And our money, too, come to think of it.
Douceur de vivre
: that’s our motto (and yes, it does sound much better in French, but then we four are, I fancy, rather more enlightened in our enjoyment of luxury than the average couples who toast “the sweet life”).
This year we decided to experiment with a lesser island and go to Bexi. An island paradise, said the brochure. And so I suppose it was—in a way. Much less spoilt than Corfu and much nearer to a decent airport than Paxos. Villa Aglaia was pretty near paradise too. At first. Even my wife, who generally finds something to say about the washing arrangements or lack of them, approved the separate showers for each double bedroom, to say nothing of a water supply which actually did not run out. (Remembering that time outside Portofino!) Then the view was so extraordinary, right there on the cliffs; we would look towards Albania at night, and watch the moon rise. A thin crescent the night we arrived—amusing to be drinking retsina again,once the duty-free champagne ran out—but rapidly growing.
The moon: yes. Perhaps after all Dinah was right and the moon was to blame. In so far as anyone else was to blame. Certainly the moon appears to have been to blame for what started to happen on the beach. When the first campers appeared—one large grey tent under the olives and one girl who slept under an old boat—we even thought them quite picturesque; the girl anyway. “The local Samantha Fox” my wife dubbed her on one occasion, since she certainly had the most fantastic figure, the sort you could photograph for Page Three, as we could not help noticing since she seldom wore anything but a bikini bottom.
But “Samantha Fox” wasn’t quite right since Brigitte—that was actually her name—happened to be brown all over, having an amazing tan apart from having an amazing figure. As a matter of fact, I chatted to her quite a bit, in early mornings when no one else was around, and she was really very polite and friendly. Just a kid working her way around Europe as a waitress, taking a holiday on this beach in between. German probably—or was she Swedish? She had this special feeling about St. Peter’s, Rome, I remember, the square at St. Peter’s; she was absolutely determined to see the square. We had quite long talks about it.
Not when the others were around, however. Then, I have to say, the conversation was on a very different level. Well, we were on holiday. There was one famous occasion when Brigitte, topless, wobbled so perilously near Nick, sunbathing on the stones, on her way to the sea, that my wife and I both involuntarily looked towards Isabel.
The fact is that Isabel, who does sometimes bathe topless (but always discreetly up at the villa), does have the most lovely slim figure, everyone agrees about that. But if Isabel has a fault, it’s the fact that, good-looking woman as she is,Isabel is absolutely totally flat-chested. Perhaps that explains why I’ve never really fancied her, and perhaps that explains again why we’ve all holidayed so happily together. Be that as it may, on this occasion Isabel merely smiled in her most tranquil manner and murmured something like, “That she should be so lucky.” Later, in their bedroom, however, I can tell you that it was rather a less tranquil story. What a tigress! That serene, smiling woman. Still the end of it sounded rather satisfactory; at least from Nick’s point of view, and I assume Isabel’s as well.
All the time, the moon was getting stronger at night; I should say bigger, but was it the increasing strength of the moonlight rather than the size of the moon itself which was so unsettling? Could you believe moonlight could be so white? Even when the moon was only half-full. That strange cold ancient light illuminating the sea which washed the rocks beneath us, the sea stretching out to the Albanian coast in a vast series of black and silver eddies with that broad flare-path in their centre. We
Douceur de vivre
: that’s our motto (and yes, it does sound much better in French, but then we four are, I fancy, rather more enlightened in our enjoyment of luxury than the average couples who toast “the sweet life”).
This year we decided to experiment with a lesser island and go to Bexi. An island paradise, said the brochure. And so I suppose it was—in a way. Much less spoilt than Corfu and much nearer to a decent airport than Paxos. Villa Aglaia was pretty near paradise too. At first. Even my wife, who generally finds something to say about the washing arrangements or lack of them, approved the separate showers for each double bedroom, to say nothing of a water supply which actually did not run out. (Remembering that time outside Portofino!) Then the view was so extraordinary, right there on the cliffs; we would look towards Albania at night, and watch the moon rise. A thin crescent the night we arrived—amusing to be drinking retsina again,once the duty-free champagne ran out—but rapidly growing.
The moon: yes. Perhaps after all Dinah was right and the moon was to blame. In so far as anyone else was to blame. Certainly the moon appears to have been to blame for what started to happen on the beach. When the first campers appeared—one large grey tent under the olives and one girl who slept under an old boat—we even thought them quite picturesque; the girl anyway. “The local Samantha Fox” my wife dubbed her on one occasion, since she certainly had the most fantastic figure, the sort you could photograph for Page Three, as we could not help noticing since she seldom wore anything but a bikini bottom.
But “Samantha Fox” wasn’t quite right since Brigitte—that was actually her name—happened to be brown all over, having an amazing tan apart from having an amazing figure. As a matter of fact, I chatted to her quite a bit, in early mornings when no one else was around, and she was really very polite and friendly. Just a kid working her way around Europe as a waitress, taking a holiday on this beach in between. German probably—or was she Swedish? She had this special feeling about St. Peter’s, Rome, I remember, the square at St. Peter’s; she was absolutely determined to see the square. We had quite long talks about it.
Not when the others were around, however. Then, I have to say, the conversation was on a very different level. Well, we were on holiday. There was one famous occasion when Brigitte, topless, wobbled so perilously near Nick, sunbathing on the stones, on her way to the sea, that my wife and I both involuntarily looked towards Isabel.
The fact is that Isabel, who does sometimes bathe topless (but always discreetly up at the villa), does have the most lovely slim figure, everyone agrees about that. But if Isabel has a fault, it’s the fact that, good-looking woman as she is,Isabel is absolutely totally flat-chested. Perhaps that explains why I’ve never really fancied her, and perhaps that explains again why we’ve all holidayed so happily together. Be that as it may, on this occasion Isabel merely smiled in her most tranquil manner and murmured something like, “That she should be so lucky.” Later, in their bedroom, however, I can tell you that it was rather a less tranquil story. What a tigress! That serene, smiling woman. Still the end of it sounded rather satisfactory; at least from Nick’s point of view, and I assume Isabel’s as well.
All the time, the moon was getting stronger at night; I should say bigger, but was it the increasing strength of the moonlight rather than the size of the moon itself which was so unsettling? Could you believe moonlight could be so white? Even when the moon was only half-full. That strange cold ancient light illuminating the sea which washed the rocks beneath us, the sea stretching out to the Albanian coast in a vast series of black and silver eddies with that broad flare-path in their centre. We