A rare e-mail arrived today from Dad. "Congratulations on your good news (Mum told me)", it reads. Congratulations? Good news? I cannot imagine what this good news of mine could be. At best I presume that I have received some good news and promptly forgotten it. The good news is a mystery and the bad news is the loss of my previously pretty infallible memory.
In other bad news, we awoke to find our old-fashioned, peaceful neighbourhood spoiled and saddened this morning after a brick was thrown through the window of a shop on this street overnight. The owner has pasted over the breakage with a handwritten sign, marked out in the bold and deliberate hand of the vengeful, "Would whoever smashed my window be man enough to come and see me?" Sympathy for the owner is one thing, concern at the vigilante awoken in him by this incident is another. A more visible police presence is critical in areas such as this, where commercial, residential and retail properties stand happily alongside one another. This police presence, so far conspicuous by its absence, is required to prevent certain quarters from becoming hubs for recreational vandalism or worse.
In France today les bleus are celebrating Bastille Day, the 219th anniversary of the day on which the prison was broken open and its seven inmates set free. Contrary to popular belief, the Marquis de Sade was not one of the seven, having been transferred from the Bastille shortly before its storming. We, however, celebrated yesterday with a late breakfast of brioche, croissants, Nutella, Bonne Maman jam and bowls of hot chocolate and fresh coffee followed at supper time by bloody steaks in a buttery mushroom sauce, French beans and tarte au citron. Unfortunately the designated bottles of Burgundy and champagne remain unopened thanks to a very un-Gallic sanctimoniousness regarding the avoidance of a Monday morning hangover, not to mention overindulgence in assorted bottled beer at the beach barbecue and subsequent housewarming party on Saturday.
SC
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