It was a pretty hazy morning. At least it was pretty hazy inside my head. The winds were blowing well but I needed some internal breezes to clear up my cranium a little. But the Goddess needed her morning offering, so I made my way down to the boulangerie in the Village, practiced my French some more and made it back with enough pastries to avert any potential thunderbolts of displeasure.

WithThe Goddess partly satisfied I put in my mandatory 20 laps of the pool and then we headed for the beach. Like the day before it was pretty blustery to start with. Maybe not up to Winnie The Pooh levels but substantially windy, nevertheless. The morning was uneventful enough but things changed up a bit at lunchtime. We walked down to Le String to reacquaint ourselves with Luc & Jean-Claude and to wish JC a happy birthday. Chloe & Thierry were already sitting there and then we were six, with Luc a whirlwind behind the bar, dealing with the bar and restaurant orders while being as convivial as his workload allowed. We ordered some food and a platter of cod fritters appeared which were some of the best things we've ever tasted. Chloe & Thierry headed off and the next thing I knew, JC tapped me on the back and pulled me off for a massage. I had told him the previous evening about a problem I had been having on my shoulder and he decided that he could work some magic on it and indeed he did. This was my first massage ever and I didn't know what to expect. Let me just say that the guy has magic hands. My problem wasn't gone but was much, much diminished by the time he was done with me.

Talking of problems, however, I had completely deserted The Goddess, leaving her as the lone single female at the bar. Luc made sure that the drinks kept coming her way and by the time I emerged from JC's salon, an hour had passed and my bride was feeling no pain. After bidding fair well to our new friends we strolled back up the beach and bumped into Bill & Elaine, the legends of TTOL, and their friends. Some more breeze was shot there before we got back to our chairs and decided (well, The Goddess decided) that we needed to cool off and bob about in the waves a little. I went along with this idea (what the hell else was I gonna do?) and we then bumped into Larry & Cleta who were doing some bobbing of their own. After that, it started to get pretty blustery again and we were being somewhat sandblasted but we're made of sterner stuff and we toughed it out.

After finally quitting the beach, we drove out to Simply Market to pick up some provisions for this evening's dinner. The plan was a quick and cheerful plate of Spaghetti Carbonara -- one of my party pieces. That plan changed pretty quickly. We were sitting around the outside bar and some more breeze was being shot with C&T and E & J, the other guests, when Luc and JC arrived with bottles of rosé and plans to turn this into an impromptu celebration of JC's birthday. After a couple of bottles had gone down, I reckoned that I had enough of the essentIal ingredients to make a Carbonara big enough for all of us, which--with Thierry's help-- I duly did. By this time, The Goddess had discovered her second wind and was matching the others glass for glass. And so, food was eaten, wine was drunk and breeze was shot, in at least two languages, and the night wound to a wonderful close.

And now I sit here, toute seul ( although I'm not 100% confident I got that right) happy at the end of a really great day and considering one final swim before bed.