How wonderful it is not to be touring Provence this summer,
wandering her coastal cities and climbing into her mountain towns.
How much better to cruise our local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of each pub-board and red road-sign
and all the sudden rantings of my AB companions divine.
Thank God, there are no abbeys here, no awful statues or famous
domes. There’s no need for us to memorise a succession
of French kings or see the dingy catacombs or a mouldy chateau.
No need to linger around a boring sarcophagus, see Napoleon's fate
and little bed on Elba, or view the bones of one of Sandy’s saints.
How much better to command the simple comfort of home
than be dwarfed by ‘pilier, fenetre ou grotty basilique'.
Why hide our heads in crumbly phrase books and dodgy maps?
Why become a one-eyed commando tourist camera
that wants to eat one more monument or panorama?
Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ‘wine',
I will head down to the local caff and an AB waitress
probably called Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, TTT’s rantings and Gully’s communism afray
rivers of idiom running freely, Minty’s bacon baps are on the way.
And after 'me brekkie', I will not have to find an ABer
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in my diary
what I ate and how the rain came barrelling through the window.
It is just enough to climb back into the rusty Scorpio.
As if it were a British car, right-hand side drive itself
and sounding my loud French horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Paris,
not even Lyons or even down to Toulouse
Welcome ABers on the bus to Lancs and rainy Blackpool.