The Social World

Author: Catriona Olding

  • I took on a hornet – and won

    I took on a hornet – and won

    Midnight. In preparation for a 5 a.m. rise I’d been asleep for two sweltering hours under the ceiling fan when the phone rang. It was a video call. Without glasses I don’t see well but recognized the caller as Jacob, a man I’d met in June when I’d been invited to a fancy villa near the coast for the night with old pals who were visiting friends of theirs. Jacob and I got on well. In the heated pool, having only just met, we sang: “Heaven… I’m in heaven…” At dinner I admired his string of huge black Tahitian pearls and he told me about his exotic social life in New York. We exchanged our best anecdotes. At the end of the week he called to see me at home in the cave. He took me for a posh lobster lunch during which, proving there was no end to his kindness, he commissioned a painting and invited me back to the villa for a night in August when he would be taking it for the month.

    To demonstrate my late-in-the-day confidence, I punched the hornet in the face. It flew off but soon came back

    The morning after that midnight call, I was due to join him and his house guests, five adults and seven teenagers, for a day at the beach. There was talk of chartering a boat for a short trip along the coast. I’ve never been on a boat down here and although I had rental admin – spreadsheets and banking – to do and was anxious about taking a day off, this would be the closest I was going to get to a holiday and I’d accepted.

    Thinking the ringing phone meant the day out was to be canceled, I turned on my front, pulled the sheet over my back and, lying half propped on and behind a pillow, answered. In the dark I could just about see Jacob. “I can see your tits. You look sexy,” he said.

    “No you can’t, I’m lying on them and there’s a pillow in the way. And in any case, you told me you haven’t been with a woman for 41 years.”

    “I like tits!” Pulling the pillow up further, I said: “Really? Well, perhaps you’d like the Platonic ideal, but not these.” He said: “Come at 9:15 for breakfast and we’ll go to the beach in convoy.” Then, holding up a postcard of one of my paintings I’d given the hosts previously, he said: “I love the painting you’re doing for me now, but could you do me one like this too?” Squinting at the phone, I said: “Anemones. Golly – yes, thanks, but you’ll need to wait until spring…” When morning came, I arrived in good time to find that the boat which had been chartered had engine trouble and no replacement could be found. It was decided we would head to the beach, find water sports for the kids and then get a water taxi across the bay to a restaurant, Le Migon, at the far, quiet end of Pampelonne beach. Even this was a revelation. I’m lucky to get to a beach twice a year and then it’s usually just for a picnic.

    At the end of his rental, exhausted after entertaining 29 people in a month, Jacob asked if the cave apartment was available and if so, could he come and have a quiet weekend here on his way to Spain to stay with more friends. It was. His visit coincided with the last village event of the summer, a weekend fête, with dodgems and other rides, and bands playing in the evenings.

    After a late lunch in the village, we climbed back up the hill and sat at the table on my terrace undecided about what to do before we headed back down for the music later; whether to retreat to our respective caves for a nap or keep going. We settled for the latter at a gentle pace. After a while Jacob, engrossed in his phone, said: “This guy’s only 150 meters away.” “Really? Let me see. I might know him.” I looked at the photo which showed a man’s head and shoulders emerging from a pool. “No, never seen him before.” “What about this one?” Jacob said holding the phone up again. “Ew! Definitely wouldn’t know him from that angle.”

    The following day, I made roast tarragon chicken and salad. As soon as we sat down to eat, a massive hornet appeared and dived toward Jacob’s plate. He shrieked and leapt aside in his chair. Then it came for me. Some years ago I decided, after a lifetime of being less than courageous, to stand up to aggressors. To demonstrate this late-in-the-day confidence, I punched the hornet in the face. It flew off but soon turned and came back, so I punched it again. Down it went. Jacob laughed and declared he should be more west of Scotland in his approach to potentially lethal stinging insects. “Where is it? Is it dead?” Jacob pointed to the insect floundering on the tiles beside a plant pot. “No, don’t kill it,” he said. I began counting it out: “One uh, two uh, three uh…”

    At four, it got up and came back at me again. I raised my fist. It stopped six inches from my face, spun round and flew away. I remembered my late husband Jeremy’s words when I related a harrowing event in my earlier life: “Why didn’t you just punch him?” Why indeed.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

  • Medics make the worst patients

    Medics make the worst patients

    Apart from three Covid years, the German rock cover band Five and the Red One (named, so they say, because one of them has a “fire mark”) have played a free concert on the Cours in a village in Provence every summer since 2008. I first saw them in 2009 when my three daughters were teenagers. The four of us, along with our friends Monica and André, who were then in their mid-sixties, stood together near the front jumping up and down and singing along. Some of the wee ones who sat on their fathers’ shoulders behind us might have children of their own by now.

    Last year a rowdy coterie let the well-built 6’3” guy who owns the expensive hat shop in the village crowd-surf and, discovering the burden was beyond them, let go. As he fell he narrowly missed crushing tiny Monica. Before Saturday’s concert she said she wouldn’t be joining me in the mosh pit this year. “I’ve got to stop sometime,” she said. Understandable, but sad nonetheless. End of an era.

    American Cathy stepped up as a late substitution. She’s going through a difficult time; her marriage ended in April and, as often happens when an individual is stressed, she’s become accident-prone. Her body can’t keep up with her brain. At the village’s Bastille Day celebrations, she fell and banged her head on the way back from buying the second round of drinks of the evening; the third minor head injury she’s sustained in a year.

    Onlookers told us she was out cold for a full minute. Medics are the worst patients. By the time her colleague Tina and I got to her she was sitting on the curb beneath a plane tree telling everyone she was a doctor and to cancel the ambulance. Pointing to Tina, she said: “She’s a doctor too. I’m OK.”

    I’d cleaned the slightly bleeding wound under the hair at her left temple by the time the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Despite her protestations, the pompiers insisted on checking her over. “You look fine, Madame, but come with us. Two minutes.” The ambulance doors closed behind them. After what seemed like an age we heard laughing and the doors opened. “At least I got to sit in the ambulance with the young hot guys. I wanna dance to ‘September.’”

    I gave the lead singer a hug which landed somewhere between maternal and teenage fangirl

    Ten minutes later, arms aloft, she led the entire dance floor in a conga line round the square. Unlike the French, I hate that sort of thing but in order to keep the patient under observation, I put my hands on her waist and followed. A row of outstretched arms formed a tunnel and the long line stooped to dance through.

    Afterward, we bumped into my friends Charlotte and Ed. As I introduced Cathy, they stared. I turned. The dancing and bending had reopened her wound and blood was pouring thickly down her face and neck. Grateful as I was to have Cathy at my side in the mosh pit on Saturday, I knew I couldn’t let her out of my sight.

    The performers kicked off with the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker.” They looked, sounded and moved as a rock band ought – a mesmerizing and nostalgic spectacle. The audience of about a thousand souls roared in appreciation. David, the lead singer, effortlessly held the performance together, much as the conductor and soloist would for an orchestra.

    The mosh pit was, as usual, a heaving, beery, stomping, sweaty mess. People of all ages and nationalities forgot their worries for a few hours and joyfully sang and danced as one. I turned to watch the crowd during “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and saw Monica and André coming to join us. For a while she and I held hands as we danced. Things got a little wilder during “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and as the band began to play “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” a favorite of mine, Monica left. Wise move. A few bars in, the crowd went mental.

    I’m not very big in flip-flops and Cathy’s shorter than me. Soon we were swamped by huge guys, dripping in sweat, either barging into us or trying to engage. But, slight as I am, I spent 50 years in the environs of Glasgow and they soon backed off.

    A glorious three-part, revved-up sing-along to “Twist and Shout” brought things down from the febrile heights of posh-boy punk and to the finale, “Highway to Hell.”

    Afterward, when the DJ took over, I saw David, whom I know slightly, on the square and gave him a hug which landed somewhere between maternal and teenage fan girl. Apart from his sodden Robert Plant curls, he was transformed from rock singer back into an ordinary 40-year-old German father-of-three.

    I asked him how the village compared to other venues. “We don’t do any other gigs,” he said. “I’m forming another band and writing my own stuff, but this band stopped touring when we started having families and only gets together once a year for this. We do it for fun. Stay there. Don’t move. I want you to meet my uncle. He’s a really cool guy…”

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 15, 2025 World edition.