Where we've been: 2

We went to France well-prepared; here's stuff we didn't use

Various US politicians, keen to appeal to tough-guy voters, have boasted about not wearing masks. Some have gone further and caught The Plague. I await with interest the first politico – hoping for sculptures to be raised in the state capital – to go further still and die in front of the TV cameras, a ventilator stuffed down his guzzard.*

France is not without its macho men. When the Eiffel Tower was first opened to the public citizens worried about a potential spate of aviational suicides. Cleverer administrators suggested a notice saying “Jump here”, knowing that such show-offs hated doing the obvious.

Trouble was I’d self-isolated back home and had no real comparisons. Even so I was pleasantly surprised, Masks were obligatory in the Intermarché. Not only did virtually everyone toe the line but they kept their masks on while loading their cars. And especially in the butcher’s shop (Ah, that terrific chunk of entrecote – I taste its juices still.) where the need for masks seemed visibly obvious.

We ate out several times: the restaurant tables were socially distanced and waitresses and waiters, resentfully perhaps, hid their sex-appeal behind scraps of pale blue. But you can’t keep an individualistic race down all the time. Halfway through one meal a long-haired beauty (I infer her loveliness since I only saw her back) lit up. How strange.

I go to France to inflict my imperfect, non-idiomatic French on the natives. Masks hinder this. No visits to the doctor or dentist this time. I made do with the pharmacy where I stumbled over turning the noun haemorrhoid into an adjective. Yes the pharmacienne knew the Anglo brand but handed over a French brand anyway.

When the temperature is in the thirties, the brief chill from squirted hand disinfectant is most welcome.

* This has happened since I posted.