Breakfast in Beckley, Lunch in Le Touquet, Falling Over In The Rose & Crown

Hollywood A-listers would be envious of our life-style. Really. Get up. Feed the animals. Walk the dogs. Grumble about the weather. Charter an aircraft. Go to France for lunch. Get pissed. Fly back. Go straight to the pub. Get more pissed. Amaze the locals. Go home. Fall over. That’s us – mixing the best of the rural idyll with a truly Gatsbyesque approach to life.

And that’s what we did the other week. Lydd Airport –  international aviation hub with acres of fabulous duty free shopping (acres of soggy grassland covered in damp sheep); a delicious breakfast in the executive lounge (instant coffee and a biscuit at the Caff presided over by Ena Sharples); boarding our executive jet with fully stocked drinks cupboard and on-board service (clambering through the broken door of a 35 year old Islander and cramming ourselves into seats with the foam stuffing bulging out of the edges); soaring into the cloudless sky, the soft purr of the Rolls Royce jets in the background (being jerked sickeningly sideways through a 40mph cross wind to the extraordinary height of 1,000 feet completely blanketed in cloud then thrown across the Channel with the windows banging open); a kiss sweet touch-down, into a private hangar and VIP fast track exit to a waiting limo, (slamming onto the ground so our breakfast landed later, screeching to a halt and falling onto the tarmac – most of us kissed it, walking dizzily through the horizontal rain into a deserted terminal with no cabs waiting).

And then to lunch at the Dunes au Loup – which was, genuinely, fabulous. Actually the flight was good fun too. I got to be co-pilot. Algy to the real pilot James’s Biggles.

The return trip was ‘such fun’ mainly because everyone had made a Herculean attempt to sample most of the restaurant’s copious cellar. And so was formed the Beckley Extreme Lunch, Conviviality, Humorous Entertainment, and Rudeness Society (BELCHERS). So stick that up your Beluga caviar, Cohiba cigar, Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne – George, Matt, Brad and Cate (the last A listers to visit the area). Beckley rocks!