Dissertation? make my a large one

Mother in law is worth her worth her weight in gold, and believe me that is a shed load of gold. So said one of our luncheon party yesterday who shall remain nameless as we lunched at fashionable restaurant Transat in Antibes.

We had adjourned there after another tennis lesson administered by my good self to Roly Bufton the husband of John Hurts former cleaner and Peachy Butterfield, who had his mother in law in tow, oops, may have given something away there. I took this picture of the quaint bar there.

The Vignale Tennis Club bar

Peachy was in large form and was explaining that he had spent the morning preparing for tennis by reading his sons university dissertation. Given the big fruits size (la grande peche) one may perhaps have been forgiven for thinking that the word dissertation had something to be with being served with extra desert. He began explaining what he had been doing by using a split infinitive but does anyone out there, apart from my syntax sorcerer Peter Lynn, have any idea of what comprises a split infinitive? Star Trek fans will remember possibly the most high-profile of these; “to boldly go”. One must never split the verb. Certainly he did not seem to understand, thus he had no idea why I was smiling when he said when referring to that dissertation he was reading it “to grammatically correct it” .

Lunch was excellent although being chased from the venue at the impossibly early time of 3.50 was a black mark. Do they not realise than this is the south of France and lunch is to be savoured, not rushed? We seemed welcome until 3 30 after which service standards disappeared, chairs were being stacked on tables and I swear another 5 minutes and our waiter would have donned his pyjamas.

Sensibly after being ejected we eschewed the invitation for more rose chez Bufton and instead returned home to prepare for the arrival of Rupert and Sophie Scott, owners of the house in which Edith Piaf died and today promising to do their first transaction with Currencies Direct thereby saving money on their foreign exchange. Rupert is a great lover of the pav and the web, our two outdoor drinking areas and demands time in them whenever here. It is the least I can do for a customer..

It is normal for things to get out of hand and suffice to say they were both still in the web at 1.30am this morning with a two hour break for dinner in Cafe Des Arcades. As they now live back in England and are letting the house out for summer rentals, they had been here a couple of weeks ago and had decided to take back a candelabra to their UK house worth £35,000. As they had flown in rather than driven, and given its value they wanted to take it home on the plane as hand luggage.  However, even British Airways baulked at that (can you imagine trying that with Easyjet?) and seem surprised when they were told the only way it could go on the plane was if it was shrink wrapped. I did not know that Nice airport had such a facility but the candelabra is now safely back in England.

Today an airport run to make absolutely certain that Peachy gets his plane but there is a plan to have lunch at La Pannisse in Cap Trois Mille on the way. I will want to check his sun glasses line, his personalised blood pressure gauge. If there is a line then it seems he is OK, if the line had disappeared, especially after playing tennis in the quite hot sunshine yesterday, the blood pressure will clearly be a problem.

Chris France