Lawnmower breakthrough

After over doing a bit lunch yesterday in Biot, I was looking for some sympathy, but it appears that in my house, when I want sympathy, I’m informed that I’ll find it in the dictionary between “shit” and “syphilis”.

So we were guided around Biot yesterday for the Knights Templars festival by Dracula, ably impersonated by Bjorn Boltd-Christmas (note there is now an added “d” in the surname from yesterday). It seems that fancy dress, or rather something that was in every day use from 800 years ago, when the Knights Templars first made Biot a base, was required to be worn by lunch guests, but my excuse remains, that I had not been told. In the past, some people have mistaken that debonair look that I have been forced to adopt by that nice lady decorator, as fancy dress, but that’s another story, and not one I wish delve into today.

After the festival, we adjourned for a very pleasant lunch at the house of the Boltd-Christmases on a high terrace in the heart of this ancient village. But before that we were treated by our hosts to a demonstration of an automatic lawnmower. It is apparently programmable to cut your whole lawn without you lifting a finger. My picture today shows it at work. It has its own docking station which, after an hour and a half of mowing, it returns to automatically, then when fully charged, sets off on its own again.

Automatic lawn mower

I asked whether one could tie a dog to it so that the dog could be walked, but received that renowned withering look from that nice lady decorator.

Of course, she had guessed my fantasy, which was that if I had one I could tether the biblically bloated Banjo, the dog from hell, to it then change the settings on the mower to manic and hope it eventually found its way straight into the swimming pool. It is quite a heavy machine, so with a short tether, and a deep enough pool….

Amongst the guests for lunch was the beautiful Claire Trigger, former Mougins resident, who, as you can see from my second picture below seems at last to have found her Mr Right.

Don't they make a lovely couple?

More astounding claims emerge over lunch, this time from Bill Colegrave, who claims to have once been captain of the Great Britain Boules Team and competed in the world championships. That would clearly be a lot of boules. Then Tony Coombs claimed to be the unsung hero who helped create the internet. As this is the first time I have met him (and may soon become a client of Currencies Direct), I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps next time we meet he will explain to me how actually it was he who split the atom, and he was also the first man on the moon?

Today the exciting prospect of lunch at the Howes, one of the best houses I have ever been allowed into. It was originally built for Formula 1 racing driving legend Nelson Piquet, with views down from Mougins to Cannes, where I very much hope to enjoy some Chateau Gloria and smoke some Montechristo number 2’s, the finest cigars known to man.

This will be at the expense of golf with the Regs, where my presence was eagerly awaited by two of my golfing compatriots whose secret relationship I managed not to reveal recently. I have received several offered of new balls, or at least I think that was what was meant, but sadly cannot play as there is a possibility of rain, and with the luncheon plans outlined above, who can blame me?

Chris France