Mr Clipbeard pulls a fast one

“I just need you to move a few boxes for me” was the request from Mr Clipboard (or Mr Clipbeard as he has become known after the enforced removal of my beard in a restaurant “accident” at the end of last year). As a Currencies Direct customer of mine, I felt it was a reasonable request, even if in typical Clipboard style I was told to line up in an orderly fashion at 07 30 to report for duty, properly equipped for boxes, loading of. I am sure some of boxed contained spare clipboards.

What I had not bargained for was an entire morning of acting as an unpaid removal man. As the range and scale of tasks became clear I demanded that at the very least lunch should be offered in payment for my services, a demand that became ever more strident as my car was not the only vehicle being used in the removal process, there was a huge van as well, which was also loaded to capacity before being driven to Plascassier to unload.

Mutinous is a good word to describe my mood when we arrived at our destination because the contents of my car and a lorry the size of Valbonne had to be man-handled up 49 steps to his house, what he called a “minor detail” when challenged. Under immense pressure from myself and the Wingco, he gave in rather too quickly when we demanded lunch as payment at Lou Fassum nearby, the stunning Michelin star restaurant with views down to the sea. It had the effect of keeping the troops myself and the Wingco) quiet, well apart from a lot of cursing and moaning, throughout the longest step class in history as we lugged all those spare clipboards or whatever was in the containers up the longest staircase in Christendom. When finally it was done and the military task had ben fulfilled to his satisfaction, the smirking Mr Clipboard drove us down to Lou Fassum for lunch. It was closed for refurbishment.. He must have known which is why he agreed with such alacrity to our demands. Too exhausted to argue too much we instead adjourned to the Auberge de Provence, pictured today where myself and the Wingco made a memorable effort to extract as much value from a free lunch as possible. Fois Gras with a glass of sauterne, fillet steak, coupe coronel, (the only part of which the military element of the character of Mr Clipbard found favour), the best wine in the house (a cheeky little Bordeaux that was really rather too young to be out on its own) washed down with the most expensive, indeed the only cognac on the menu.

Auberge Provencal at Plascassier

Naturally, after doing the work of six men in the morning I was a little tired in the afternoon, a malaise that I was able to shake off with a refreshing siesta. The afternoon nap was required because early doors at The Queens Legs at 18.30 sharp was also on Mr Clipboards clipboard. This a couple of pints of Guinness destroyed the last vestiges of any attempt to hold onto the shirttails of my post Christmas diet and I retired later to bed aching, fatter and well fed.

Today (again sharp at 10.000am) tennis has been organised at the Vignale Tennis Club in Plascassier. The usual rules apply, if I win expect a fulsome analytical insight into the match and an underlining of the result, but if I lose which has to my memory not never happened then I will find insufficient space in this column to report events. The forth player will be Blind Drunk Lemon Milsted.

Just enough space today to remind you of the theatre production “Barefoot In The Park” starring Jennifer Wilson on 14th and 15th February at the Pre Des Arts in Valbonne, tickets available from their website.

Chris France