top.
Having lifted it only to discover it too heavy to hold, then dropping it and it smashing into a million small pieces, I then at a moment of weakness having lugged a heavy wheelbarrow up the four steep levels from the garden shed to the terrace, proceeded to catch my leg on a particularly large and sharp piece of glass protruding from one of the neatly stacked piles we had gathered it.
I can imagine the sensation being similar to that of someone slowly slicing your leg open with a knife. Hell, no, a sword! It was a slow and agonizing moment. My scream must have been loud and unlike any I've previously produced (though incredibly manly I'm sure), because Natasha appeared incredibly quickly to see me clutching my leg, blood spilling down it into my sock and trainer.
Fortunately the initial bleeding was short lived, the wound wider than it was deep. But so wide it couldn't be pushed together.
Stitches would be necessary. They cost me €14.72. My stay at Gassin Hospital could have lasted no longer than an hour. I wasn't even in the waiting room long enough to send a text to my worried partner. So France does medical care really well, who knew? I hope to not find out again.
I stayed off the leg for a day or two and relayed to Aunt Rosamund that work in the garden would have to slacken off for a few days. Convenient when we were already playing catch up from our holiday week with Ruth!
Anyway we came out unscathed, Ros has returned to her busy, mysterious world in London and the leg is healing. Life rebuffs to what has become normality here.
No comments:
Post a Comment