If Hitler had been raped by a rat, the resulting runt would bear a strong resemblance to my daughter's boyfriend. His real name is Nicolas. I have to steel myself not to call him "Roland", after the cartoon character. There's no need to, really; the cartoon character is far more appealling. Ro-, sorry, Nicolas infests some dim wasteland 300 km away. Unfortunately, we've had him over here for the weeked. As of writing, there are still four hours and ten minutes before I'm shot of him. Alas, not literally.
I have already congratulated my daughter, an exceptionally perceptive human being, for detecting in Ro-, sorry, Nicolas qualities and virtues which have escaped everybody else; nature has not exactly over-endowed him with looks or intelligence.
In a vain effort to remain sane and not get arrested for ratticide, I begged
Cristina to come walking on the Luberon mountains with me.
It is bitterly cold here. The mistral has added a wind chill factor that would make liquid helium shiver. Cristina learnt the UK English expression "brass monkey" weather. The title of
this post cleared up any other doubts she might have entertained about how much I enjoy freezing my balls off half way up a mountain.
It's hard to capture good images when swear words steam out of your mouth and shatter into shards of ice on the iron-hard earth below. This is the best I could do. No doubt Cristina has done better.
The evening ended on a fitting note. I made Ro-, sorry, Nicolas, grate cheese. No one has yet worked out why, so I'll let you in on it: seeing a rat-like runt gnaw away at cheese - if only with a grater - panders to my sense of humour. Don't tell my daughter.
