World War III.

What started as a disagreement between Madame Bay and the pool man over muddy feet and her freshly washed tile floors soon escalated into all out war. I missed the opening salvoes but by the time I came downstairs to find out what all the fuss was about Madame Bay and the pool guy were animatedly waving their arms about and shouting at each other - the words psychotherapeute and salope bouncing off the rafters. At this point a delighted Wilf decided to come down and join in the fun, his barking drowned out by this marvellous, unconstrained, pyrotechnic display of gallican insanity. No intervention on my part was going to stop them - indeed despite my best efforts at peacekeeping my presence went largely unnoticed. . With a final burst of decidedly ungentlemanly barrack room French the pool engineer , accompanied by the morose frog netting lad in blue bib overalls, stormed off taking the pool cover with them. Ah, the joys of French country life.

After that being in the house with Madame Bay was like being locked up with a grizzly bear with a sore head. Doors slammed, radios were turned up to full volume, the hoover was used to punish rather than clean the carpets , and vaguely discernible mutterings emanated from our chiffoned leviathan as she bustled about. Time for Wilf to join me in the car and go and buy some wine. Lesson #1 for a long and happy life : If you can cut the atmosphere with a knife then its time to make yourself scarce.

In a shop next to the wine merchants saw a doormat with a Scottie on it. Thought of picking it up for the Rocky Creek Scotties folk but as Wilf was about to christen the postcard rack we hurried off before embarrassment struck us. Thankfully, 'the font' will be back home this afternoon. Time enough for tempers to have cooled and for 'the fonts' diplomatic skills to be brought into play.