Pigeon in attempted beer heist

October 11, 2010

tags: Cote D Azur, Currencies Direct, Food & wine, Golf in Valbonne, Living In France, Moving To France

As I implied in yesterday’s column, I have always been good at attracting birds, and yesterday (Sunday as opposed to the day before yesterday) on an impromptu visit to Cannes I proved the old bird pulling magic is still alive as my picture today shows.

Collared Dove about to be collared if he gets too near my beer

I said it was a pigeon and that grilled pigeon breast would go down well for Sunday lunch, but that nice lady decorator insisted it was a collared dove. This to me is splitting hairs. Once it is grilled and on your plate are you really going to send it back because it’s a dove breast, not a pigeon? I can tell you I would have collared it if I could have got hold of it.

We had set off for a Sunday lunchtime pint at Cafe Brun in Biot, but it was closed, so we headed to Antibes where the Blue Lady was….closed, this we ended up at Cannes, having witnessed some wild weather along the coast due to a strong easterly wind. They say October is the wettest month down here and its shaping up well.

Why is it the French don’t get the concept of a drink before lunch on a Sunday, even the Catholics get it with communion wine, but all you get from the French is effectively communal wining. This is especially true at the moment as we are looking down the barrel of another national strike on Tuesday, but whereas we Brits hesitate to strike and only do it as a last resort, for the French it seems to be a national pass time, to be enjoyed with marches in the sunshine and actually, come to think of it, with smiles all around, maybe they have it right after all.

I am still fed up that I had a round trip of 30 miles to get a couple of beers on a Sunday lunch time, but it was on the beach at Cannes, so cannot be all bad and next Sunday we will be in the UK and will doubtless consume a few pints before Sunday lunch before roasted road kill or whatever passes for food in Norfolk.

We shall apparently be staying near the Norfolk Broads. I am not sure I have ever stayed in a red light area before except in Amsterdam where the view of the broads there was somewhere between excruciating and diabolical.

After a couple of beers, we returned for the delight of that nice lady decorators cooking. Normally, as a cook, she makes a great decorator but it was surprisingly good. I did however have the temerity to suggest that the chicken breast looked a little like a collared dove, but with her laser eyes set to “stun”, I did not pursue what I thought night have been an interesting line of conversation. After all the word listen is an anagram of silent, an old adage that I have long held dear when reason is not part of a discussion.

Chris France

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