MADAME BUCKET

Valentines Ball Madame Bucket

Oh Romeo, oh Romeo where the blinking hell is that invite?

It’s that time of year again, when the higher echelons of our society expect the annual Valentine’s invite to the chateau, for terrible food and wine. I’ve normally RSVP’d by now, but I’m slightly concerned that I may have upset our local chatelaine! I did honestly think I was saving her, offering to lend her my gardener, leaving my catering contact’s details (and a few more business cards besides). Maybe, I went too far, pointing out the obvious layers of dust with my pale pink glove and suggesting a visit to Alcoholics Anon? I was recently at the chateau for our Annual General Meeting and as usual, Jinny was three sheets to the wind, full of homemade bramble gin and living on spaghetti squash, whilst apparently enjoying the French Good Life! My goodness, she is skin and bone! 44 acres to deal with, evil twin daughters and her husband still away with the army, away more than home and no wonder! The gossip is that her gardening and lifestyle column, in our favourite French country living magazine is more fabricated than fact and that her much younger husband has run off with the nanny! Money doesn’t always buy happiness or the ability to entertain, it would seem. Don’t get me started on the flea market interiors, they do photograph well though, in certain favourable lights! Never been a fan of too much tatt myself, unless it is of the champagne variety

I’m hardly surprised he has gone orf! I mean, when Jinny’s long-suffering husband was home, he would devote all his leave to fixing the roof, or the heating, or spend hours in the garden with his list of jobs to do. I know, decent staff are hard to come by here but still! In the evenings they would ‘entertain’ and Jinny would be completely squiffy by 7.30 pm, lipstick smudged, hair all over the place and stinking of the love of her life, her horse! Bless him though, he would spend his last days at home bulk cooking her vegan meals, otherwise she wouldn’t eat! Our Lady Jinny could burn a boiled egg frankly, so an invite to one of her ‘do’s’ always means taking several good bottles of half decent plonk and a few plates of heartier canapés! I’ve never got over the horror of ‘not a canapé in sight’ ever! What is the world coming to? These days, we always eat heartily before we visit, having previously been invited for ‘dinner’ and ‘dinner’ never actually materialised! Jinny, bless her, calls an olive drowned in a martini ‘supper’!

Oddly, February is one of the busiest months in my social calendar. I have so much to do for the year ahead, so many meetings which are so very welcome after the 7000 days of January! I simply can’t understand why France hibernates in January and I can’t get anyone out to play. It’s impossible! Instead, I start my annual post-Christmas ‘clean and decorate challenge’. Of course, I don’t do any of it myself, but I do manage the projects, very well in fact. I find time to re-write my diary, plan my social events, get all the dry cleaning done, oh and organise the larder. A lady needs engaging company and so, come February, even I eagerly await an invitation to the opening of an envelope!

Must dash!