As I entered France, a message from Jerome asking when I will be arriving - my phone obviously doesn't like working in Italy. But I find the road where his mother's villa is surprisingly easily. Chaos reigns in the villa. There is the mother, Jerome and his two kids, his younger sister Vanessa (who looks really gorgeous in a small bikini), her husband and their three kids, plus Celine, an old friend of Vanessa and Jerome's, and her two kids. Seven kids between the ages of just over 2 and about 8.
Luckily they decide to take most of the kids to the beach and so Jerome and I can chill out on the balcony and have a good chat. And so to a surprising development. Jerome really wants to be involved in my trading project and is prepared to stake £10k into it himself. Moreover, he thinks he has three or four people that he can persuade to do between £5k and £10k on an 80-20 profit split. This proposal offers all sorts of interesting possibilities, not least the sharing of the long hours actually trading and I am very excited about it. We have a look at some of my systems and set out some of the core ideas - not everything at this stage though. So when Jerome is back in the UK next week, we are going to pick up on this immediately. In the meantime, he has ordered a copy of Patterson's The Quants.
There is more confusion related to lunch. The barbeque is not working, the kids are back later than expected, chaos reigns again. During the general debate, it is decided that I should stay the night after all and can sleep on the sofa in the lounge. Cue drinks for me. Lunch slowly develops and is eventually served on the balcony at around 5:00pm - crab salad and lamb chops. By now Jerome and I are settled into a second bottle of wine and everything seems fine. I remained very impressed by Vanessa in her very sexy bikini.
Soon after "lunch" a major argument develops between Vanessa and her mother. Jerome says that this is quite normal. We continue to discuss trading ideas and other stuff - especially music. Gradually the kids begin to get tired and are put to bed. Then a rather surprising plan in which Jerome, myself, Vanessa and Celine are going to go out into Nice for dinner. The girls get changed - Vanessa choosing a tiny green and white dress which she refers to as her "Russian whore's outfit". I am very impressed again. Celine rattles off several drinks before we leave and is soon quite drunk. So at around 10:30 we set off for Nice centre in the car - Vanessa driving. A quick wander round the centre finds us in a restaurant by Nice night market. The centre of town is jam packed with people. Apparently there are several Russian oligarchs in town and we keep an eye open for them without success. Celine is very drunk by now. Apparently she and Jerome have had a thing for one another for many years and they become increasingly close as the night progresses leaving me to chat to Vanessa. Odd to be eating pasta with clams at midnight!
We are home by 1:00 with a new crisis when we get back in as Celine's son is really upset about something. My new plan is to try to leave around 10:00 tomorrow for what will be a very long driving day.
Vanessa and Celine in Nice
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