Beach Babe

May is such a fab month in the south of France. It is not yet too hot to think and there are few tourists about. Trips to the beach are not soured by parking rage from drivers ready to pull out a chill box and whack you one in a fight to the death for a parking spot, and you are not instantly fried by the sun as soon as you tender a dainty piece of skin out from its tee-shirt.

We have been several times this spring so far, mainly because we have friends to go with who enjoy a good picnic accompanied by lashings of wine. My body now resembles a relief map of darker and paler areas, together with 'lakes' of red missed by my sun cream. Very attractive, I'm sure...

The last time we went, the boys decided to play at being superheroes so donned their beach towels as capes and climbed up the dunes only to hurl themselves off again, falling dramatically to the bottom their capes flapping in the breeze. They had been in the sea so were covered in salt, and were now covered in sand. They had a lovely time.

We won't be able to do this for much longer as it really gets too hot to stay all day, and there'll be more and more people encroaching on our space. For the moment though, it's quite perfect to throw together some tomato, cucumber, onion salad, some sarnies, crisps, maybe a tomato tart with gran padano hard cheese, and of course bottles of light fruity wine cooled to perfection in the chill box.

The boys look beautiful all tanned and although I look a bit uneven in my browning bits, it's way better than resembling a suet pudding of pasty whiteness. What a life!