Crash helmets for dogs

Crash helmets for dogs? It’s not something that I have come across before but my dear new friend Tracy, still a friend despite my honest assessment of her homeland, the north of England, as a tundra strewn backward wasteland, decided to bring her little dog over to visit yesterday. The dog in question is tiny, a dachshund or shitehound as I like to call it, and does not have enough meat on her even to fill a decent sandwich. She (the dog) often travels on their motorbike owned and ridden by her partner,the impossibly good-looking Pascale the pilot, whom I had earlier allowed to defeat me on the tie break on the tennis court at the Vignale in Plascassier. You may consider that I should expect to lose to a man sixteen years my junior, who had been coached by his tennis coach father, but I had a match point which he won with a fluke. Angry?, me? of course.

Anyway back to the dachshund. It is a German breed, as many will know and displays a number of traits displayed by his fellow countrymen, you know the sort of thing, eating sausages, a guttural bark, obeying the law, that sort of thing, so her demand for a crash helmet should not have been a surprise, and I have been promised a picture of her wearing it, once she has taken delivery.

In the meantime, I managed to snap her indulging in that most irritating of German habits, getting her towel on the beach lounger before anyone else.

As usual, the Germans always get their towels on the loungers early

As it was a bank holiday here in France, the start of the traditional two-week shut down of almost everything in France, I was forced to abandon my quest in pursuit of new customers for Currencies Direct, mainly because our visitors yesterday are already clients.

Last night we took the train to see the fireworks in Cannes to avoid the general madness in Valbonne due to the circus being in town and the Festival of St Roch. Cannes has a series of fantastic firework displays each week during the summer, with some kind of competition between nations to see who is the best. Last night it was the turn of Russia, but how you compare one display with another over a six-week period escapes me. Previous experience has allowed is to know where best to be situated, and our favoured position is on the street outside the bar of the Irish pub The Quays on the port of Cannes. It would be rude not to sample some of their wares, so Guinness was required to be drunk.

The train is the obvious way to get into Cannes as the town gets completely gridlocked as tens of thousands of people descend for the spectacle. All went well until about 2000 people were waiting for the last train up the hill to Mouans Sartoux and Grasse. A four carriage unit pulled in on time and it was quickly obvious that not everyone to get on, but within ten minutes, a double sized train replaced the smaller unit and everyone got on. can you imagine that flexibility on the English railways? no, neither can I.

Today I will be forced to venture in to Valbonne, as old friends Nigel and Leslie Rowley who are staying in the area have expressed the wish to have a look around, and it is my duty to be chauffeur, a small price to pay for the Lords tickets (no Reverend Jeff, this is not what you think) and an offer of free accommodation in Kenya in late November, both of which emanated from these guys. Me, a mercenary tart? No question.

Chris France