St Tropez, rain and wrinkled behinds

The next portion saw us in an enforced prolonged stay in a very soggy campsite in La Lavendou. It rained for 2 days without a break, and the mini-Hitler of the tiny field we stayed in rode around pretentiously in a golfbuggy and muttered about the bike taking up too much room, and our washing being spread on exactly the wrong washing line. He dreamt ambitiously of big manicured campsites with picket fences.

There were a few deranged rain-sodden campers about, but no one else in tents apart from us. We still managed to make ourselves some good stove-grub and kept the tent warm and smelling of stew for the two days. We drank cheap red wine from boxes and listened to Nina Simone. It was all rather nice apart from the smell of our socks that wouldn’t dry.

The rain cleared on the 3rd day for long enough for us to make it to St Tropez, and we drifted past the amazing restaurants feeling like hobos, and sat ourselves next to giant yachts with their oddly sterile-looking young crews. I perused a menu and found a 24 Euro Roast Beef option. There were many haughty, stringy looking walnut-hued women cruising in tight white nautical outfits and oversized handbags, and we went past one chic maisonette where three matching spaniels with centre partings and straightened fringes sat looking out morosely from their over-potted yard. I spotted an 80yr old cosmetically-enhanced Madame in all-over matching purple velour with diamantes on her pert wrinkled behind, carrying a puffed up Chihuahua of some sort with a pink ribbon.
The above is one persons house-island

It was fun in a scary way. I was pleased to leave for my smelly ol’ tent.

Post St-Tropez we were in need of a little France, and headed to the nearby little town of Hyeres for an evening stroll, not expecting much. Not expecting much often works wonders, and it was a very romantic, very cliched movie-set stroll, with winding hill-streets and little delicatessen shops straight out of ‘Chocolat’, and shiny cobbles (polished possibly by the night-time strolls of young lovers. Or possibly not. Possibly polished by stray dogs balls as they scratch themselves across the ground with worms, who knows. Nice though.) All the delicatessen and little boutiques were shutting up shop and the owners were calling to each other across the lanes (‘Look at these divvocks, shall we open up again and sell them over-priced olives?’ etc), and we walked back down towards the square where for some reason there were a number of shisha bars, with huddles of North African guys sitting outside and making everything look very exotic.