Whimsy on a Wednesday bringing you “living it large like Brigitte Bardot”

Meet Brigitte. 

What a looker, right?  Did I want to go cruising around in this classic Renault Caravelle, a car once owned by the beautiful icon, Bardot? Stopping off at prestigious bars, rubbing shoulders with the elite and spilling cocktails on their suede loafers from Italy? Meh.

‘Yeah but, can I sport a silk headscarf and park outside Rick Steins’s like an utter rich bitch and blow kisses to people on stuffy buses?’

‘If you want…’

‘I might be interested, then. Just a tad.’

A Double-Take

Twice I’ve visited Dorset in the past six weeks. Once just before I moved and once last weekend. I’ve been meaning to go for a while but things kept cropping up in the friend group meaning it got cancelled. Then it didn’t and off I went.

Having a lovely friend who owns a drop-dead gorgeous apartment overlooking the harbour and drives you around in a classic car is tough.  Would you want to go away for the weekend and have this as your view? 

Sipping morning tea here is not for the faint-hearted, my friends. Just for you, I took one for the team, again. 

Taking the Rick

And was it OK that she’d gone and booked us all on a cocktail-making course where you must eat a three-course gourmet meal and then learn to make 3 cocktails and drink them?

Well, I suppose so. Someone’s got to do it. 

I have got to say, and my friends would agree, that I have missed my vocation. I could make a shed load in tips in America as a cocktail waitress if I had my time again. It seems I’m quite the dab hand when it comes to the old shaken and not stirred. It’s like art.  My cocktails were beautiful and got even more beautiful as each one went down the hatch. Even when I went completely boss-eyed I could taste how fabulous they looked. 

And, on the subject of cocktails, my friend said that the Chilibanks Cocktail, exclusive to Rick Stein’s in Sandbanks, is the best cocktail she’s ever tasted in her whole life. Would us other common cocktail connoisseurs care to opine?

Asking me for my opinion after 4 cocktails isn’t usually a good idea. Still, such an outlandish statement cannot go untested. On this occasion, and purely for public safety, I was prepared to give my two penneth worth.

I had to have a couple, just to be sure, and truth be told I think she’s onto something. 

I was forced to have my breakfast here the next morning.

A full English washed down with freshly squeezed orange juice, a flat white and lashings of sunshine coming through the open roof. Honestly, the things you have to do for friends. 

On a Pig’s Back

My next visit started with lunch at The Pig. This is a small chain of famous coveted restaurants known for their quality, homegrown ingredients. This one is “The Pig on the Beach” A nice crab salad washed down with a dry blush and a view of the ocean. Awful. What a way to spend your afternoon.  Then later it was drinks at the South Deep shack near the sea. 

‘Here we go again,’ I thought. ‘Total lavish enjoyment is being forced upon me.’

The next day saw this gaggle of go-getters back in Brigitte for a trip to Durdle Door.  On went the headscarves in true Hollywood glamour as we cruised nose-to-nose with the school holiday traffic on the dual carriageway. 

Twelve miles in, Brigitte began to splutter and then stopped. 

‘That’s far enough, you philistines. I will not be pushed any further! I am a Queen, not a road hog!’

That soon wiped the smug smile off my face when I had to get out and help push the diva around the corner, much to the amusement of holidaymakers in their VW camper van. 

“Yeah, you wait, kittens! You’ll be next. That heap of old-skool-not-so-cool will be overheating in 2 more miles!”  I noted that it’s impossible to rage in a silk headscarf covered in pink roses. I snatched it off my head and returned to street cred J.

Thankfully, my friend’s parents were ahead in their modern car and we continued down to Lulworth Cove in modern-day technology covered by RAC assurity. 

We had a word with Tom Collins after visiting the little cove and the cutesy thatched cottages, and he said it was best to have a sit down with him and a cream tea after such an ordeal. Not wanting to spoil the moment, I went along with the notion. 

On our return back to Brigitte, she decided to start again after her little nap and we got back to the apartment in time to get ready for our trip to the St Tropez Lounge award-winning fish restaurant for lobster and, allegedly, the best margaritas on planet Earth. Honestly, if I wasn’t so indifferent I would swear my friends were trying to kill me off. 

The waiter apologised when he put down the first margarita saying that they were very strong and to be careful. I looked at my friend as we mirrored each other’s joker-esque smiles before suggesting that the little froglet just kept ‘em coming. 

Thankfully, my friends ignored my exuberant pleas to go and “dance a few off” at the local nightclub and instead took me back home to enjoy a nice cup of tea in a relaxing recliner where I promptly fell asleep to ‘Wicked Little Letters’ 

Sometimes the energy of people-pleasing is dreadfully overwhelming.