Partying goes through the roof

So first, lets go back to the events of Monday. As I alluded to in yesterday’s column, a long lunch at Auberge St Donat coupled with an elegant sufficiency of rosé and the joy of being back in the South of France in the sunshine, somehow combined to wreak havoc on That Nice Lady Decorators 4×4, otherwise known as the skip (due to the amount of rubbish constantly in board). It is not often a garage will be asked to effect repairs to the roof of a vehicle but I fear that, as a result of the antics of one Decorating persons high life in Valbonne, a local garage will shortly be receiving an unusual repair request. By high, I mean of course, high up on the vehicle. I have a picture which I think illustrates the nature of the problem.

Alas, with no tables upon which to dance, one has to improvise

Yet another sublime day amongst the idle rich was spent yesterday aboard Sea Breezes, formerly known as Sea Breeze, the fabulous boat owned by Roly and Poly Bufton. It seems that there is another boat registered by the same name so more wind was required. Had I been asked I am sure I could have contributed.

A train to Antibes, and a short walk to Port Vauban and we were aboard by 10.30, but resisted the offer of a drink until the sun was close to, but not over, the yardarm. Like at Lords last week, it somehow seems to be socially acceptable to have a glass of champagne in ones hand at 11.30 as one cruises out of the port on the way to Villefranche Sur Mer, where we anchored for lunch.

Whilst getting to grips with the champagne lake aboard, I heard a touching tale (apparently true) about two eye doctors, one of who was a Currencies Direct client, who met on a blind date. I made a note about this eye opening scenario but decided that it was too obvious a theme about which to make a joke so, resolved not to make a spectacle of myself by trying.

A few other interesting facts came to light; it seems that Sea Breezes can cruise at 8 knots and burn a mere 20 litres of diesel an hour (that is about 2 miles to the gallon by my reckoning) but if one raises the speed to 12 knots then the miles per gallon worsens considerably. I am told that 190 litres an hour can be consumed at that rate, making the equation more gallons to the mile than miles to the gallon. Suffice to day that we cruised to Villefranche at 8 knots.

After a very agreeable lunch on board and some excursions in kayaks by some of the more adventurous on board (and here I do not include myself) we returned to Antibes, where we felt the calling from the Hop Store for a pint of Guinness, before catching the last train back to Mouans Sartoux.

It is nice that there is still at least one Irish bar in the area from which That Nice Lady Decorator has not been barred, so the temptation to get off the train at Cannes and have a nightcap at Morrison’s ( from which one member of our party is barred) was never the subject of serious discussion, mainly because the carriage on the train was being regaled with snores of the most cacophonous kind as we pulled into Cannes. I swear that more people that one would expect alighted at Cannes to avoid the noise pollution.

More tennis this morning will be followed, I am almost certain, by lunch at Auberge St Donat. If it were not then it would almost be an affront to tradition. Talking of affronts to tradition, Blind Lemon Milsted has declared himself unavailable on the spurious context that it his daughters birthday. This is a very poor excuse as there are bound to be dozens of other birthdays and as a result we may have to take another chance on Loudmouth Largy, who will almost certainly let us all down again, this time by turning up.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News