A Jack London moment

Yesterday was not St Valentine's but IKEA day, Toulon style. We have been looking for affordable furniture which does not commit style crimes. Not much of it about... there is a gulf between the really tasteful but unaffordable, and the still expensive but highly elaborate, culturally jealous, aesthetically challenging kitsch which everybody else seems to go for. So it was off to Toulon, on a Saturday. Only thing was, every body else had exactly the same idea.

First stop on arrival was the toilets (keep an eye on this Leitmotiv), then the self-service restaurant, where the lamb shanks got our vote, despite the deeply nostalgic availability of Swedish meatballs. After a succulent experience with cholesterol, we had quite the most revolting coffee to be had this side of Biggar. Then toilet again, followed by shop.

Won't bore you with the details: suffice to say that quite a few of the things we had come for weren't available instore, so we came out, many hours later, from the Ikean labyrinth with a strange assortment of stuff - pots and pans, a doormat, a potato peeler. Back to the toilet: ok, for once, for the better half, but this time the gents was closed.

Set off on the way home, better half in the driving seat: this time instructing the GPS to avoid the motorway, because of the exorbitant tolls (nearly twelve quid for sixty miles!). So, we motored off, with the setting sun behind us, towards St Tropez, and then into the Massif des Maures. By this time, 'Lo giorno se n'andava e l’aere bruno toglieva gli animai che sono in terra dalle fatiche loro', and this was a really spectacularly mountainous road, with hairpin bends. My worries about unseen but doubtless omnipresent vertical drops just inches from the edge of the road were tempered by my growing need to pee.

Further and further into the wilderness, and with the readings on my bladder manometer going crazy, there was nowhere to stop to relieve myself. Finally, at least an hour after I had given up hope of preventing gross incontinence, the better half screeches to a halt in a layby. Out I get, see it is actually the driveway of a house, so get back in the car. A couple of metres further on, car stops again, Monsieur gets out and begins to unzip. Sphincter muscle countdown begins in earnest, when, out of the undergrowth, two big, close-set eyes and a deep-throated growl. The muzzle of an extremely large Alsatian, with bared fangs, was within a foot and a half of my flies.

I didn't wait around, didn't zip up my flies, and I dived into the car with impressively little dignity but quite extraordinary alacrity. By this time, the better half had also espied the monstrous mutt, and decided a quick get-away was in order. I confirmed her decision, even though by this time the tires were burning rubber. Turns out the place was a caravan parking lot for gypsy caravans. Bet you they had .22 calibre long rifle rounds already chambered.

We drove on, in the pitch black night, for another fifty-five minutes before finally hitting the motorway, where, illuminated by the orange glare of sodium lights and indecently exposed, I relieved myself against the concrete poubelle outside the traffic police building. Actually I had been under pressure for so long, it took quite a while before I really felt relief, or was it the wolf-dog adrenaline still pumping through my system?