Valbonnaise RIP

Disaster! The best atmospheric restaurant in Valbonne, the Valbonnaise closed the night before last. Chantel and Jean Luc are retiring, probably worn out by that Nice Lady Decorator insisting on dancing on the tables with the owner whenever we were there. Valbonne will be a poorer place without them and their restaurant and that atmospheric scruffy but brilliant ambience they created. Today’s picture gives a rough indication of the problems with which they were faced. Valbonnaise R.I.P.

Dancing on the tables at the Valbonnaise

We seem to have stolen the sun, whose rightful place is in the south of France. I am hearing about rain and now storms back in my old stomping ground whilst we here in the UK are basking in sunshine (after the frost has cleared). What can one do when faced with such sunny provocation, coupled with two days of drying out? Why go to a pub for a drink before lunch of course! So after a busy morning sorting out affairs for Currencies Direct and ensuring my new rock and roll, well, hip hop project is properly delegated to someone younger and considerably more enthusiastic, we set off. It was warm enough to get the top down on the Merc for the first time this year and I was unwise enough to allow myself to be photographed in a shirt rather too small properly to disguise my six-pack (or Party 7 as was suggested by one of my “friends”). I shall be more careful when I take to wearing those skimpy speedos if summer continues to develop the was it has so far.

As that Decorating person was fulfilling her primary role of decorating, well, actually she was pointing up one of the garden walls before painting it white, and she was a little behind schedule with her delegated workload, I allowed her to dip out of walking across to Burpham, graciously allowing her to buy me lunch (at my own expense) next door at the excellent Boco Nuevo at the White Hart. I say own expense because her little used bank card conveniently expired at the end of April and of course, it is now May. As the only person in our party with a bank card that had not expired, it fell to me to buy lunch despite a firm promise I had received earlier. Chagrined as I was, I must say I had a smidgen of respect; it is not an excuse I had previously employed, but rest assured, I have learned a valuable lesson today.

Nowadays, having become bored with trying to extend my arms to get the menu far away enough to read, I have reading glasses. I have heard it said that you never hit a man with glasses, a cricket bat is better. Over lunch, we discussed matters of such great import and interest and I became so thoroughly involved in a nice 2009 St Emilion, which my old, but sadly estranged, friend Peter Lynn would have said was not old enough to be out on its own, and the Decorating person became so immersed in prosecco in the sunshine that I cannot recall a great deal of what was discussed, in fact almost nothing, except that it was fulsome, wide-ranging and detailed as usual.

I do recall that there was some discussion about the relative merits of suet pudding in the context of the 600 calorie a day diet that will once again engulf me today (the diet not the pudding). That Nice Lady Decorator expressed the opinion that she thought it might be acceptable as long as it was without the suet and without the pudding.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News