Day 354 (Sunday)

After such a long day yesterday we had a lovely lie in and a very lazy day today. There were two monster cruise ships in the bay and we pretended to care who won the Grand Prix! I did a little bit of preparation for tomorrow and some pottering and gardening but not much else.

My sweet Williams are looking the best they have ever looked

 I took a cutting from my lovely uncle Howard's garden before he died and I had them every year in London since. When I had to give my garden away to friends when we moved here I just brought one stem and hid it in my toilet bag and I’m so pleased it worked.

As we did very little today I thought I’d give you some more Peter Mayle thoughtful insight and this time it is more about ‘Fanny’ and boules.

 I would love to claim the following photos as my own but I can’t – good old Google images.

The version of boules played today was invented 100 years ago in a town called La Ciotat. Until then, the style of play had been a running throw, but on this eventful day, one of the players stood still when he threw, his feet together, or pieds tanques. Was it fatigue, idleness, an ingrowing toenail, or arthritis? Whatever the reason, it caught on and the new technique was then used regularly on the court outside the local bar.

And who was behind the bar? None other than the original Fanny, a lady of considerable charms and a sweet, accommodating nature. If, in the course of a game, one of the players should be in despair after a terrible run of luck, he would leave the court, go into the bar, and collect his consolation prize: a kiss from Fanny. In time, this became part of the vocabulary of boules. Today, if you hear one of the men on the wall sigh and say, Te, il a encore baise Fanny,’

he’s not making a romantic observation, but commenting on the player’s failure to score. Not long ago I saw a set of boules displayed in a shop window that were so technologically advanced, so perfectly weighted, that they were guaranteed to be ‘Anti-Fanny.’