Tousled perms .

The supermarket car park an icy obstacle course. In Britain Health and Safety would insist on the parking area being sanded and gritted . As if to prove my point a boy racer in a much resprayed, but currently purple , Peugeot slaloms across the lot. He brakes , slides unintentionally , then bumps into a tree. The teenage driver gets out, carefully examines his car , but remains oblivious to the tree. This is now leaning at a jaunty angle.

Return from the morning croissant run to find a somewhat haggard looking Monsieur Bay sitting at the breakfast table. He's been snowed in with Madame Bay since last Sunday . Wilf barks once, absent mindedly, at our visitor then snuggles down for a snooze in front of the fire.

Monsieur Bay has been sent to tell us that Madame Bay might not be joining us this week. Instead she'll be helping her daughter Sandrine in the hairdressers . The ' salon ' has been closed for ten days because of the snow and there's an ever lengthening backlog of clients clamouring to be looked after . '' It's an emergency '' he says without a hint of irony . Tousled perms put to rights .

Over a cup of coffee Monsieur Bay informs us that the Retired Gendarmes Association will be going to Athens at the beginning of March. They have got a '' really, really good deal at a hotel ". A picture of a group of retired French country policemen and their spouses wandering round the tear gas filled streets of Athens briefly flits across my mind . Monsieur Bay wonders aloud if it will be warm . '' Warm ? Probably " I reply delphically . No point in getting Madame Bay worried.