School trips eh?
Well, it was certainly a trip and she was certainly at school so…

When I was kicked out of Ursula’s house I decided to head back to the Sunny South of France, Nice in fact, the scene of so many fun adventures earlier that year. By this time it must have been well into October, so the summer season was well and truly over. Those of you that have had the chance to visit (or live in) a tourist town out of season will know what the atmosphere was like: the citizens had got the place back, tourists were tolerated but not pampered, many places were closed, those that weren’t were empty.

I headed for a house where I knew there would be a warm welcome of sorts. Melanie was 15 (you can’t see any sort of pattern appearing here can you?) and I’d got to know her during the summer as she used to hang out at the hostel where I had been living. As with the girl-of-my-dreams, Melanie smoked like a kipper, had a beautifully developed pair of norks and looked at least 18 in her tight jumpers and jeans. She had a wonderful figure, wild hair that frizzed at the least provocation and an interesting face with a prominent nose – as do I.

I had met her parents before and they were tres gentils but I hadn’t met her elder sister who was at the ‘fac’ (that’s uni to us or college if you’re a Merkin), but was looking forward to that pleasure. Turned out that Olivia was very like Melanie, but smaller, younger looking, and wore glasses; much less street-wise too.

Now, the funny thing was that when I had got to know Melanie, I spoke reasonable French for an Englishman, but since then, I had spent a couple of months in the company of Nass who was a Parisienne with Algerian parents, was funny, serious, generous, good company and a true ‘friend of the opposite sex’ like no other before or since. We were very much on the same wavelength and because she spoke no English at all, my French had REALLY come on leaps and bounds in her company (I even had a Parisian accent).

Long story short, I was stuck in Melanie’s flat with her cousine and they were talking about me in a derogatory way thinking I couldn’t understand. Melanie said something like:
“I wonder if he has any bollocks” in fairly fast slangish French, and I surprised her by replying in perfect French slang, “If you’re not sure, I could whip them out now for you, if you like”, which surprised them more than a little.

[Sorry, run out of time – really busy week, will post this now and carry on another week.] Eventually, I had to leave Nice, went to Innsbruck for Thanksgiving then tried to find work in the French Alpine ski resorts, failed and ended up travelling to Crete. Will pick the story up when the subject allows.

Love you lots,

Che.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Tue 12 Dec 2006, 17:44, Reply)