Before I actually went on one, I thought the term Yoga Holiday was an oxymoron. I have just come back from a week of bliss on the Greek Island of Santorini. I went with a little trepidation remembering my last attempt at a yoga holiday in a Sivananda ashram in the Bahamas where no booze or coffee was allowed, the food strictly vegetarian and the day starting at sunrise.
Last week’s yoga retreat in Greece was led by the very talented and gentle Andrea Freely of www.yogafreely.ch and not once did I feel the urge to sneak off down the beach for a margarita and a tuna melt.
The girlies came along with us. That’s them having a great time riding my back and although they only came to the afternoon sessions they loved the yoga and I highly recommend it as a family experience deepening relationships and sharing beautiful moments together.
I am monosyllabic, speechless, lost for words. So out of character. I am spent. My word synapses are sizzled with over-firing. I’ve spent the past week with Madre. The weather was beautiful so we stayed put and sat in the garden. We had people over for lunch in fact we took all our meals in the garden watching the bees flitting around the lavender inbetween breaths.
One of the very good things that happened to my father – along with the years he spent in the navy – was meeting my mother. Such a taciturn character (a gene that none of the women in the family inherited) and a sweet, kind man (ditto for me at least) they balanced each other perfectly. I know sometimes his taciturnity drove my mother mad and probably her loquacity drove him mad, but until he was cruelly taken from her, their’s was a very happy marriage as neither looked for perfection in the other or made the other responsible for their own happiness. That’s why I will be with Mr. J. until one of us kicks the bucket or he kicks me out.
*****
The boy is back from Luffbra via Newquay sporting a yellow head.
”It was a prank for charity. Five of us did it. We went to the pound shop. Funny. It turned out a different colour on each of us.” The same five will shortly be visiting us here in Switzerland so if you see five sporty looking lads with orange/yellow/white heads having a larf, you know it’s Ollie’s crew.
“It’s better than a tattoo,” said Madre wisely.
*****
And yesterday Alexia’s top secret farewell party organised by the very forward thinking Ellen and her mum Sarah which took place in our garden. The whole school year was invited to celebrate the end of their junior school years and to wish Alexia luck in London. Twenty-one kids swam, ate and boomed away the late afternoon. Sarah had made a photo album for Alexia and asked each child to write a message which will be perfect in London as a reminder of her friends back home. It is Rabbit Boy’s turn to write. He with the Rooney ears, rough edges and parents who breed rabbits for the table and eye us expats suspiciously. His name is Mikael and as Sarah hands him the book to annotate, the whole year huddle around him.
“Bravo Mikael. Well done Mikael, look how well you did that A. Bien fait, tu t’es très bien concentré.” Squeezing the letters out of this sweet country boy is a team effort and no-one gets left behind.
At the end of the summer Mikael will go down to Nyon to a special learning school.
“Did you like Mikael mummy?” asked Alexia as she drifted off to sleep.
“Very much so. I think we should invite him again. I don’t think he gets to swim in a pool very often.”
At the end of their junior school years here most will go up to the big secondary school in the next village over. Some will go onto smaller private schools and some will go to schools for those with learning disabilities. Alexia going off to her school in London is more privileged than Mikael there is no doubt, but only on a material level. They have lived 25 metres apart, breathed the same air, played on the same football pitch and attended the same village school. In Switzerland everyone gets the same start and no one can say whose life will be better. Let us hope they will both have beautiful lives but most importantly let us hope that Mikael and Alexia will always be friends.
”It’s the sugar,” said my friend Martha reaching into the freezer for a bottle of vodka.
“It’s the sugar in the wine that gives you the hangover.”
We are standing in her kitchen a few evenings after we both attended a very raucous affair where I, it appears, drank too much because I couldn’t function properly for a few days after. I’m not talking about getting drunk here as there is nothing so deeply unattractive as a drunk woman, I’m just talking about having a good time and drinking a tad more than the daily recommended allowance dictated to us by the nanny state.
“How much did you drink?” she asked kindly almost masking the incredulity in her voice.
Martha is tall and blonde and savvy . She worked out long ago that wine gives her headaches and makes her feel lousy but spirits, in particular vodka, are her friend and can be drunk with little side effects.
“Around three glasses of wine with the dinner.” (I didn’t like to mention the glass of champagne prior to the red wine as well, it sort of slipped my memory standing as I was next to this alpha woman).
“Did you have a headache?” She continued
“No, just that yucky liverish feeling and no energy for two days!”
A horrified look flitters over her face. “Were you hungry the next day?”
“Yes, famished.”
“Sugar does that,” she said shaking her head wisely. ”Sugar and Alcohol don’t mix! The only remedy being a hot night on the dance floor. Burn baby burn!!!!” She intoned clinking ice into her drink.
I like to drink. I like a glass of red wine at night, even if I’m all alone. And I like to drink when I go out socially. In other words I don’t want to give it up. It is one of my few vices along with watching Oprah. But alas, excessively bad-tempered and humourless in the days following a night out, are not doing much for my reputation and obviously my liver just ain’t what it used to be.
But here’s the thing. One: Brits don’t abstain, it is our/my social oil. Two: Some occasions, it has to be said, need a little buzz going just to get through them. Ever been to a nightclub sober? Christmas without a drink? It is a depressing thought.
What I really need is a spare body part. I need a new liver to strap on every time I’m out having fun, a sort of medical bum bag, a cute little Geisha Girl’s hump which can be thrown away – along with the hangover – once home. In the meantime whilst I wait for medical science to catch up, if you see a middle-aged woman flinging herself around a dance floor at a party don’t worry, you know it’s only me, burning baby burning!!!
Friday night and it’s my turn to do the ballet run down to Nyon, the town on the lake. Three 10 year old budding ballerinas all tutus and hair nets pile excitedly into the back of the mini and off we go. There’s Léa the girl from the auberge who never lets a silent minute go by, Courtney the shy one whose voice is barely audible above a whisper and my Lexi listening and waiting in the wings to draw Léa back into line when her hyperbole gets out of hand.
I love Léa. She is a reality star in the making. Her mum Nathalie is a kind, sweet natured woman from the Valley doubling up as Maître D’ of the auberge. Dad is the French chef in the kitchen full of noise and laughter and ascerbic wit barely, but just,remaining on the side of politesse. Léa has a good deal of her father in her.
She is a great raconteur and many of her stories are no doubt apocryphal but only a miser would point that out to a ten year old. My favourites involve her two giant rabbits Mommy G. and Marshmallow - which she pronounces Mashmalloooooowwww. These two enormous rabbits, about twice the size of a domestic cat, are allowed to roam freely in their appartément above the auberge; a chaotic tumble of rooms which she shares with her morose brother and nice older sister. This particular Friday she tells us the story of the time Mommy G., or it may have been Marshmallow she wasn’t quite sure, decided to wander downstairs into the restaurant and caused mayhem amongst the diners.
Cue Léa’s impersonation of an English woman, which entails lowering her voice but raising her nose, rushing into the kitchen.
“EST Il NORMAL monseigneur, ZAT ZER IZ ZE RABBIT IN THE RESTORRRANNNTT????!!!!”
(This leads Léa’s mind to jump to Gad Elmaleh the Moroccan-French stand up comedian who is a personal hero of her’s and rare is a Friday night without his name mentionned).
“Il va en Angleterre et tout ce qu’ il sait dire c’est quelques phrases d’anglais appris à l’école. (the first time Gad goes to England with his school boy English all he can remember to say is)
Ver iz Brian?”
“Where,” I say correcting her, the English teacher in me unable to resist.
“Verrrre.” she replies only slightly put out. ”Ver iz Brian? Brian iz in the kitchen. Ver iz Jenny? (Brian’s sister) Jenny is in the Bathrooooooommmmmm. Et il rencontre une fille qui s’appelle Jenny (He meets a girl called Jenny in England and all he can say to her is). Vot are you doing here? GET BACK IN ZE BATHROOOOOOMM. Ahhahahahahaha. C’était trop marrante.”
She is still talking when we pull into the car park of the auberge.
“Au revoir Léa,” I say.” “Ah oui. On est là,” she says disappointedly. “Alors bon weekend les filles.”
I drive up to the top of the village to drop Courtney and then back home in complete silence.
at sunrise. 
