Provence<\/p>\n
Under late June\u2019s ferocious heat dome, during what turned out to be an almost eight-hour drive to join Martin Vander Weyer and his guests for three nights in the Dordogne, my car was telling me it wouldn\u2019t start due to a recurring AdBlue emissions fault. And my old phone was pegging out. At home I hadn\u2019t had hot water \u2013 or cold \u2013 for five days because the boiler was broken. There was also a leak. I had to turn the water on and off at the mains when I needed it. Life was turning out to be more troglodyte than I bargained for. Although the water, when it ran, was chilly, my brain was overheating even before the temperature hit 44\u00b0C in the Dordogne. Like the UK, I don\u2019t have enough income or savings to cover all my bills. Unlike the UK, I\u2019m just myself and lenders won\u2019t ignore my insufficient earnings. I can\u2019t borrow or remortgage. All I can do is work as hard as I can, pray and hope.<\/p>\n
I spent 50 years in the west of Scotland so, believe me, I can swear. But this was too much<\/p>\n
The following week I was in London for Spectator events and, staying with kind friends in Kew, forgot my worries for a few days. They\u2019re great company and live in a big house, full of paintings and comfortable sofas. I enjoyed running down the stairs. In the cave, the stairs between the three levels are almost boat-ladder steps and hazardous to the exuberant. After Harry Kane scored his second goal against DR Congo, the Spectator summer party sparkled even more than usual, and the night before we\u2019d all had a terrific time at the Proven\u00e7al wine tasting I helped to host. Not knowing when I\u2019d be back, I was sad to leave.<\/p>\n
The easyJet flight was packed. I boarded quickly and had an aisle seat in row four. Later, a large lady about my age in front complained imperiously to the tattooed Cockney stewardess that there was no room in the locker above her seat for her carry-on. She was politely told to stow the case further down the plane. Beside me in the middle seat was a pretty young woman in her mid- twenties. A slightly older, rich-looking man sat at the window. It turned out they\u2019d met before, and they struck up a conversation. Fear of a bird strike kept us on the tarmac for an hour after our scheduled departure. Soon I was regretting not bringing headphones.<\/p>\n
\u2018Fuck! No way!\u2019 \u2018Amazing!\u2019 \u2018Fuck! Fuck yes, of course I know them\u2026 Oh my God!\u2019 I spent 50 years in the west of Scotland so, believe me, I can swear. A few of my Glasgow chums swear mid-word, as in \u2018abso-fucking-lutely\u2019. But this was too much. The man beside the window told the girl that he travelled the world expanding business for the company he worked for. His list of countries sounded like a Kuoni travel brochure. Then the girl said: \u2018I\u2019m in yachting now, a new yacht is \u00a315 million to \u00a317 million, but if you want to make money you should be an estate agent. That\u2019s what I did. I made masses really quickly. If someone asked a question I didn\u2019t know the answer to, I just lied. All the time \u2013 made it up. So funny!\u2019 Even her flashy new companion baulked at this.<\/p>\n
After takeoff, the conversation moved from jobs and wealth to romance. The girl continued: \u2018When I was 21, I only went out with much older millionaires. I had a fantastic time. But my last boyfriend dumped me two weeks ago.\u2019 The man moved closer: \u2018More fool him\u2026\u2019 After the trolley came round, the couple became louder and shriller, bouncing around in their seats. The girl unknowingly flicked her hair in my face. \u2018I got soooo drunk on tequila once, my friends couldn\u2019t wake me up and called my mum to come and get me. She was really drunk as well and didn\u2019t want to, but she did. You should\u2019ve seen the two of us. Hilarious! I was lucky she was there. My parents travel all the time you see.\u2019 Halfway down France, I couldn\u2019t read, write or even think for the 1980s parody playing out beside me. A bird strike would have been welcome. Mercifully I saw the Alps appearing out of the window. Before long I\u2019d get away from this pair of honking barbarians.<\/p>\n
Halfway down France, I couldn\u2019t read, write or even think for the 1980s parody playing out beside me<\/p>\n
As the plane taxied towards the gate, the woman in front undid her seatbelt and leapt up, only to be quickly rebuked by the same no-nonsense stewardess. A few minutes later, when the seatbelt signs went off, I stood up. In search of her bag down the plane, the woman in front hurriedly clambered over her benign, Panama-hatted husband and bowled towards me. I wasn\u2019t much good at physics, but I do remember that F=ma (force equals mass times acceleration). Like some huge, unstoppable prop forward in pink Brora florals, the woman barrelled past, smashing into my shoulder and knocking me off my feet. The stewardess yelled and people tutted. No apology; the woman in pink just grinned, unrepentant. But the couple beside me were kind and sympathetic \u2013 and therefore forgiven. We were all young and daft once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Provence Under late June\u2019s ferocious heat dome, during what turned out to be an almost eight-hour drive to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,27253,2592,3286,44],"class_list":["post-803969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-easyjet","tag-france","tag-heatwave","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}