Monday 4th September 2012

We’re a daring mix at the Côte, where I continue at Virgil Grayson’s Med-side self-architected haven with grey and green garden of great rarity. He’s a household name. Cedric Partridge, who usually has a Rembrandt beside him if flying (from being in the museum world) has just come back from Aix and said I went to quite the wrong butcher.

I’m doing a tray-bake for dinner this evening, described by Nigel (Slater) as entirely without elegance. It’s veg with lamb hunks thrown in.

Archie Armitage already swam half way to Africa this morning. Then he skimmed in a ‘Lazor’ dinghy to the nudist island in the afternoon. It’s on the horizon. Such was the wind his entire rock-solid form was the only force against the elements. In fact, Fabien-Boris Claude did not go with him. But yesterday they both appeared in very frank professional lycra for St Tropez by cycle. They had brought their machines with them in special cases by air from London. Archie offered me a ride in the dingy but I feared the excitement and then was miffed when I saw him approaching the nudists who in the end he never reached so was never nude.

Cedric Partridge said it was wrong to say ‘nude’. It should be either ‘in the nude’ or ‘naked’. I said, ‘Is Nude a colour?’

After lunch Fabien-Claude  had an argument with Jean-Louise, Virgil’s sister, who arrived last night with her husband from Canada’s wilds via hiking in the Alps and hitchhiking. The argument was about the body and its exercise. Fabien-Claude said the core is crucial but Jean-Louise said there is no core. That raged for an hour. Over lunch, which Cedric said was filthy, although he wasn’t at it, he was in Aix,we talked about slavery.

Archie is ex-Public school and intensely outdoor. He has undertaken an Iron Man triathlon. But he won’t have one of the new Landrovers nor an Audi Q4 on grounds of design. ‘These architects,’ Fabien-Boris declared. They live in a glorious self-architect-designed home in London’s Camberwell and frequently fly out. Archie likes Rosenkavalier and Jessie Norman.

Fabien-Boris once drove Jessie Norman on St Lucia. Which is interesting because Aunt Lavinia’s neighbour in London also drove her but in London.

Cedric said that tinned tuna was quite impossible and that I’d got the Salad Niçoise for lunch wrong. Where were the capers and gherkins and potatoes? I said Potatoes really were not part of any true Niçoise. I did put my foot down.

Jean-Louise was explaining about a mousse attack or an elk. Also a cougar. Another row erupted between Fabien-Boris and Jean-Louise about a magnetic mat with rejuvenating qualities which they both enjoyed. Jean-Louise also mentioned, battling in the galley kitchen, that she preferred drawers with handles. But handles are out because of the look.

Cedric came over to inspect the lamb tray bake on one of its outings from the oven and said if the worst came to the worst he could have the ham which we had failed to have for lunch, having instead the deeply wrong tuna. Later, when I took the bake out of the oven finally and said it could come to no further harm, he remarked that it was already ruined. I said, Why not a new TV prog in which he, Cedric, was implanted in a celebrity chef kitchen? How long before he could wind up to murder?

We had a reduced 1st course because the avos had mostly gone off. I said, ‘You can imagine the prawns.’ But in the event it was exquisite. Just a speck of avo with lemon.

I forgot to mention that, coming back from shopping, the odd pointy door of Archie’s hired Alpha Romeo somehow marked my Prada white shirt bought only the other day in Tuscany at the Prada factory shop. I did think: Archie would never get marked by a car door like that. He’d never miss a flight or scrape a vehicle or send out the wrong architectural drawing.

Thankfully Cedric took to the lamb tray bake.

Virgin Grayson’s Storm View

Great Lowering at the Côte

Such a Scape Laid On

Archie Armitage Yachting