Love in a Warm Climate Read Online Free PDF Page B

have always imagined I would be one of those brave victims of crime you read about in the paper. I envisioned headlines like ‘Mother of twins and toddler beats renowned thug (later to be unveiled as serial killer and mass rapist as well as solely responsible for climate change and just about every other ill in the world) into submission with can of baked beans’ and a picture of me proudly holding a dented can of baked beans with the children smiling benignly next to me. This would then lead to huge endorsements from Heinz, which I could use to surgically reduce my breasts. And free baked beans for life. But instead I just froze.
    I wasn’t hurt, but since then I haven’t really felt safe in London; I am just always waiting for the next disaster. And our area of south London seems to be getting worse, not better. Only last week a young man was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Just the phrase drive-by shooting would have seemed ridiculous ten years ago, like you were describing New York or somewhere miles away that you only ever see on TV. And it’s not just the violence; the whole place is in dire need of a makeover. There is graffiti all over the place, boarded-up shops, houses that look uninhabitable. Why has all this only started to hit me in the last couple of years? Maybe when we first moved there, before we were married, we were so excited to own a home we didn’teven notice the decay around us. But I don’t think it’s that I’m convinced that while some parts of London have become more gentrified, our neighbourhood has gone downhill. Rather like my ‘mummy breasts’.

Rule 3
Pick a lover who has as much to lose as you do
    The French Art of Having Affairs
    After the ritual humiliation of getting through airport security, we boarded our flight to Montpellier. This was always going to be our last trip over for a while; we couldn’t afford to keep coming back and forth. If it didn’t work out we had decided to leave it until after Christmas, although we had originally hoped to move during the Christmas holidays. I figured Christmas is so stressful anyway – would a small change of country, lifestyle and home make it any worse? And it would be satisfying to feel we had achieved the dream Nick first mentioned by the fire on Christmas Day a year before.
    I looked out of the window. This was our fourth trip so I recognised where I was. When it lands, the plane does a kind of swoop over pink flamingos and water before it approaches the runway at Montpellier Airport. We disembarked into a different world to grey old Stansted. It was a bright, sunny and warm day, despite being late October.
    Nick almost fell down the steps of the plane checking his BlackBerry. I thought he was checking work messages, but since the bra-in-bag incident, I now suspect he was responding to some sexy text from the French mistress. Maybe she was hoping I would find the text messages and got fed up with waiting for me to do so, which is why she planted the bra. One of the downsides to picking an unmarried lover is that they are likely to hope you’re going to get caught out.
    The road from the airport was pale in the early morning sun and there was not much traffic.
    “I can’t get over the fact that even the motorway is beautiful,” I said to Nick. “I’m sure it’s a good sign when they plant flowers and trees in the middle of the road.”
    Nick laughed. “Yes, a sign that the people here pay too much tax.”
    I ignored him; nothing could spoil my enjoyment. There were stunningviews either side of the motorway of vineyards and mountains, and olive trees planted down the middle, mixed with oleander, some of which were still in flower. It was amazing how obvious the seasons are there compared with London. It was so autumnal; the leaves were turning from green to copper and were much less abundant than they had been on our last trip. The sun was lower and the shadows longer, but there was still real warmth in the air.
    We