Too hot for tennis?

My opponents were claiming victory. But how can one win one set and then be tieing another set at tennis and go on to claim victory over lunch? There is only one person who, had the score line been reversed, who could have made a case for this to be considered a victory. That person is of course myself. Suffice to say that no case has been made so the result was inconclusive and in my little world I remain undefeated. In fact we had just started to grind our opponents down when they claimed it was too hot and insisted on retiring for lunch at Auberge St Donat.

Myself and Anthony Bay, a doubles partnership made in heaven, were about to impose ourselves on the match before our cowardly counterparts decided that lunch beckoned. After several micro seconds of argument, we saw sense and agreed to a luncheon adjournment. After all it was 32 degrees and relentlessly sunny (this last part for my enormous UK readership).

So lunch became a somewhat ribald affair. Despite being amongst the first to be seated at around 12.15, we were that last to leave at something close to 4pm. You know when you have out stayed your welcome, when the staff are busily engaged in a late lunch when you are ready to pay the bill. The evening version of this scenario is where the staff don their pajamas and start yawning.

A number of interesting characters were in attendance. John Mundell, one of our tennis foe redeemed himself by inviting myself and that nice lady decorator on board his sailing yacht next week to see the fireworks in Cannes, he claims not to have started the engine on his boat since 2007 and claims that 3 knots is fast enough for anyone. That, according to my calculations, we need to leave the harbour 24 hours before the fireworks to ensure we are in a position to view them.

Anyway, a convivial lunch was enhanced by the arrival of the wingco, who was not wearing pink, like some of the other luncheon attendees. Anthony Bay was resplendent with his “woofter bag”, his own description of the satchel type container in which his wife insists he keep all his personal possessions, because he is want to leave things behind.

I returned home to find my bar packed, as my picture today shows. Once again a plethora of teenagers were busily engaged in emptying my fridge of rose and beer. My dear children were being helped enormously by that nice lady decorator, who has spectacular form in this area. How happy am I going to be to see them both (the kids) off to various colleges next month.

Teenagers and hangers-on destroy my drinks store

Lunch today will be at ours with Wet Suit Nigel and his lovely wife Lesley, together with Icelandic goddess Gudrun, head honcho at Remax-Cannes, but this is strictly business as I see some empathy between the international estate agent activities of Remax and a chap who still has a few properties available on his magnificent Medina Palms development on the famous Turtle Beach in Kenya. If you thought I might stoop so low as to try to engineer a small commission on any deal done, then you would be right. It would then follow, would it not, that the enormous expense of visiting the development in November would become an entirely justifiable business expense?

Furthermore, I am certain that Currencies Direct can be of further benefit to them? You see, it’s not all just fun, tennis, golf, drinking and eating when you live in the Cote d’Azur, there is a lot of work to do and I am proud to say that my work ethic is still very strong and shows no signs of weakening.

Chris France