Hammer Bottom Butsers

The cricket at Cabris Cricket club, now rather confusingly situated at nearby  St Valley De Thiey,  was yet another triumphant return to the world of cricket for my good self. I had been invited to play by Pete Bennett of Blue water Yachting, my chauffeur for the day, but did not recall agreeing to play until after selection, but it was a great day out. We were playing against a touring team from Surrey called, rather alarmingly The Hammer Bottom Butsers. Even more alarming was the fact that they had their own logo encrusted shirts, sweaters and even, as my picture today alludes to in graphic details, monogrammed boxes. A box, as any cricketer knows, is a vital piece of equipment used by chaps to keep a very hard cricket ball from colliding with a man’s wedding tackle, however, in 45 years of playing cricket, I have never before been unfortunate enough to witness monogrammed items of this type. I was also rather uneasy at how easy it was for me to procure this photograph, but after I had taken it, the sudden realisation that the picture was to be published, gave voice to several comments about padding the particular area of protection for the sake of vanity. I have of course edited the picture to ensure that these two particular characters cannot be identified, except perhaps by their wives.

Monogrammed protection, but hardly worth the effort?

They are however charming people and, on the day, deserved losers, with Cabris benefiting from the 30 classy runs scored by yours truly, the highest score for our side, cementing a fine victory. Later however, it is revealed that out opponents have only ever won one game whilst on tour, having lost heavily on all five previous tours. Perhaps a little more dedication to the game itself, rather than the slightly questionable use of sineage might pay some dividends?

I hear from Phil at YBH1 yachts who notes that there was no plug yesterday for Currencies Direct. This of course was an oversight that will not occur again.

After my return to Valbonne from cricketing nirvana, I found that nice lady decorator, freshly returned from London where she had witnessed some wedding or other, tucked into her third bottle of wine with Lisa Thornton Allan in the pav. It was thus clear to me then that no cooking would be taking place so we ended up in the family run and bustling Valbonnaise where we meet Jeroen Zaat from Riviera Home Finders  celebrating the Dutch queens wedding. I never quite got to the bottom of it, but it seems that her birthday is actually in February but it is always celebrated on April 30th. Whoever is Queen, her birthday is always celebrated on the same date. This would seem to me to be something routed in that countries renowned intake of cannabis.

I am in no doubt that his assembled multitude of fellow Dutch nationals had imbibed well of something, as they were making sufficient noise to cause an altercation with some French diners about the noise levels. These noise levels were them seriously inflated whilst a discussion took place about too much noise. It did not seem to occur to either parties that their discussions were in fact noisier than anything that had gone before, making the situation worse, and at one stake, that nice lady decorator, who as we all know likes a fight, wanted to join in the altercation. It would not have mattered whose side when took, she just likes a good fight. However,  eventually relative calm returned and celebrations continued until well after we had left.

Chris France