Garden parties in Le Conquet (the most Westerly region of Northern France) are not rushed affairs, as I was to find out last Sunday. They begin at midday with kisses and introductions, and end after midnight with kisses and regrets that there aren’t more hours in a day. Gay tablecloths and floral arrangements adorn the tables, two of which are under the cool of the trees while another table is shaded by parasols; hats are provided for all and sundry, for protection as the shade changes with the movement of the sun across the sky. Courses arrive after just the right intervals, when one is starting to feel a little peckish again, and Champagne corks pop and wine bottles appear before you as if by magic. The genial hosts smile wonderfully as they offer you more of this or that and you feel that they genuinely appreciate you being there.

One of the joys of being at a twelve-hour party is that you may move around freely between courses, so, if perchance you made a mistake by at first sitting next to a slightly reticent or dull person at the wrong table, all is not lost – there are ample opportunities to make a move to a more interesting spot (on another table) without making undue haste and causing offence. Indeed, guests, and hosts alike, flit from place to place, alighting sometimes for a minute or perhaps for an hour or more where the conversation is most captivating.

Quite by chance, some time after our first course, and at a point when my conversation with the interesting Steven Spielberg doppelganger from Paris ran thin, I found myself in a most peculiar situation. I had moseyed over to the liveliest table and sat myself next to the vivacious English-speaking Francoise who used to be a member of the local repertory company, and who was apt to cross her eyes whenever she found something funny, which was quite often. Chris sat to my left but he was a bit quiet because he had toothache. Guy, the Portuguese market-trader and fisherman (one of my buddies from the night before), sat at the other end of the table and raised his glass to me every so often as a special gesture to remind me of our pleasant conversation in Franglais the previous evening; sometimes, with his glass raised up to me, he would call out, “What’s my name again Sally?”, and I would raise my glass and answer very slowly, “Acuna…Da Silva…La Pinto…Guy” and he and many others would be thrilled and roar with laughter – they were easily pleased. Perhaps it wasn’t his real name after all?  Yet another course was about to be brought out to the tables when the three empty chairs directly opposite me were suddenly filled.

I can tell you I hardly knew where to look through the wine bottles! There was Renaud the osteopath (with whom I had developed a special bond the night before whilst sitting close on the sofa and drinking shots of banana liqueur); next to him was Franck, also an osteopath and business partner to Renaud; then there was Guy – not the Portugese fisherman – but the tall handsome doctor who looked like he had just stepped off a yacht in the South of France. The three just sat with their puppy-dog expressions as if begging for my attention and each time I looked at one the other two looked dismayed.

– “Sally…” began Franck.

– “Yes Franck,” I answered.

– “I thought we ‘ad an understanding,” tutted Renaud.

– “We have,” I winked back and he was happy again, at which point Guy the playboy looked bereft and I had to wink at him to restore his self-confidence.

– “Sally,” Franck persisted, “I love you!”

I winked at Franck in order to show my appreciation of his good taste. Renaud and Guy remonstrated with Franck and turned away in disgust.

– “Sally, I sink you like the handsome doctor,” Francoise showed a certain insightfulness and we clinked our wine glasses.

– “Oh yes, I do, but they’re all so nice I don’t know how to choose between them! I think I just love all French men!”

Francoise crossed her eyes and everybody laughed. Her husband, who is rather unassuming, looked at her with adoring eyes and he took her photograph. Well, understandably, she used to be a star in the local repertory company.

And what of the wives of the three hot boys? They were too busy flirting themselves to pay any notice. Aren’t the French marvellous? Cheers!

Ciao. I’m a bit worried about what I’m going to  tell you. Maybe I shouldn’t… but maybe it will be alright… What concerns me is that what I have to say might change your perception of me (assuming you had one).  What will you think of me? You see, I’d rather you imagine me as a glamorous and exciting mermaid than a cleaning woman or housewife. On the other hand, you aren’t Brad Pitt – are you? Does it really matter? Doesn’t Brad like a clean patio? He might be extremely interested to read this. Va tutto bene, okay…

Every winter the concrete paviors on our terrace patio get dirty, greenish and fungal; I don’t know exactly what it is but it’s very hard to remove, I should know because every summer I have to get it off  somehow. Anti-fungicide solutions have never solved our problem and Chris and I usually resort to good old elbow grease and detergents. Mermaids and their mates prefer to spend their summer days usefully engaged in cycling and picnics rather than scrubbing floors so last year we bought a water-pressure cleaner for the purpose and it still took the whole day between us to remove all the discolouration.

This morning I did it all myself, without getting housemaid’s knee (or even mermaid’s tail in my case), in about 3 hours… using thick bleach. Now it looks bellissimo (please excuse the Italian but since I’ve discovered the Italian detective series, “Montalbano”, I want to burst into Italian at every opportunity. Yes, I’m picking up the lingo – it’s a subtitled series!).

The Mermaid Easy Method:

Firstly, do not try to get it all off in one go – do it in workable sections. Wet one section, about 7 square metres in my case, and pour blobs of neat thick bleach on alternate wet paving slabs; then spread the bleach with a mop across the entire section. The reaction is almost immediate. If some areas are resilient, do it again and scratch with a small yard broom instead of the mop. Four litres of bleach cleaned our whole patio (over 20 sq mtrs). Obviously, be careful using bleach and don’t get it onto your cute shorts or your skin.

Shorts? Skin? If, like me, you want to make the most of the sunshine (though it will almost certainly cloud over whilst you’re out there), always wear a pair of shorts. I put on my cute, very short, blue and white spotty shorts and bikini top – well, I like to keep up appearances for the neighbours. You don’t want to look dowdy for them – do you? Chubby, yes – dowdy, no! Speaking of neighbours, Ron came out onto his terrace while I was working (glad I had my nice shorts on) and seeing him reminded me that I promised to keep my eye out for a new girlfriend for him. But I’ll tell you all about that next time…

Here are some before, during and after photographs of the Mermaid Easy Method in practice. Arrivederci!