Fireworks postponed

Mr Clipbeard as an acknowledged nut when it comes to new technology. He is the first to buy a new bit of kit as soon as it comes out before it has been tested and shown to be useless. I bet he even bought a Sinclair C5. Last night as we sat on his wonderful terrace watching the sun go down over the Estoril hills, he showed us his latest retail triumph.

We were on the terrace, from where I took this picture ,as the Cannes Firework display was postponed until Monday due to wind, and being a poor sailor and, with that nice lady decorator a little under the weather, we decided not to accept the Master Mariner Mundell’s kind invitation to what he called “plan b”, which probably would have meant him having lots of fun sailing madly on a force 6 whilst his guests aboard parted company with the gallons of rose they had consumed before departure.

What is that wine glass doing to the view?

But back to Mr Clipbeard. Flying in last week on Easyjet, he had been attracted by one of their very worthy offers to buy an Iphone cover enabling you to use it underwater and take pictures. Basically it is a plastic see-through bag into which you place your Iphone and for which he paid a ridiculous 20 euros. I could have sold him something similar for 2 euros. Anyway he was very pleased with his purchase and was in his pool trying it out when he received a phone call. Sadly, that is when the design fault was revealed. You can answer your phone underwater but the bag is obviously sealed and no sound can be heard.

The Wingco and his lovely wife Maryse was also aboard the terrace. The gathering had been an impromptu response to the firework display being postponed, and the last-minute idea was to drink the wine and eat the nibbles that we had prepared for the boat trip. The Wingco, who still maintains that this daily column is “ghastly” despite claiming never to have read it, was determined to do his best to ensure there was no discussion about it because in his words “nobody reads it”. I wish I had been able to capture his expression when his wife said “I read it” and then the equally beautiful Mrs Clipbeard admitted that she too read it and thought it was good. It was very rewarding for me and then the paintings created in Marina Kulik’s painting class for my next book came up in discussion (click here to see them). Opinion was mixed but overall the feeling was that I had made the right choice. Anyway, I became slightly embarrassed that the discussion was all about me so I tried to change the subject. “That’s enough about me” I said, “now let’s talk about my blog”.

Tennis will reconvene this morning, and it will be very interesting as we have the usual bright sunshine as I write but a force 6 mistral is blowing. I am not sure if my usual lobbing game is best suited to playing in a gale but I am about to find out. Obviously, playing outside may be an alien concept for my UK readers who, it seems, mostly play their tennis inside huge hangars, another aspect of life in England to which I am not looking forward.

As it is Sunday today and therefore a day of rest, I shall down tools as far as my work with Currencies Direct is concerned, because as the banks are shut today they cannot rip you off with exorbitant charges in the form of poor exchange rates. However tomorrow will be different. They will be open and ripping. Sign up now, you know it makes sense.