Les Vacances- Part I

My adventure began with a trip up to Norwich for the annual Alan Partridge Convention, handily enough it was held at the airport hotel, which made it pretty convenient for Rupert to collect me and the break to begin. Despite getting off to a somewhat melancholic start (the Alan Partridge tie and blazer badge packs sold out before I could get one) Bury St. Edmunds proved the perfect tonic. Home to notables such as Peter Charalmbos, James Keys and Rupert, it's a picturesque English market town that has a solid reputation for producing beer, housing the Greene King brewery. We ambled about the town, managed to squeeze in a pint in "The Nutshell" reputedly Britain's smallest pub:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutshell

Buoyed up with Dutch courage I managed to negotiate a discount on a blue pinstriped jacket I'd seen earlier in the day. The previous tailor had stated he may be able to throw in a pair of socks for free, however, I managed to cajoule the manager into knocking off a few guineas. I stayed the night at Rupert's house before we left and kept an eye on Koopa, Rupert has a tendency to neglect him, he clearly needs handling every hour to check whether he is asleep etc...

After we finally managed to overtake mongy, who, was once again plodding along in the middle lane, we arrived first at the port but were soon met by the Brighton Boys, Scott and Callum. After a fairly uneventful crossing, we arranged to meet at the Chateau which we were staying at to break our journey up. Rupert and I managed to circumvent the debris littering the road, alas George was not so fortunate, they endured a few hours of garage related pigeon english as they decided how best to replace two of G's wheels. Meanwhile, Rupert and I kicked back with a few G&T's at the Chateau, rowed around the moat before picking up a couple of cases of champage from the production outlet nearby. The chap who gave the tour of the premises and explained the manufacturing process did so entirely in French, however, Rupert and I purloined an English middle aged balla who was on his way back to St Tropez with his son to translate for us. Picked up a couple of cases and a Magnum.

When the boys arrived we all tucked into the restaurant’s tasting Menu which was very good. We also got involved with some vintage port which went down rather better than out request for Port Salut cheese, the waiter huffily informed us that this was “Supermarket cheese” and stormed off to go and peel some more onions. We set off for Villefranche the following morning in jolly spirits.

Once again the tortoise triumphed, with Rupert’s mighty Almera beating the Scooby to the finishing line. We were greeted by the housekeepers, Elektra and her husband Victor. What an eccentric couple they were, well we’ve not had our deposit back yet, and after last years farce I’d better move swiftly on before I tell of racist jibes, violent outbursts, death threats etc.

The Villa itself comprised of two self contained unit. Initially I thought that this would lead to a rather more segregated affair than last year, however, this didn’t really prove to be the case as the group was more divided upon ideological principles, such as how awful “Two jacks in the hole” is, rather than by domestic constraints. We all set up our computers downstairs in the living room eager to shoot for loot for the coming month. We were soon joined by Steven, regular readers may recall him from my Australian tales.

To be continued...