Dog Eared News and Free Wine!

Dog with ears tied up

Now why would you do that to your dog?  The owner whom I met briefly at Villa Eagle at the weekend and whose name escapes me must really hate it!  If it was Banjo, my wife’s dog, I could quite understand why someone (like me) would want to tie something like that around a part of his anatomy with him tethered to something immovable then send him after a tennis ball or something, but that’s just me getting my own back for all the grief  he has bestowed on me, christ, what an earth did that dog do? It must have been something akin to genocide to merit that punishment! 

Sunday, A quiet day, after the recent hectic social treadmill, sampling a few of the very many excellent provencal roses. The area of Provence is not noted for its whites or reds, although there are a couple of very good reds, Chateau de Berne for instance, but there are any number of roses (thats the wine not the flower) produced locally and many of them are very good and excellent value.  It is not imposssible to pay 3-4 euros for something very decent, but there is such an array of choice, that we decided this weekend to buy half a dozen or so different bottles all under 6 euros and decide which was the best value whilst enjoying a barbeque.  I have no recollection of the results, save to tell you that they were all excellent , and that the Gris variety (a slightly more orange colour) were the favourites.  Rose can of course only be drunk when the sun is warm.

Valbonne as a hub of media excellence has another media creator in its midst, I have just discovered that Bill Colegrave, one of my tennis foe who despite looking old enough to be my father is in fact younger than me,  is an accomplished and published author!  His second book  about exploring the source of  The Oxus River in Afghanistan to be called “Halfway To Heaven” and with a strap line from Sir Ranulph Fiennes will be published this coming September.  In his spare time he owns and runs The Bastide St Matthieu near Grasse which is a spendid Boutique Hotel with his lovely wife Soraya.  I just hope it wansn’t his dog I was so rude about earlier!

A cry for help from the Phil at St Marc De Somedes vineyard in the Var, he has some red wine in boxes that has become in his words “a bit volatile” and will not last long, (wouldn’t last long in this house anyway) so he must give it away or pour it away, thus I feel it my duty to help this  poor man in his hour need so have emptied the car and am off immediately to relieve his burdon somewhat!

chris france

Peonies peaking our precariously

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