Knights Templar, where’s Simon?

My few home truths about the frozen north appear to have hit a nerve with some northerners, who are clearly just emerging from hibernation after a long winter. I have had to deal with and dismiss a few comments (see yesterdays column).

I am asked so often for the phone number of the Kashmir in Valbonne (Tel 0493751615), I have decided to publish it, despite not yet having received the standard offer of a free meal which is now long overdue. Please ensure that they are aware that you got the number from this wonderful missive, and that I am hungrily awaiting the standard back hander (is this a kind of curried vegetable?).

The certainty of staying in and drinking nothing alcoholic was gradually replaced by a short sun downer in the pav, and then early doors at the wine bar in Valbonne, La Kavanou.

We meet Dr Henry Brew and the lovely Vinetta, and Henry reminds me that his uncle is the current President of Ghana. At first I misheard in the busy and packed wine bar, almost a victim of its own success now, even after the increased space available with the moving of the bar. “I didn’t know there was a President of Ganja” I said before I was corrected, but I guess if it existed it would be a pretty laid back job.

Once we were out, I thought perhaps The Valbonnaise or Elysee Carnot for a spot of dinner might be on the agenda, but a combination of tiredness and red wine overdose suffered by that nice lady decorator, with the subsequent lighting of the fuse to what has become known as a decorating outburst, caused me to resort to a (actually very good) take away pizza from the pizza van near the parking lot. There I waited until the enforced short walk in the cool night air had calmed the decorating outburst.

Today we are invited to lunch in Biot by the absurdly named but very charming Bolt-Christmas family (I shall be seeking guidance as to how this name evolved) to witness the parade of the Knights Templar. When first informed of “our” plans, I was looking forward to seeing Roger Moore and his old volvo sports car in his guise as Simon Templar in “The Saint” but then I found out it was some dodgy parade by some rather doubtful chaps dressed up in old clothes.

Biot is a very pretty village about 6 miles away from Valbonne but the parking is diabolically limited in normal conditions, so with a big festival in town, parking will be near impossible. Buses have been talked about, but there seems to be a perfectly reasonable idea to walk by following the Brague river which flows from Valbonne to Biot. What is completely unreasonable is the idea being mooted that we also walk back. This of course is entirely out of the question. It is one thing to walk down alongside a beautiful river towards the coast with the prospect of an invigorating lunch in prospect, quite another to contemplate slogging up the river valley full of lunch, in failing light dashed by spray from snow melt, with wolves circling (ok I made the wolves bit up). But you get my gist. The others want to walk, I have another four letter word in mind; Taxi.

My picture today almost inevitably is of part of that walk down. Tomorrow’s picture may well be if a taxi if I get my way, even if I have once again to invoke the “shrapnel defence” where I claim to have a piece of shrapnel embedded in my leg, which when it moves about, is so painful as to preclude walking. To make this more believable , it is often necessary to effect a limp, one of the few times when this word elicits any sympathy.

Chris France