Ile De Re: Plastic Gorgonzola (Sunday 18/06/2017).

September last year gave us a succession of warm, sunny days, tickled by a light breeze.

After yesterday’s Odyssey, sleep lasted until 4.30am, before somebody announced loudly to the sleeping denizens of Rue de la Place, that the toilet was the wrong shape and that consequently the pee-pee train had not so much arrived at the wrong destination as been horrifically derailed on a brutal mountain switchback.

Knowing that the prospects of further sleep were receding more rapidly than the Larsen ice shelf, we made coffee and admired the rising sun before it had had the opportunity to push the needle above 22°C.

The forecast anticipated temperatures that would blister paintwork so we busied ourselves industriously before the heat of the day with Friday’s newspaper and everything vaguely sweet that the previous visitors had left.

Eventually, decency prevailed and the boulangerie finally capitulated to our sulky patisserie hungry loitering.

In the absence of Jenny, our resident Babel Fish, the familiar game of linguistic cat and mouse played itself out at the pastry counter, once again. Having failed to oil our Anglo-Franco synchromesh through lack of use, the translation engine over revved, the conjugation clutch smoked and the oil rings of mutual understanding spewed oily black recrimination across the piece.

Eventually, it was only increasingly wild gesticulation and the good fortune of a glass fronted patisserie cabinet that saved us from breakfasting on air dried wild boar testicles.

Ominously, the children’s carousel (which was integral to our decision to return) lay motionless under tarpaulin with no sign of Dominic, to whom we had previously transferred a significant proportion of our holiday cash reserves in September.

The Carousel.

Dominic - Ca ne marche pas!

Instead we hired bikes, this time abandoning the towing trailer for the children and replacing this with something akin to a three wheeled ice cream van, sadly without an engine.

Or for that matter, any ice cream.

Three Wheeler Dealers.

To suggest that the handling characteristics of this pantechnicon were poor would suggest that it had any handling characteristics whatsoever.

It was a reverse tricycle with two front steering wheels and a turning circle only marginally better than the Death Star. In the name of safety, the whirling front spokes lay within easy reach of the children’s inquisitive fingers. In the name of comfort, all vestiges of comfort had been unceremoniously stripped, leaving something more in keeping with a medieval implement of torture with a natty black enamel finish.

As the others sailed effortlessly into the distance, my thighs began to burn after the first few revolutions with any attempt at standing on the pedals (to generate extra leverage), resulting in an immediate and stomach flipping lurch into the path of vehicular death.

Clearly, this was going to kill me either by ramming us all into the oncoming traffic or bursting something essential but wholly irreparable inside my chest (or my skull).

Attempts to repeat last year’s goat hat eating photo opportunity were cruelly denied by the absence of any hat eating goats at the cheese barn adjacent to the bike hire shop. The rapidly scrawled notice on the door might have said that they were closed for renovations, but it could equally have conveyed a plea to any English goat worriers that they should nob off and find somebody else’s livelihood to ruin.

As is so often the case in life, bitter disappointment is rarely accompanied by a satisfying reversal of fortunes but on our return to Le Pub Presqu’ile for post rental refreshment, Dominic had appeared, removed the tarpaulin and fired up the carousel.

His hard-nosed proposition demanded €2 for a ticket to ride but only €15 for enough tickets to keep the children continuously occupied for the foreseeable future and certainly to the end of the week. Sensing a bargain, I nonchalantly peeled off the notes and slapped them down on his kiosk top with the insouciance of a man who sees his destiny ahead of him and rather likes the cut of its jib.

Dominic laid out a wedge of carousel tickets in return and perhaps, had I not been distracted by his generously cavalier method of counting to 20, I might have noticed the manic twinkle in his eye.

The children had a spin but little were we to know that Dominic would not be making a further appearance for the rest of the holiday. Sophie may have sensed this imminent chicanery and, in her own pre-emptive manner, parted Dominic from his Mickey Mouse teasing stick before lobbing it impudently in the direction of the fountain.

Bypassing the €50 rotisserie chickens cooking slowly in the midday market we rectified last year’s booking fiasco and lunched on galettes and crepes at Route du Sel by the church in order to give Alex a further opportunity to smear his food rather than eating it.

They said "Monsieur, try the cider".

I said "I would be delighted".

What I should have said was "No thank you very much. It's not very nice and is not improved one iota by sticking a slice of apple on a stick in it".

Sadly, the best stinging retorts never come until I am fabricating the story at a later date.

French Cidre: Val De Rancid.

After a suitable period of recuperation, we braved the almost insufferable afternoon heat and retreated to the coastal breezes of Plage de la Pergola. Tom had the foresight to bring his garden spade and so last year’s pitiful sandcastles were quickly eclipsed by something on an altogether grander scale.

The trenches deepened and the walls rose to dizzying heights and for a moment it looked like we may have created something permanent and immovable. However, the tide surged in and within 30 minutes, the surf which had previously required a camel train to reach, was threatening to destroy the finest piece of French castle building undertaken since Krak des Chevaliers.

Krak des Chevaliers.

As only middle-aged men can, we dug deeper and piled higher before reinforcing with rocks that would have herniated the less formidable. We bought time at the cost of strained muscles and grievous blisters but eventually all that was left was a flooded and concealed trap for the unwary for which we rightly abdicated all responsibility before heading home (after leaving the customary 'Work in Progress' sign to deter looters).

Travaux Encours.

Work in Progress.

Having scrupulously failed to realise that the shops in Loix close in the morning, at lunchtime, in the afternoon, in the evening and at weekends, we were left without provisions. Extensive foraging in the locality turned up three takeaway pizzas and a distinctively un-French take on Domino’s dipping sauce, in no small way enhanced by generous quantities of plastic Gorgonzola.

We played cards until the mental arithmetic began to falter and discussed next year’s holiday plans by which time the kids will be five years old and fully as capable of ramming a Venetian quayside with an expensive yacht as any veteran Day Skipper