Or

Everything they told you was a lie

Golfe du Morbihan  ·  A Monday morning, suspiciously luminous

Chris and Jeffrey have departed for England. I have seen them to the door of the weekend, metaphorically speaking, and waved them off with the studied nonchalance of a man who has absolutely nothing to prove and two free days in which to prove it. The port, this morning, is mine. The café crème is hot. The sun — and I say this with the solemnity it deserves — is shining for the third consecutive day in Brittany.

Three days. Three. The meteorological equivalent of spotting a unicorn riding a second unicorn. The locals are deeply suspicious. I have seen them glancing skyward with the haunted look of people who know, on a cellular level, that something will have to be paid for. I choose instead to take the sunshine at face value, as a reasonable adult, and order a second coffee.

“I did not succumb in buying a car at the auction — though I had a couple in sight. This is called self-restraint. It is, I understand, a virtue. I remain unconvinced.”

The weekend itself was, by any sensible measure, a success. The classic car show — our stated reason for being here, the alibi around which all other pleasures were tastefully arranged — was small but genuinely good. The kind of show where each car has a story, and every story involves a man in a garage for seventeen years and a wife of saintly patience. I exercised remarkable fiscal discipline at the auction. Remarkable. I shall not dwell on it further.

Saturday morning’s four-hour boat tour of the Golfe du Morbihan was, without question, the highlight. The Gulf is, for the uninitiated, a near-landlocked sea sprinkled with small islands the colour of a watercolour that took longer to dry than expected — in the best possible sense. Some of the islands are simply beautiful. Some of the properties on them are the sort that make you briefly recalculate every decision you have ever made, then order another glass of something and make your peace with it.

The evenings were spent in the way evenings in Brittany ought to be spent: circulating through bars at aperitif hour with the professional dedication of people conducting important field research, followed by dinners at which nothing disappointed. The microbrewery where we lunched on both days deserves particular mention — I shall return this afternoon, ostensibly to say goodbye, truthfully because the beer is excellent and I am not ready to be responsible yet.

A brief note on absence: Patrick and Josiane, my local friends whose company would have lent the weekend an additional layer of conviviality, are conspicuously missing. They have chosen, with what I can only describe as magnificent inconsiderateness, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on a Mediterranean island. Fifty years. One has to admire the commitment — both to the marriage and to the timing. A card would have sufficed. The island was unnecessary.

The train journey is long but dignified — a distinction I find increasingly important as I age. No car is required here, which is philosophically pleasing and practically confirmed: we covered well over ten kilometres on foot each day, which is either a triumph of spontaneity or evidence that we consistently misjudged distances on the map. Both, probably. The café crème is finished. The sun endures. It is time, with great reluctance and good posture, to make my way to the next stop — arriving, naturally, in time for aperitif.