“Ne pas toucher!” yelled the 6′ octogenarian ex-model French bloke, who was showing us around his castle, as my mate prodded something calling itself a 100 yr old crocodile skin suitcase.

She looked up in mild surprise.  She’d already annoyed our still rather gorgeous, arrogant tour guide by saying “I don’t understand a word” when he’d offered to translate his patter into English, not meaning to at all.

My friend has just celebrated her 60th birthday, closely escaped death in a horse accident last year, she’s not very tall, and has bad feet, so she’s currently looking a little lame, small, thin, pale and hunched.

Her interest in the crocodile skin is prompted by the fact that she is a Professor of Dermatology – Secretary of the Scottish Dermatological Society Skin Cancer Group, President of the British Society for Skin Care in Immunosuppressed Individuals, Chair of the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network for cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SIGN SCC), member of the NCRI non-melanoma skin cancer clinical studies group, member of the British Association of Dermatologists Skin Cancer Prevention Committee, Board member of Skin Care in Organ transplant Patients in Europe (SCOPE) and UK representative on the International Transplant Skin Cancer Collaboration (ITSCC).

She also had the same piano teacher as me til she was twelve.

And she was remarkably unjudgmental of my beautiful, deep, Summer 2018 tan.  I surreptitiously hid my bottle of Piz Buin No 10 before rubbing Factor 50 onto her glowing white back.