Sunday 1 July 2012

You're never too young to start


This postcard from eldest grandson arrived yesterday, about a week after he did.  He was on holiday with his girlfriend (who bears a striking resemblance to the girl above, but she is Swedish) at her parents' house in the south of France.

On the reverse, he tells of how he was relaxing on the terrace at Tourrettes-sur-Loup, which I now refer to as 'Tourrettes-sur-FUCK YOU!', but I don't know if he gets the joke.

He chose this card because - he says - it reminded him of the time when we all went down to the Carcassonne area of France when he was about the same age as the boy in the picture, to attend a young friend's wedding.  Stop me if I have already told you this story.  Ok, I'll be brief.

Because of the extremely long delay between the ceremony and the banquet, the extreme heat and the fact that - in order to keep us happy until dinner was served - several thousand gallons of the local and delicious 'blanquette' was poured for the thirsty guests (we were in the heart of a vineyard in the heart of the Limoux area), I became as drunk as I have ever been in my life, and that was before the evening had even started.

When we were finally ushered into the marquee, I noticed that each enormous trestle-table had about 5 loaded, disposable cameras on it, so - not knowing the protocol - I instructed the lad to gather as many of them as he could carry and creep under the white table-cloths to take photos up the skirts of all the women.  To this he readily agreed, then rushed off and set to work.

For about half an hour, I noticed bright flashes coming from under all the various tables, exactly opposite the place where a woman was seated, and shortly afterwards, the boy returned with about 20 spent cameras, which I put into a bag to take home to England.

When back home, I took the cameras to a photo shop, and paid about £100 to get them all developed and printed.  When I picked up the results (there were 24 shots in each camera) not ONE of them showed anything other than a vast expanse of darkness, and only about 3 contained blurry images of what might have been knees.

The boy above seems to be shooting straight into the sun, so I wonder if the girl was portrayed in silhouette.

H.I. often recalls how - when a slinky, well-dressed girl of about 25 years old and on holiday in Italy with her husband - she received constant unwanted attention from the menfolk of that country, and not just the men.  She says that she went past a pram with a male baby in it that was too young to walk, and the baby actually gave her a long and lascivious stare followed by a knowing wink!

When our (now 20 year-old) lad mentioned mentioned what this picture reminded him of, he scrawled a reference to it and me in a corner of the card, which ends with,  "... dirty bastard!"  He's known me all his life.

5 comments:

  1. You, Tom ,are the grandfather every grandson dreams of and every offspring fears will be the grandfather to their children.

    Thanks again for the kind salute to our farm and our T-shirts. I am honored you chose to post the rarest of pics by shooting yourself in our garb. And worry now about Vistaprint, I told them their CEO would be the main ingredient in my next bar of soap if the harrassment did not stop. If the Fried Green Tomatoes gals can get away with it so can I

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    Replies
    1. 'The Mista-Vista Bar' - I can smell it now...

      It's being the Grandad from Hell as keeps me young - or so I tell his mother.

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  2. a dirty bastard.....?
    "surprised?"
    I think not

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  3. Long after you are gone, stories about you will live on in your family.

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