Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
who worked for him. But socially, from time to time, it might be considered as somewhat
less than sparkling. He has the patience levels of a gnat and, having little understanding of
(or interest in) social niceties, he is frequently prone to diplomatic blackouts, leaving me to
mop up any interpersonal fallout.
He is completely content to be on his own and generally finds involvement with others
an irritating distraction. On the other hand he is fantastically generous and, when pressed,
can be remarkably charming. He has a heart of gold and it sometimes takes a little digging
to find; but I have never met a more loyal, dependable man. I adore him.
A combination of my naturally tolerant nature and my careers in Marketing (
Flower
Arranging
according to Jack) and Human Resources (
Shrinking Violet Arranging
also ac-
cording to Jack), has stood me in good stead in handling the many delicate social situations
that frequently arise whenever he emerges from his workshop.
A big tester of Jack's tolerance has been the introduction of our dogs. As far as he was
concerned they were 'an irritating waste of time and money'.
Sam is my beloved Australian Shepherd who we bought as an 8-week-old pup and
who has been cemented to my side ever since.
And Biff is a Norfolk Terrier, with axe-murdering tendencies, who came as a hand-
me-down from my mum when she fell seriously ill. Much to our horror we discovered that
he had several life-threatening illnesses and was living on borrowed time.
Referring to the regular vet bills, Jack claims that Biff is more expensive to run than a
1977 BMW 735i car. But, whilst they may be a little fat and definitely old, they're still our
boys. I was determined, therefore, that they, together with their medication, should accom-
pany us on our house-hunting trip.
For over six months I researched suitable properties and finally came up with a short-
list of twelve
domaines
. It had been a pretty tortuous process but was made much easier
when I discovered English-speaking estate agents.
One such fellow was named Count de Souter, an ageless man of questionable aristo-
cratic lineage and boundless energy. Jack regarded him as a significant irritation.
“You must call me Will…
ITSWILL
,” the Count had bellowed during an introductory
telephone call.
As a result, Jack and I consistently refer to him as 'ItsWill'.
Things, so far, had not gone well. Several encounters with mad
domaine
owners and a
cataclysmic storm that nearly wrote-off our car were just some of the reasons for this. We
still had six more estates to visit and I was becoming increasingly concerned that Jack was
ready to give up and go home.
So here we were with ItsWill, in the depths of Provence. His latest bombshell was not
good news. He was trying to persuade us to buy an enormous property that we had not se-
lected for viewing. It was so far off-scale from our original specification that it was nothing
less than mind-boggling.
