Tripe sandwiches for tea

July 17, 2010

tags: Chateau Lagune 1982, Currencies Direct, Ex Pats Golf, Golf in Valbonne, Little Horwood Cricket Club, Living In France, Moving To France, Valbonne

12 days, and still not a dry one, and we have yet to venture north of Aylesbury.

I hear from Dave the Fade about golf at the Grand Bastide near Valbonne on Saturday. The tee off time is 8 30 to avoid the afternoon heat, the thought of my golfing pals back in France with heat of the sun on their backs fills me with a new deeper sense of foreboding at the looming, doom prospect of going up near the Arctic Circle to Yorkshire on Sunday.

I am going to play cricket again today for the first time in over 5 years for Little Horwood, the village team for whom I starred as a batsman and leg break bowler, with old friends Dave Ell, landlord of The Nags Head in Winslow, Colin O Dell and Doddy. Dave Ell is a Yorkshireman, and as usual with that ilk, you can tell a Yorkshireman but you can’t tell him much.

He has some Alan Bennett pads, Geoff Boycott cricket boots and loves tripe sandwiches at tea. I am not saying he is mean but he has a framed photo of himself buying his last round in 1976. Apparently it has not been his turn since.

Before the big match we are invited to what turns out to be a debauched evening with old friends Tom and Sylvia Baldock in Aylesbury. The opening of a 1982 Haut Medoc, pictured today, starts the gradual decline in standards of behaviour that one would expect to be upheld at our age.

28 year old wine served, you'd think they might serve have something fresh

Tom, married to Scottish Sylvia claims to be Scottish by penetration. It is a point he makes loudly, so loudly that the nearby old people’s home, where Tom has been told by his wife will shortly be his home, must breathe a collective sigh of relief when we are forced to take cover from a thunderstorm.

You may divine from that last sentence that the evening started at around 6pm with an attempt to enjoy the evening sunshine, a truly gargantuan leap of hope, (of the kind employed By Simon and Moya, both convinced that this a good English summer) but it started outside under glowering skies, guests wrapped up in coats and woollens. The parasol (weighted down to keep from being blown away) comes in useful as a shelter against the inevitable drizzle which is omnipresent in an English summer. However this attempt at an al fresco evening was abandoned after the first lightning strike and the monsoon rains descended.

That nice garden designer is not at her best again after destroying a good portion of the annual pinot grigio crop, so it is left to me to retain some semblance of order. After I had awoken from a brief sojourn on the sofa, I was able to guide our nice Punjabi taxi driver to our destination, where ever that is.

I think you have guessed that rather a lot of wine was consumed, and much gossip of great import exchanged, but I will wager than none of the information exchanged will be recalled this morning.

Except I do remember something Mr Baldock told me in confidence. I do hope that his confidence in my confidentiality is not misplaced!

Chris France
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