Homme Toutes Main

I am coming back to the UK.

But only for a week and actually only four of those days are crucial. As a "man of all hands", as the French insist on classifying me, I have a restricted number of jobs I am allowed to do and a timescale within which things should be done, e.g. no single job should take longer than 2 hours. Of course, I, along with my handyman brethren, all take absolutely no notice of the law and carry on doing what we want, declaring as little as we can and calling the government all the names under the sun. This is a very French attitude and proves I am assimilating well into a French way of life.

One way of "improving ones lot" is to pick up specialities which allow you to legally carry out specific jobs. Technically, when I look after our pools I am only supposed to check the chemicals and clean the pool. Anything else requires a specialist. So I have decided I might as well become a specialist since I already do all the stuff. To that end I am coming over to carry out a Pool Operators Course in the UK. I was told about it by a guest who stayed in one of the villas this year as he thought the content of the course might be useful, specifically the bit about the chemistry of swimming pools.

So I am flying into the UK on Saturday 13th, managing to avoid Valentines Day, whoops, and going back to France the following Saturday. I shall spend the first two days with my Mum in St Albans then on Monday move down to a hotel in Greenwich for three nights then back to St Albans on Thursday and Friday nights. The course is in Dulwich, at Alleyns School who have a pool. And it is a nostalgic trip for me as I swam in that very pool, or it's predecesser, when I was at school. Alleyns and Trinity, Croydon were our great swimming rivals. If I can manage to ruin the pool it will only have taken the thick end of 40 years to wreak my revenge for any defeats I suffered!