Dreamaticus

Until Hollywood’s arrival, the village’s reputation was limited to “reasonable pit stop for British families en route to the French riviera”. Three years since serving as the backdrop to one of the most successful movies of all time, the village was now a holiday destination in its own right.

I had taken a room at the new resort hotel, with its Finnish-style swimming pool, and six vicious (and rather smelly) house dogs. It even boasted an airport-style shopping mall where you could buy goods unavailable elsewhere – such as the latest Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses (ETS tried some on) and “hover shoes” for toddlers. There were also sumo wrestling pits in the hotel grounds, and it was here that GC slipped a disc when knocked to the sand by ETS.

I stayed on an extra week with TPR after ETS headed home. The weather changed for the worse, and we pitied our friends who were camping by the river. One afternoon we took a wet walk down the valley to see how they were getting on. There was a huge commotion in the water under the bridge. Amongst the shouting we heard our running club friend A declare that she had medical training, then watched her dive into the river. She reemerged holding aloft the top half of a rotting corpse. I didn’t look too closely, but the face was recognisable, as was the German military uniform. I wondered if it would be in poor taste to tweet this news to ETS? When others surged forward with snapping cameras I decided that a tweet would be quite harmless. My next question was inevitable: “What’s the hashtag?” I asked SJ, who happened to be standing next to me.