The end is nigh

Today is the day. This morning I shall leave Valbonne, probably the best French village in the world and begin to head inexorably north. England beckons and, like a fart in a wind tunnel, there is only one way I am going. At least the metaphorical wind tunnel will be turned off at night until Sunday.

It was perhaps fitting that the last evening was spent at one of my favorite haunts, the Auberge St Donat. Earlier I had played tennis, partnered in the traditional way by my Moustachioed Old Git (MOGS) partner, one half of 118 118, the Wingco. I am not certain of the result by I do know that two factors had a bearing on events. Firstly I am injured. I do not want to make a fuss about it, indeed I scarcely believe that either of our opponents, Mr Clipbeard and Mr Custard would have noticed my knee brace except for the fact that I had written “injured” on it in luminous white paint. Whilst this impediment slowed me down from “whippet” to “donkey”, my innate judgement of where to be and a deft touch made little difference to my classic lobbing game that those that play against me hate so much. The real problem was that the Wingco had lunched rather well. He thought he played very well but he was wrong.

The occasion was his daughters 16th birthday, which in itself is a slightly alarming fact as he will shortly enter his 7th decade. Why he chose to drink that much wine on the beach prior to joining me on the tennis court is a mystery. Indeed, looking at the state of him I suppose I was lucky he even found the tennis club let alone the court, but no matter, I was convinced that his game would not suffer. I was wrong.

It would be rude of me to go into details, but regular readers will know that rudeness is one of my strong suits. Time and time again it was his giant salmon-like leaps at the net accompanying the flailing racket whilst making little or no contact with the ball that put us at something of a disadvantage, and although Mr Clipbeard, whose only saving grace is that he is a Currencies Direct customer, was very jovial and triumphant at dinner afterwards, for me the result is in doubt. Morally at least, we won, although numerically others may claim victory, and if that is the case, which is not admitted, then the “winners” should be ashamed that the beat a cripple and a drunk.

It’s a sign

So as we sat down to a last supper, hence my religious picture today, the mark of the cross, where the Wingco proceeded to top up from lunch, having sweated out several gallons attempting, and mostly failing, to get up-stream, the inevitable subject of the forthcoming Olympics came up. It will give you an idea of Mr Clipboards sporting abilities and his deep knowledge and love of sport that the contest to which he is most looking forward and for which he has tickets is the ladies volleyball, Brazil v Holland. Why he would want to witness this obscure event is not a mystery, although I read recently that if the weather is inclement then the skimpy outfits habitually worn by the contestants, which will have had no bearing on his multiple application for tickets, may be replaced by something less titillating, a fact that he refused to accept last night. Neither would he accept my contention, with admittedly had no basis of truth, that I had heard the weather forecast and is was going to be cold and wet. I am sure their wearing of overcoats will not spoil the spectacle.

Chris France