The price is right?

Years ago, at a point in our lives when we used to meet up and sit around drinking coffee while our small babies crawled around on the floor and chewed their toys, a group of friends and I speculated on what we might do if we won a million on the lottery. None of us had jobs, largely because of the small babies, and generally felt a little short of money. Everyone came up with some kind of wish list but then one of our number declared that one million wasn’t enough. She would need at least two because she wanted a yacht and then would need to have money left to be able to enjoy it. 

 I’m not sure that her budget of a million would buy her a yacht nowadays. I’ve been reading an article about yachts in yesterday’s Observer newspaper: fancy yachts that cost £90 million!!! You know the kind of thing, twenty or thirty guest bedrooms, a crew of goodness knows how many and a swimming pool on deck. Few of us could afford such a thing. Maybe we need to be the sort of people who get £million bonus payments. 

Anyway, in the article Gary White, yacht broker - there's a profession for you - says he is trying to "get our message across to the public that it is affordable" to charter a superyacht for a summer holiday. £35,000 to £40,000 per week! "That's affordable if you're spending a week with four friends. Waking up in a different place every morning is an extreme luxury and should be experienced by those who can." 

You're telling me it's an extreme luxury!!! With five of you sharing, that's at least £7000 each - for a week??!! Not within the grasp of the likes of me! 

It was luxury enough for me to spend all day Friday having a busy social day. I got up early(ish) in the morning to go and meet a friend at Manchester Art Gallery. We went and had a look round an exhibition of Grayson Perry’s tapestries: The Vanity of Small Differences, inspired in part by Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress. Here’s a link to some information about it.  I’m going back again next weekend and taking the teenager, who is, after all, studying art for GCSE, to see it as well. I’ve even downloaded an app for my iPad so that she can read all about it. 

After our bit of culture, my friend and I caught up on months of gossip over lunch, a very good soup and a sandwich in the gallery cafe. After that I rushed off for a coffee and more catching up with another old friend. 

And finally I met up with my husband to see the latest Coen Brothers’ film, “Inside Llewyn Davis” at the Cornerhouse Cinema. There’s no point in being in Manchester and not taking full advantage of the facilities. And all of this despite the rain that started to fall towards the end of the afternoon. I’m not letting a bit of rain get me down. 

Someone who might be letting things get him down is President François Hollande of France. Having been caught out cheating on his “First lady”, he has finally declared that they are going their separate ways. Maybe he can get on with the business of running France now. This is a rather different France from the one we all used to know. La République never used to have a “First Lady” and nobody used to care what the President got up to so long as he ran the country. Mind you, I did read that there was some concern that he had been buzzing around Paris on a little Mobylette without any security guards to keep an eye on him. 

But then, how are you going to have a secret liaison with an actress if you take your security guards along? 

On balance, I think I’d rather have my life, even if I don’t have access to a yacht!