Riviera Diaries: Sun, sea, and social climbing

Mingling with the rich and solving the sand or stone debate on the beach in Nice

Nice from above.

It’s early afternoon when I realise that I’m with people of a different class. The class in question being the upper-middle, or perhaps just the upper. The people I usually spend time with aren’t capable of paying off a child’s university fees for the year in one simple bank transfer, as the English woman next to me clearly is.

“And is it nine thousand, darling?” she asks down the phone, without the shrill alarm or blind panic that would be in my voice should I be asking such a question.

It’s not just that innocuous sounding question that betrays the couple’s financial status. They also look bored. This is impressive because they are, as I am, sitting in a beach club on the French Riviera. This is a situation that is almost impossible to look bored in.

My view, when I’m not looking over astounded at my wealthy neighbours, is of perfect blue sea, a stony beach, and miles and miles of blue sky. In my foreground is a book, a beer, and the remnants of an enormous plate of steak linguine I have demolished. It is hard to imagine how life could be better.

But if I turn to my left and ask the hideously rich couple, I’m sure they could think of some ways to improve their situation. Perhaps they’d be in Bali rather than France, or their sunbeds would be just a little bit further to the left. Maybe their steaks could have been cooked just a little bit rarer. Whatever it is, there’s clearly something nagging them because they don’t look just completely overjoyed with where life has landed them.

I consider myself a lucky person, anyway. I like my job, I have lots of loved ones, and I generally spend a fair amount of my time larking about. So pop me down on a sunbed in a beach club, bring me steak linguine and a few beers, and I start to think I’ve been blessed by the Virgin Mary. Sure, I’ve paid to be here. I’ve paid for the beers and oh, I have paid through the nose for the steak linguine. This wouldn’t be a cheap dish in a normal restaurant but on a beach? Brought to me by an Adonis of a man who is there for my every need? That will be all the euros in your wallet please, sir.

Perhaps that’s what’s nagging at the upper classes to my left. It’s not only the nine grand they’ve just spaffed on a year’s university fees (what price can you put on a child’s education, after all?), it’s the fifty euros they’ve shelled out on the linguine. Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves, as they say. Well, there goes a whole load of pennies and so the pounds have decided to make a break for it. They’re off for a swim in the Mediterranean and the riptide means they won’t be seen again until after Christmas.

I, meanwhile, am ecstatic. I’m even happy that the beach is stony rather than sandy. Hear me out. Everyone when they dream of spending time on a beach dreams of gorgeous, soft, white sand to lay on. They will be comfy and relaxed and they could lay there all day. Stones would ruin the mood. They would be sharp and jaggedy and pointy and would mean you could only perch in various awkward poses all afternoon.

But this ignores the reality. When you are dry the sand is soft, it’s gorgeous, it’s comfy. But get one little bit of seawater on your body and it’ll stick to you like, well, I was going to say glue, but there isn’t anything stickier in the world than sand on wet skin. And there’s the fact that it really does, as the saying goes, get everywhere. One day at the beach and there’s sand in cracks and crevices I haven’t seen since the nineties.

Stones may not be quite as comfy when you are dry but they remain the same level of not quite comfy when you are wet. They make no effort to cling to every part of your body and they don’t want to come home with you or jump up into your cheese sandwich. Beaches are better when they are stony. There, I’ve said it.

And if you’re really bothered about the stones, I have some advice: go to the beach club. Don’t tell me it’s too expensive. You’ve shelled out to get down to the French Riviera in the first place, you can fork out thirty euros to get yourself a sunbed. You don’t have to get the steak linguine, though I recommend you do if you want to have a really nice time.

Perhaps the upper classes to my left just want some sand and all around them are stones. Or perhaps they’re just bored. They’ve seen enough stones to shake a stick at and now they’re ready to leave. They get up to go as the clouds roll in and lightning strikes across the bay. I don’t move a muscle. I might get another steak linguine. The bill has got to be paid at some point but it hasn’t got to be paid right now, so I’ll go on spending the pounds. And when they’re gone, I’ll move onto the pennies.

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