Valbonne Antiques And Ex Pat Golf

Valbonne Antiques Market

 The title of todays blog could be confusing, is golf played by a bunch of antiques in Valbonne?  Does the expression ex-pat have any synergy with antiques? This particular antique was due to play golf today at Estoril with the Landlubbers, an offshoot of the Riviera Ex Pats Golf Society www.regsgolf.com , however, I  have something of a reputation of detesting  playing in the rain, which is forecast today.  When living in England, one is forced to play in the rain if one  wants to play regularly.  This should not be the case down here, although we have had a spectacularly horrible winter,  great for the local ski resorts many of which are reporting up to 2 metres of snow this Easter weekend.  It is  mark of how poor this winter has been and thus how little I have played that I actually considered turning out.  The organiser, our leader Dave “the fade” Dowling, called me a wimp, so I puffed myself up, dug out the wet weather gear, found my never before used Currencies Direct umbrella  and then thought f*** it, I’ll go into Valbonne, get The Sunday Times have a coffee and look at the antiques market which is held in the square in Valbonne on the first Sunday of each month.  My picture shows today’s event before the promised storms, which as I speak look like commencing.  Valbonne is known as a prosperous place and it seems to me that the prices at the fair reflect that, but it normally gets a large turnout, many of whom on a nice day have lunch in the village as well.  No doubt “The Dowling Fade” will be on the email before dark, lying through his teeth that it was sunny all day and they had a wonderful game.  That reminds me of an earlier REGS event some years before I arrived here when a tournament was staged somewhere up in the hills.  It was a beautiful spring day, and after the golf, lunch was served along with significant amounts of rose and the trip down the hill did not commence until darkness had descended.  One of the competitors, who had apparently imbibed freely,  stopped his car to relieve himself, forgot to apply the handbrake and his car rolled into a crevasse 100 metres below. Shocked by this he was taken by another player to the Queens Legs to settle his nerves with a stiff drink.  In the meantime the police found his car, went to his house and told his wife the car had been found wrecked but that there was no sign of her husband.  Now you might think she would have been happy to see him back several hours later in good health but a little the worse for wear, but astonishingly, she was anything but!  I shall never understand women..

                 To rent my house in summer have a look at http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p412514