Le Tour in traffic police fracas

Le Tour De Finance kicked off in style at Mougins last evening after a visit from the police who were a tad upset by the area being festooned with directional posters. In their wisdom, they decided to take them all down, and, furthermore, with the venue’s entrance about half a mile away and in a different road to the parking area, and not now marked because of the police action, gps was of no real value. The venue effectively having 2 addresses allowed a wonderful irony; It was pointed out by Currencies Direct french supremo Pippa Maile to the traffic police (whose primary job, I imagine, would be the to keep the traffic flowing around the many small and pretty lanes around Mougins at rush hour) that they would then suffer the consequences and have to deal with 500 cars driving around the area looking for the signposts the police had removed, and that as a result of their actions the police would then be engaged in trying to guide people to the wonderful, but quite difficult to find Oiseaux Des Paradis, the venue for this tour date.

So after the traffic police had removed all the signs guiding in those grateful ex pats so that they could all sign up for Currencies Direct, the turn out was lower than expected. But all is not lost, you still have a chance to go to the next date for Le Tour De Finance at Nice in the very central Boscolo Hotel next Tuesday 24th May.

My picture today is taken from the terrace of the venue looking across the old Mougins village centre. If you look closely you can see lines of cars going around and around the area, looking for where we were.

Old Mougins village viewed from le Tour De Finance

Today I shall take the nice lady decorator to Italy for a Vallebona birthday treat. Vallebona is of course a quaint Italian village with a renowned restaurant, well it was recommended by Wayne Brown from FR2day, so the jury is still out. It is set in the hills behind Ventigmilia on the Italian Riviera and is about an hours drive across the border from Valbonne. We shall be taking the skip (otherwise known as the 4 x 4) as she has designs on a dozen cases of prosecco, and if there is any space maybe I will be allowed to squeeze in a couple of bottles of barolo.

The weekend has no prospect of any rest, a barbecue tomorrow afternoon and a party at Bastide St Mathieu in the evening, where I will be able to discuss my chess supremacy with owner Bill Colegrave. At present the position stands at 3-1, but to whom, modesty forbids me to say. That he has at least won one game is a testament to my generous nature, and if he does the decent thing and resigns an indefensible position in the 5th game before Saturday, it will give me a further dimension for our discussions.

Then on Sunday, my first round of golf with the Landlubbers for many weeks. The Grande Bastide is the venue where once again those legendary silver golf shoes of mine will be shimmering their way around the course. I shall be able to check the state of play in one particular romance, but after my last mention of this event I was inadvertently, I am sure, omitted from the email list announcing the last few Landlubbers golf events. Now happily restored, I shall not be downcast by this oversight, and any suggestion that my campaigning journalistic style will in any way be cramped by the threat of further omission is as outrageous as it is true.

Chris France