OK, one more at least
Ok, maybe I will struggle on for a little while. My revelation that I was about to end this daily missive in was met with a chorus (slightly muted chorus that is) of steadfast followers of this column demanding that I continue to write it. Biker Matt made the very valid point that should it no longer appear, he would be bereft when it came to his morning ablutions, and who am I to be the cause of constipation? The Reverend Jeff was concerned that his creative juices may go unsqueezed, unlike much of the rest of him if what I hear from his partner (with whom he has lived in sin for some 30 years) says, and Poly Bufton has absolutely forbidden me to stop.
The lovely Linda Monks, a reader for some 4 years, and fellow Currencies Direct operative, questioned what she would read over her morning Barista (which sounds vaguely legal), although nothing was to be heard from her sheep loving partner Alan. David Baumann made the very fine suggestion that I should give up the 5:2 diet rather than the blog, but Wayne Brown suggested that rather than the 75 people he told me had tried to persuade him not to renew the website domain, that in fact he was being kind and it was more like 125. John Gwynn aboard HMS Victory joined the “Save The Blog” campaign initiated by Captain Bligh himself, Phil Pennicott, and Jeroen from ABK properties suggested that in France one cannot resign just like that. There is the usual French bureaucracy to go through with three months notice, a cooling off period and registered letters.
Roly Bufton celebrates prematurely not having to have this blog read to him at breakfast by mine sweeping at the Auberge St Donat
From the vast majority of my readers however, there has hitherto been a deafening silence. Do I sense that a large majority of regular readers were relieved that they did not have to read the column to make sure they were not mentioned? I had a discussion about this last night at Cafe Des Arcades with Peter Blue Water Bennett, who has, in the past, actually paid me to write, and several others about the future. The lovely Janie Savin said “thank god, I can water the plastic banana palm without a picture appearing in the blog”. Paul “Slash And Burn” Thornton Allan was fully of the opinion that I should be stopped, and curiously, that seemed to infuse me with some backbone. Some may like this column (as can be seen from the many comments both here and on Facebook, for which I thank you) others fear it. I think it is the fear that will drive me on for a little time yet.
So the first social occasion of the visit of The Savins was, rather gratifyingly, dominated by discussion about me or this column. A little like an Oscar winner, I had not prepared a speech, but tears were near. Especially just after we got the bill.
Today, I shall venture onto a golf course for the first time in two years, since my enforced move to the UK. No one in their right mind plays golf when it is windy, cloudy, wet or cold and it is usually at least three of those four back in England whenever you plan an outside activity. Indeed I saw pictures of a barbecue being staged by Simon “”Who Ate All The Pies” Barrett back in the old country last weekend and there was a wonderful display of wet weather gear and mufflers. I shall be wagering £5 that I can beat house guest Peter Savin. For new readers the same rules will apply. A victory for me will be trumpeted loudly, but should I be subject to anything less, then pressure of space in this column will probably preclude any mention.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
The end of the daily blog
I think the day that this column failed to appear due to the expiry of the domain (fixed the next day, but outside my control) was the first day in 4 years when I began to question whether it is worth continuing to write and publish this daily missive. Up until that point, it has been a badge of honour, something that I had managed to publish every day for over 1400 days , albeit sometimes late.
When Wayne Brown said on Facebook that he had at least 75 people urging him not to renew the domain for me, so that they would not be exposed to the sharp wit and arrow like reviews of places, people and restaurants, plus the illustration of the great characters I have met over the past years, although he was joking, perhaps the writing was on the wall, rather than in the blog.
This column was born to advertise the value of having an account with Currencies Direct for any foreign exchange trades that may be required, and found solid focus in the early years in the ex pat infested land of Valbonne and the surrounding towns. However, an enforced move out of France for me, to Arundel, back in the UK due to unfortunate changes to the French taxation policy (courtesy not of M Holland but M Sarkozy, in one of his parting shots before being shot down himself by the French electorate) the focus of this column changed. There are just as many wonderful characters and places with which I came into contact, but the number of people living in England for whom the moving of money has resonance is, of course, smaller by definition. Now, moving back to Valbonne, and then flitting between the both, as I shall be doing in the coming year, I have decided that the continuity will suffer and this column will change from a daily episode to perhaps weekly, or will appear when I think I have something to write about.
Retiring to sit by my pool
In essence this is the end of the daily grind to write something with some amusement, and something to give the now sadly depleted army of limericists some ammunition to inspire them. 4 years I have been doing it, as long as Max Clifford will have to serve in prison after being convicted of indecent assault, but it is time to hang up my pen, set down my camera, and head out to grass, with occasional returns to the fray from time to time.
Perhaps it is the melancholy that tends to descend upon me when immersed in this 5:2 diet, perhaps the failing figures, now amounting to under 100 a day, but unless I awaken this morning feeling it is all a terrible mistake, or less likely, there is a chorus of emotionally charged demands that I continue, I suspect my blogging days are coming to an end.
Perhaps it is also the strain of waking up at 7 in the morning, with a hangover as big as Chernobyl, knowing that I need to write 600 words about life amongst the idle rich of Valbonne, and at the same time knowing that I have an especially excessive social diary taking shape for the next six weeks. Perhaps the effort will be too much and I have taken the easy option.
I expect there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, or perhaps there will be relief amongst those who have been most wronged in this column. In the case of The Wingco there will be blissful ignorance (a state in which in my opinion he often seems to find himself) as he has read this column only once and deceived it as “ghastly”.
So farewell readers, I will be back from time to time.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Chasing the sun
After a lovely morning spent in the garden, some clouds appeared over the hills and by late morning a few showers scudded over the pre Alps, so we decided to pop into Valbonne to get a Sunday Times and have a beer. Whilst sitting in the square, with another shower sending diners scuttling for cover, and with blue sky over the coast, I was persuaded to go towards the coast where it was clearer to go sun chasing.
Arriving at Mandelieu, just to the right of Cannes as you look at the Mediterranean, we settled on La Sweet, a restaurant on the beach from where I took today’s picture. There is still snow on the mountains in the far background, a reminder that winter is not long gone.
View from La Sweet looking past Cannes to the mountains.
Obviously it was my fault that a few showers descended on Valbonne. Clearly I had arranged for them to arrive exactly at the moment That Nice Lady Decorator was half way through painting the last of the sun loungers. With beer in Valbonne not doing the job, the 20 minute dash to the beach and the sunshine eventually restored her equanimity and by the time we returned to the garden, the showers were gone and we were able to settle on the previously painted loungers for a glass of something white and cold, or pink and cold for me.
It was over a few glasses of liquid delight, in the sun bathing position, that we finally got to compare diaries for the stream of visitors one must expect when one owns a house in the south of France. It is a strange fact that the very fact of being in such a position down here has a curious effect on ones friends back in the UK. Over there, the willingness to travel 50 miles or more for a visit is often undertaken reluctantly or not at all, whereas travelling 1000 miles or more to where it is sunny and warm (mostly!) elicits a stream of visitors and chance calls asking how we are. Any suggestion that we have a house down here solely to maintain friendships with our British based friends is as hard to accept as it is probably true.
Before the onslaught though, today has been decreed a diet day, despite the fact that I have reached my target weight and with that suntan am looking almost irresistible certainly to myself. That Nice Lady Diet Decreer reasons that, with the imminent arrival of the Savin’s and the Thornton Allan’s, that there is a very good chance that a rather excessive amount of eating and drinking may occur in the coming week, coupled with a dearth of the normal exercise programme, that may wreak havoc with my currently not so corpulent frame.
So hunger and logging are on the agenda this morning. A couple of years ago we had some trees taken down, and the major trunks were just cut into sections and require splitting. Of course a chain saw would have been very useful but as I am, quite understandably, recognised as dangerous with tools and especially machinery, it was decided that I was as likely to do myself serious damage with such an item as I was successfully to teenage the wood into pieces suitable for our open fire. It is however very good exercise, and has the effect of energising my brain so that I can spend quality cerebral time considering how best to put over the message that Currencies Direct is the best possible method of sending or receiving money in foreign currencies.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Striking for the right to strike
There is a certain incongruity about spending two months in the south of France, but lusting after a pint of Guinness. Perhaps it was down to the excesses of Friday, when lunch at Auberge St Donat was followed by dinner at Auberge Provençal in Valbonne Square. I admit that I was not on top form yesterday and that is why thoughts of Irish Stout crowded in during late afternoon. It is full of iron you see, which apparently one can crave after a night on the tiles.
We were on, what turned out to be, a useless mission to take Sprog 1 to Antibes to do some shopping and put him on the train to Monaco, where he has at last found long-term gainful employment aboard the Costa Magna as a deckhand/engineer. With parking a problem as the Monte Carlo Grand Prix approaches, he wanted to leave his car at home during he week so as to avoid having it towed away (which has happened twice already). The idea was that he take the train from Antibes, and we in turn would adjourn to The Blue Lady for a pint or two of Murphy’s, which is harder to find but even better than Guinness. Ten minutes later he joined us as it seems all trains to Monaco were cancelled, probably due to that popular French pastime; the strike. Thus eventually we returned to Valbonne and he drove back over to Monaco in the car.
Seeking solace in the web, our outside bar last evening
There was talk that the strike might have been connected to the French pilots strikes, which are happening periodically. It seems they are striking in order to maintain their right to strike. The French are very good at striking, marching, surrendering and cooking. They also make some of the best wines in the world and have a beautiful country with much better weather than the UK, hence the time we spend here. But I digress. With all that wine and sunshine one might think that a heavy dark ale might be anathema, but there you have it.
Returning home, there was no way we were going out again after the previous days shenanigans, and a quiet night was spent ahead of Sunday, and an almost certainly heavy social week ahead. Today is the first Sunday of the month and so the Valbonne Antiques Market is staged throughout the village, where visitors can buy items that are often 25% more expensive than they would be in an antiques shop on a normal day. A tourist trap but an intresting spectacle and the village will be bustling. Bustle is very attractive to That Nice Lady Decorator so we have a plan to stroll down late morning, look at antiques and perhaps take in lunch. Actually, the expression “looking at antiques” could have been applied to my good self yesterday when we were seated in The Blue Lady surrounded by dozens of yachty types getting drunk on their day off. I must have been some 30 years older than the average age, whilst That Nice Lady Decorator told me she blended in with the crowd. She is, of course, correct.
The week ahead should have alarm bells ringing for my liver. The Savins will be house guests from Tuesday, and coincidentally the beautiful steely eyed Lisa Thornton Allan will be dragging her errant, arty and continually distracted husband and very fine fellow Paul “Slash And Burn” Thornton Allan with her to stay nearby with Currencies Direct affiliate Peter “Blue Water” Bennett and his lovely petite wife Julie. I believe the first round of debauchery is planned for Tuesday evening, so expect me to be hermit like tomorrow as I prepare for the onslaught.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Squid and skid marks
The Auberge St Donat is one of my favourite restaurants in the world. At first sight this may seem a curious choice. Much of it is set in a car park under a plastic cover, with the old parking bays visible in places beneath the tables. It offers a set menu each day. There is no choice. You get a cold starter, a hot starter, a main course, desert, coffee and, crucially, a quarter of a bottle of wine for a recently increased price of 16 euros. The fussy eaters amongst us tend to check the menu beforehand and ask for an alternative to the main course if the one offered is not to their taste. I prefer not to look and then try whatever is presented. I admit that, in the past, I have been presented with some courses which were not to my liking. Pigs trotters come to mind as does a type of brawn in a kind of green jelly. It is very French, wholesome food but, by the very nature of the menu being set, there is always a danger that you may happen across something you do not like.
That Nice Lady Decorator does not enjoy the establishment or rate its output as highly as I. In fact she has previously sworn that she would never set foot in the place again. However, time heals and when a gathering as large as yesterday’s (13) developed, she was persuaded to overcome her qualms and join us. It was supposed to have been a boys lunch, but in the end there were 4 girls in the party, but gratifyingly, two Currencies Direct clients.
The Decorating Person is not usually a picky eater but there are some things at which she will turn up her nose or become violent. Top of that list would by squid and pasta. It all started quite well with a nice hard-boiled egg salad for a starter, and I liked the home-made spring rolls which came next. She was OK with the salad but not convinced by the spring rolls. The problem arose when the main course arrived. Squid with pasta was about as unfortunate a choice by the chef as could be imagined. “Why have I got a plate full of tentacles?” she asked.
I think it is fair to say that she will not be persuaded again to join us for lunch there. In fact I am glad that there was not a dumb waiter in the restaurant otherwise she might have been tempted to get into it (as had happened the night before at the Chinese in Valbonne) and remonstrate with the cooks.
dark chocolate desert, not skidmarks
So after a long siesta, we awoke hungry and headed into the centre of Valbonne. With some rain around, we decided not to go to the Cafe Des Arcades, but to go to the much more up market Auberge Provençal across the Square on the first floor, where the food is very good, the ancient interior has been beautifully decorated and the ambience is very French. In fact I would say that it is my favourite restaurant in Valbonne, but not somewhere one would go every day. My lamb was excellent and The Decorators seared tuna a delight. A much more satisfying experience than had been the case at lunchtime.
There was one moment of controversy. Unusually I decided on a desert, which given my new sleek frame as a result if that 5:2 diet I felt that I could risk. I chose a chocolate dish with a name I cannot recall, but when it arrived, with some nouvelle cuisine designed chocolate smeared across the plate in what I thought was an attractive way, That Nice Lady Decorator ruined the moment by suggesting that it looked a bit like the skid marks one may find in some (not my own, obviously) underpants. It is my picture today. Despite this clear attempt to deny me pudding, I ate it all.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Dumb waiter gets a ticking off
You know you are going to have trouble when Peachy Butterfield is in charge of arrangements. It is not so much that things don’t go well, it is just that he likes to leave a lot of time for aperitifs and is always punctual so as to maximise the amount of time for indulging.
With the Chinese restaurant in Valbonne booked for 7.30, the timing of aperitifs at 5.30 looked a tad early to me, but being in starvation rations for two days, and not having had a drink since Monday, I was gagging for the off. Peachy had thoughtfully arranged for the web, our outside bar, to be the venue for apero’s and so the pressure was in us to get the web straight for the first social occasion of the summer.
With everything newly painted and scrubbed by That Nice Lady Decorator, and with the sun shining, it was a perfect start to the evening, but with Simon “Chateau Gloria” having checked the wine list before heading to the restaurant in Valbonne, and a rather enthusiastic bout of over-imbibing, we decided to take a couple of bottles of St Emilion Grand Cru with us to the restaurant. I think that gives you some idea of how enthusiastic we had been.
Now to the restaurant. Having agreed corkage for our wine, and ordered, we waited and drank, and waited some more. After an hour or so in which time only a few miserly starters had appeared, That Nice Lady Decorator was getting restive. She does not do hunger well, and having, with me, just completed two 5:2 diet days on the trot, was beginning to digest herself from the inside. And that was her excuse for getting in to the dumb waiter as my picture today captures. She said she was going in search of the food. She failed.
Dumb waiter gets just desserts
My prawns in satay were delightful, spicy and perfect, however either the rest of the menu is not very good or my fellows diners chose unwisely, as the general consensus was that it was quite ordinary and took a long time to arrive. I think the jury is still out. We all had a great time, partly fuelled by that Grand Cru.
The Chinese is almost next door to La Kavanou, Valbonne’s wine bar of choice, and so it seemed perfectly reasonable to pop in for a night-cap. It was there that we espied satisfied Currencies Direct customer the Master Mariner Mundell, sucking on his e-cigarette outside. Thus Simon, who is an even bigger smoker of fine cigars than myself, produced two Monte Christo No 2’s and we joined him for a smoke in the balmy back streets of Valbonne. I love being back in the south of France. Doubtless I will love being back in Arundel in July. I have a great life.
The Master and I had a chat about the boys lunch at the Auberge St Donat today, but he seems to have misunderstood the whole concept. He has a girl friend over from the UK, whom he has invited, and he suggested that Dangerous Jackie Lawless should come, as well as That Nice Lady Decorator. I asked him if he had ever been to a boys lunch before, and did he know that the whole idea was to meet and eat to the exclusion of girls? Did he for instance know that it is supposed to be boys only? Clearly not. So with the male based foundations collapsing, lunch today will be a bisexual affair, if you get my drift (did you see what I did there? Mariner, drift?).
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Bicycle Repair Man fails
Aficionados of the Monty Python series of TV programmes will recognise the central part of my activities yesterday. Bicycle Repair Man was my lot as, with a slight stomach strain after tennis on Monday evening, I decided to resort to taking my exercise on my French bike. You can tell it is French because it drives on the right (something that could become a political reality for this semi communist state if Madame Le Pen and her National Front Party become the biggest French grouping in the European Parliament elections shortly, as seem likely). Having tried to get both to work properly (another general issue in France) eventually I gave up after two trips to Decathlon for repairs.
You see my problem is that I am more of a thinker (and writer?) than a doer. A diplomat and administrator who does not usually get his hands dirty, and it is usually the case that when it comes to doing anything practical, then failure is writ large in my life. I managed to change both wheels and reattach the brakes, which to me represents something of a breakthrough, but the chain on both bikes kept slipping so it is back down to the bike shop at some stage, so that French Bicycle Repair Man can have a go. I was going to make some crass comment about needs a cha(i)nge but in the end decided to back peddle and give my tyred readership a brake.
Bicycle Repair Man gets it wrong
So, apart from a lot more gardening, and a load of logging, there was no serious exercise for me yesterday, which is probably as well as it was the second 5:2 diet day on the trot and a little too much exertion could have seen me disappear up my own anus. I am not saying I am thin, but you could turn my sideways and mark be absent.
I spent my time properly though, explaining the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct to an old friend who is about to buy a house in France, and then organising tennis lunch on Friday with the Master Mariner Mundell and others. The Wingco has finally found gainful employment to which to he will be late arriving, so he will be unable to be late for this gathering. It will cause a fine of course. A mere job should never get in the way of a boys lunch, and this has been noted in the minutes. 7 minutes that is, the period of time known as a Wingco, which is the minimum time he is late for anything.
Before that, this evening, there is a gathering at the new Chinese Restaurant in Valbonne. It is directly opposite the Kasmir, the Indian in the village, so all we need now is a Thai establishment for the full house. To my knowledge there are at least 6 of us lined up so I shall report back once I have been inside. Frankly, after the last two days of denial, I probably won’t care if it is even cooked, so hungry will I be by the time we get there.
The only good thing about the diet is that I had planned to have my annual blood tests to check how advanced are all the degenerative diseases that befall a man in his 7th decade, and what better time than after what is for me an extended period of clean living. One is required to fast for 12 hours before giving up that armful of blood, which I had planned to doing this morning, only to find out just now that today is a French bank holiday. It may be years before I have a better two-day lead up to a blood test. Trust the French to get my blood up.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
I see no ships
I suppose it had to happen. Following two weeks of holiday, touring Northern Spain and some of the south-west of France, eating and drinking, and, after the furore of our arrival back into the bosom of Valbonne with all the attendant partying that this entails, yesterday was an utterly different experience. A 5:2 diet day was decreed by That Nice Lady Decorator, something the like of which I had been vaguely and uncomfortably aware may surface at some stage, and yesterday it was periscopes up.
Gardening is so much more agreeable when you have the sun on your back and with yesterday being a wonderful Provençal day, bright and clear and 24 degrees, I had hoped that someone would pop by whilst I was chopping, sawing, digging and tidying and the diet would be abandoned. Instead, I was let down by all of my friends, none of whom thought to come and visit and relieve me from the tedium of a limit of 600 calories, which, of course, precludes a drink. I have only agreed to submit to this regime in France on the basis that, as much socially seems to happen spontaneously, that should that spontaneity occur, then the diet is abandoned and normal play resumes. I reasoned that with word sweeping out locally that we were back, someone would spontaneously ride to my rescue, but alas, no.
It was not all bad, after 5 hours of working in the garden, it became time to sunbathe in the garden. This is best undertaken with a glass of something cold and frothy, or even sparkling, but with no one in sight to reprieve me, early evening aperitifs took the form of Virgin Mary’s, In other words Bloody Mary’s without the vodka, but with as much Worcester Sauce and tabasco as I could stomach. I found this picture on my phone taken on the Isle of Wight that seems to sum up my search for diet salvation.
On the lookout for someone to rescue me from the diet.
Worse still, because we are a scheduled to go to the new Chinese restaurant in Valbonne on Thursday night, and I shall most certainly be in the Auberge St Donat for lunch on Friday (it’s the law), and diet days are excluded from weekends, plus the Savins are coming to stay on Tuesday for the best part of the week, there is no other day from the second 5:2 diet day than today. I just hope one of my readers feels sufficiently sorry to pop around for a pichet.
The Savins, Pedro and Janey, are regular visitors to Valbonne and who can forget the lovely blonde and dedicated gardener Janey watering my plastic banana palm all week one year? It was the bunch of bananas that I had bought and tied to the tree on the last day of their stay about 4 years ago, when the penny finally dropped. Mildew had not previously been an issue with it, but without some serous drying out (a bit like me) it would have been the worse for wear (also like me). There is also the small issue of their combined appetites for eating and drinking to take into account) oh, how very beneficial, I have used “account”. Now all I need to do is add the expression Currencies Direct, and the message, about using this fine organisation for all your foreign currency needs, is put across and my duty for the day is done.
So that’s it for another day. Think if me languishing in the garden, stripped to the waste, bulging muscles and bulging abdomen, glistening with the sweat of honest labour, and thinking about that first drink tomorrow lunchtime.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Viagra Falls?
Tennis is often a game played by gentleman in an honourable and sporting fashion. The result is not important, it’s is the taking part and the sportsmanship that is important. “No, take it again old chap of you thought it was in” would be the typical response by an opponent to any suggestion that a line call was in doubt. That is if you do not play with, I don’t really know how to say this, “chisellers” such as was the case last evening. And how enjoyable it all was.
The first tennis match of the season, for me, took place at the Vignale Tennis Club at Plascassier last evening. My partner for the evening, Currencies Direct affiliate Dancing Greg Harris from Côte d’Azur Villa Rentals, must be excluded from this charge as he, like I, played and exemplary game in a sportsmanlike fashion. Our opponents however, the Master Mariner Mundell and The Wingco, could not possibly claim such moral high ground.
The game was unfinished due to the Wingco being two Wingco’s late (for the uninitiated a “Wingco” is a unit of time of at least 7 minutes. It is the minimum amount of time he is late for anything) and the club closing at around 8.15pm. An unfinished game of course means that it is an honourable draw. It is true that we eventually lost the first set 7-5 (after incidentally our opponenets moral backbone was drawn into question when they failed to win fully 10 set points), due to my rustiness – it was my first game of tennis since last October – but we were strongly in control in the second set when time ran out.
More dreadful modern art in Valbonne, or is it a depiction of Ron Jeremy? read on…
Over a post match pizza at the Cafe Des Arcades, the game was discussed and the chisellers made the preposterous claim that they had won. Their outlandish claim was based on the fact that, overall they had won one more game than we. This is just not cricket, especially from a couple of public schoolboys who should know better. It is true that I detest losing, and will do my utmost to avoid it, and they were exploiting that fact. My epitaph should read “Magnanimus in victory, surly in defeat”.
Here I should perhaps mention that I am a past master at gamesmanship. This entirely different from sportsmanship. Gamesmanship is the art of applying psychological pressure at the correct moments on your opponents to help to win the game. It can take many forms. It may be something like offering the use of a cap; “is the sun in your eyes old chap?” just to make them think about whether it is or isn’t. It could be a kindly warning about something like “how old is that racket grip?”. I think my favourite use last night was when, on one of their set points, I asked the Master Mariner if we were counting foot faults. Perhaps that helped them to lose all those set points. I did helpfully suggest that he put that out of his mind when serving.
Later, we had a conversation for some inexplicable reason about a porm star of whom I was not aware; Ron Jeremy. Apparently he has been at the top of his game for decades, having been endowed with something enormously special in terms of size in the wedding tackle department, but is now feeling the effects of years of pornographic performances, and has revealed that he has to resort to the use of Viagra to ensure that his enormous tumescence remains it its prime as it were. The reason I mention it is that The Wingco, made an especially erudite comment when the probable quantities of the drug required was discussed. He said it was be like Viagra Falls.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Normal service resumes
So sorry for then”domain expiry” debacle yesterday, an old pal Wayne Brown, had set it up for me 4 years ago, and he was in Sweden with his Red Radish catering outfit and could not be contacted to sort it out.
After a busy morning slashing aloes, pruning palm trees and generally tidying up the garden in Valbonne, which was looking lovely and now looks lovelier, I turned my attention to Bluebell the camper. She has been outside and not been started since October last year, and being a venerable old lady, created in 1969, she had a flat tyre, and looked a little forlorn, I was expecting a short battle to get her started and then a call to Phil the Mechanic to administer some tender loving care to get her underway. I had not disconnected the batteries before we left last year (forgot) and as a result I thought the chances of her having enough power even to turn on the ignition light were negligible. To my surprise, the lights came on, she turned over and started!
I was on a mechanical roll. Exalted by my mechanical success, I decided to test the cement mixer, which will be pressed into service in the coming weeks as That Nice Lady Decorator has some building work in mind. It too has been standing outside, but has not been used for two years, but it was a double edged sword as I plugged it in. You see, if it did not work, there was a slight chance that she might abandon the idea of cement, thus relieving me of the task of mixing it, but more likely she would insist I buy her a new one (it had been a birthday present), or worse still I would have to mix it by hand. On balance I decided I was pleased when it instantly sprang into life. If I had one of the puncture repair cylinders to hand I would have fixed the flat tyre. A perfect three! Maybe I should have been a mechanic?
It was warm and sunny but the swimming pool was barely 15 degrees, however that did not stop Sprog 2, down for the weekend, from testing it out as my picture today shows.
Sprog 2 braves the pool
Mustapaha the gardener arrived to cut the grass and with it being sunny and around 24 degrees, it seemed perfectly natural to adjourn to the pav, our Thai style pavilion, and open the wine. By 10 I clock I was ready for bed after my exertions. Unfortunately That Nice Lady Party Person had a second wind and we did not her to bed until the third bottle of Rioja was breached, and the Sancerre had been dispatched.
Yesterday morning was damp, it having rained in the night, but are my spirits low? Not a bit of it as after some work to secure a new client for the services of Currencies Direct, we were invited to Lord Of All He Surveys, Simon Howes and his beautiful and gorgeous wife Sarah for lunch, along with man mountain Peachy Butterfield and blonde bombshell Suzanne, to enjoy some of his house wine, which is the great Chateau Gloria and as it turns out a Grand Cru Classe Chateau Tessyier. I recall when we were all at Valbonne Church (shocking I know, but stay with me) for a Christmas carol concert a few years ago. In the gap in the song that has the long refrain Gloooooooria, Peachy could be heard making a popping sound with his finger in his cheek and looking pointedly at Simon. I think Peachy was celebrating the wine. This is, of course, a departure for Peachy who is strong on his criticism of wine poncery, and an aficionado of Card Bordeaux, but I as I had suspected, as has happened in the past, he put aside all his concerns and tucked into the Chateau Gloria.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Unwise choice of colour
I thought I had got away without being properly Peachied on Thursday evening, despite much provocation in the form of Limoncello, the lemon based Italian liquor to which Peachy Butterfield is partial, however I had not reckoned on the Bucks Fizz that he insisted serving with breakfast yesterday morning. We had stayed overnight and needed be to ready to face a long day of shifting boxes and unpacking, and Peachy insisted that a couple of good stiff ones would get us in the mood. Whilst quite welcome when administered, they did not do anything to help when we commenced the task in hand.
Eventually, the house began to take shape in the late afternoon, just after Sprog 2 arrived home, ready to help. She had flown into Nice at 9am and it took her until 4 pm to get to Valbonne, due to a long standing luncheon engagement. It was a clear case of work avoidance, which, had it been me doing the avoiding, I would have been justifiable proud , but because her late arrival put pressure on me, I was less impressed. She clearly takes after her mother. Then as a reward, we gathered up Sprog 1, fresh from his job on the Costa Magna as an engineer/deckhand, and set off for the usual venue when first arriving back; Cafe Des Arcades in Valbonne Square.
An Irish pirate
I donned my light green stripey trousers and a lurid green sweater, waxed the handlebar moustache and picked out a fine Havana cigar for later, and was prepared for a splendid evening in my favourite square in my favourite provencal town with my family (all of them in one place – a rarity) and friends, but over the first of many glasses of wine, a ranting Irishman appeared demanding the 10 euros I owed him for a bet on the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament earlier in the year. You may remember that the French should have beaten Ireland but made a catastrophic mess of a certain try opportunity in the last minute, allowing Ireland to win the match and thus the competition instead of England, leaving me with a debt. The piratical John “800 years of repression” O Sullivan, a lookalike of whom is pictured above today, had walked into Valbonne Square with his lovely wife Jude “mine’s a Bailey’s”, spotted my green ensemble from some 70 yards and loudly approached to collect his winnings and congratulate me on choosing to wear the national colour of Ireland whilst setting my debt. I do think people who insist on sticking the banknotes from a wager onto their foreheads, and then having themselves photographed and that photo being placed on Facebook within 30 seconds of its taking are very juvenile. I accept that, had the result been different, then a different picture, perhaps of a resplendent author and Currencies Direct affiliate, sporting a bank note in such a fashion, would have been a gratifying picture.
I managed to shake off the irritation (read Mr O Sullivan left to go to the wine bar) and settled into a convivial dinner outside on the Square at the Cafe Des Arcades, returning home for a quick nightcap with Sprog 1, who finally received his 21st birthday present about 3 months late (a mega laptop) and spent half an hour talking to us whilst setting it up. This is the perfect illustration of the new generation gap. Kids can easily do technical computer stuff whilst holding a conversation after several drinks. My generation may be to do any of these three in isolation, but any combination of technical, talking and drinking would end in utter and abject failure.
Chris France
Anorexia beaten?
It was a long day. Leaving Pau at just after 8 am tells a story, yes, we has to get up early which is never something to which I look forward, on the other hand the destination was Valbonne and the chance at last to catch up with some old pals.
The 7 hour drive was mostly uneventful, except for that curious habit of the authorities in charge of motorways to use traffic comes to restrict the use of lanes from time to time for no apparent purpose. It caused That Nice Lady Decorator to comment that she thought the reason for their placement was that they had nowhere else to store them. Perhaps they were just saving wear and tear on the surfaces.
In the late afternoon, we finally arrived in my beloved Valbonne, and after unpacking the car and a quick shower, we prepared ourselves for the first of many social occasions; drinks and then dinner with man mountain Peach Butterfield, his gorgeous wife Suzanne and the splendid Roly and Poly Bufton. I have a picture today of Peachy who, as you can see, was celebrating the fact that he has beaten anorexia.
Living proof that anorexia can be beaten
It was Poly who provided the next entertainment, making an obscure reference to wine glasses. “Tall wine glasses are dangerous” she said and she was not even pissed at the time. No, me neither. I think it had something to do with their enormous height making them very easy to knock over when testiculating (waving your arms around and talking bollocks). Or it may have had something to do with the danger of breaking them when near the swimming pool, but although it was warm enough to dine outside we were still some distance from it. Very curious, but then I discovered that her and Peachy had lunched together and it had involved several bottles of rose, so I gained some perspective. Apparently they can be even more dangerous if the have wine in them.
We discussed Peachy and my contributions to the Onboard Online invitation that we had both received to add personal thoughts to a section, soon to be published, about which boat we would like to be and why. It is an obscure idea, much like the north versus south banter blogs which we had been asked to write for their website, and for which we had been paid, but with more professional writing work no doubt just around the corner, we felt we had to submit something. Peachy went for SS Fatboy (a small dingy weighed down by a fat bloke, eating a burger, a picture of which I have featured before) for fairy obvious reasons. However his claim that it has beautiful lines (like himself) is hard to substantiate. I went for Black Pig, the mythical boat driven by the redoubtable Captain Horatio Pugwash, in the children BBC TV series made in the late 1950’s and made the usual crass references to the other characters it features, namely Seaman Staines, Roger The Cabin Boy and Master Bates. I don’t know how they got away with it on TV in those days.
We eventually collapsed into bed before midnight and face the task of retrieving all our stuff from the garage to put back into the house after the departure of the beautiful and willowy Currencies Direct customer Debs Frost, otherwise known as the Naked Forker, for reasons that some of my regular readers will know. She has been looking after our house during the winter and has been frantically packing for weeks to move out. She tells me that she thinks she has been overdoing it as recently she as she put her phone in her pocket one day and her jeans fell down. If only it was always that easy to… (edited on the grounds of good taste).
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
To Pau, less china
Pamplona was a much nicer city than I had expected. I said yesterday that I had experienced enough concrete in the last week to last me a lifetime but it seems I am being stalked by it. We walked rather than ran (!) around the oldest reinforced concrete bull ring in the world in the old part of town, That Nice Lady Decorator allowing her Hemmingway fetish to make us search for a bar he apparently used to frequent, but in vain, so we then went in search of the holy grail, wine from Rioja.
Rather than bothering with all that crap about tasting the wine and spitting it out, we went straight to a supermarket, loaded up a trolley with 25 bottles of Rioja and set off for France. Several times we saw police cars and made Banjo lie down so that the renegade could not be apprehended by the authorities for his trespassing and defecation on the beach at O Grove earlier in the week. I know the The Nice Lady Decorator ” picked up” after him, but that is not the point . A crime had been committed and the mitigation that someone had repaired the damage does not disguise his guilt. So as we sped across north-eastern Spain and then across the Pyrenees in a dash for the French border, it felt a bit like Bonnie and Clyde, renegades from the law, running from the authorities. A lesser writer than myself may even be tempted to suggest that had his owner been born in Scotland, it might have been a case of Banjo and Clyde.
An interesting footbridge across the river in Pamplona
We had decided that a final watering hole could be either Orthez or Pau, depending on what delights the former had to offer. Realising quickly that Orthez had no delights whatsoever to encourage us to stay, we continued on to Pau. When you think of that expression “to Pau ” do you think , like I do, of a single called “China On Your Hand”? Thought not . Anyway , we eventually found a hotel and booked in .
It was over an early evening beer that we discussed the possibility of pressing on to Valbonne today. It is a 7 hour drive, but the lure of dinner with Suzanne and Peachy Butterfield was sufficient, despite the certainty that his house “Card Bordeaux” would be served, and, as he is now a house husband or, as he refers to himself, an “homme de foyer”, he will be doing the cooking, which in turn means it will be spaghetti bolognaise or egg and chips, or maybe both, we decided on balance it was worth it.
After a drink we saw a Thai restaurant across the street in the centre of Pau offering a Thai buffet, and decided that we should eat early and go to bed early. I also fancied a bit of spice. Bad mistake. I had forgotten that the French don’t really do spicy, and this particular Thai restaurant was doing its best to avoid using any strong flavours anywhere. There must have been two dozen dishes from which to choose and I tried every one in an effort to find something decent. I failed. Furthermore, mono sodium glutamate must have been at the heart of the chef’s being because it always keeps me awake, hence the writing of its missive with its message that Currencies Direct is the way forward for all your foreign currency needs, is being created at around 3am.
So, back in the embrace of Valbonne for the next two months, I shall expect lunch and tennis to loom large on my agenda in the coming week , once I have grappled with intricacies of the international music business which is at the heart of my business empire.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Robinson Crusoe lives
We set off on the rain from the lovely Lekeitio on the Spanish Basque coast, ready to do our duty and visit the acclaimed St Sebastian yesterday. Rain never helps anywhere look good, but I must reluctantly agree to revise my opinion of the city as the architecture here is exquisite, and a far cry from most that we have had to endure on Cantabria and Galicia. However, it is still a city and I have had enough of concrete in the past week, and with the rain persisting we did not stop.
With better weather promised over France, we pressed on to Biarritz, over the border into France, and on a long walk along the beautiful wild coast just outside the town, came across a beach restaurant at just the right moment. By the right moment I mean lunch time. Peter Maile who wrote “A Year In Provence” was once asked to describe the south of France in one word. His reply was “lunch”, and it holds good for all of southern France. Of course the prices are utterly different to those we have experienced in Spain, particularly in the west, but then so was the quality of the food. Excellent gambas and more Padron Peppers could not be complemented by the glass of wine I craved as I was designated driver. I am always designated driver. However, the setting was marvellous, the meal superb and I have fallen in love with Biarritz, and not just because the sun made an appearance.
As usual, the last to leave
It was that sun that put paid to a trip out, after our return to base, to checkout a couple of local establishments in the early evening. Our hotel has a lovely terrace overlooking the bay and a beautiful island and there is a spit of sand at low tide that allows access to it at low tide. I wanted to walk across to it, but was told that by the time we reached it, the tide would have covered it again and we would not be able to get across. Instead we settled for a beer on the terrace and to watch the tide. We resolved to rise early this morning when the tide will be low and walk across then. However, as I had predicted, an hour be two beers later? The spit of sand was still visible, and, as I pointed out loudly and vociferously, had That Nice Lady Tidemaster listened to me, we could have ticked that one off without the need to set the alarm for the middle of the night. I mean 7am? That is a barbaric time to be forced from ones pit, however, we were only just in time as my photo of the Tidemaster being the last to leave shows.
Today, after spending a short time on pressing matters connected with the excellent services of Currencies Direct, we are on a mission from god. Although I am hazy on anything religious, I do tend to make a bit more effort to understand if there is wine involved, and there is some religious mumbo-jumbo about wine and the blood of god or something equally obscure, and wine is certainly going to be involved. The Rioja region is nearby, just a short distance from Pamplona, and it is not bull shit to say that one of my favourite wine regions is Le Rioja. I shall be running (did you see what I did there?) around the area today on that mission, to collect up as much of the stuff that we can pack in the car. If only we were able to turn that fugitive dog into the hands of the judiciary, for punishment for trespass (if I were the judge, I would be looking for my black cap), then we would have so much more space for much more valuable merchandise.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
At last, a pretty fishing village
Having stopped at another diabolical concrete jungle of a Spanish resort called Laredo, predictably labelled as “charming” by the crap Eye Witness Guide, on the way from Ribedeo, we settled over some indifferent raciones (tapas only bigger) to look at the guides for details about our intended destination, St Sebastian, on the northern Spanish coast. So appalled were we by the pictures and the guide details, we changed our plans, and instead decided to visit the Basque Country.
Let me go back to that meal. Yesterday I had been saying that one of the redeeming features of this coastline was how inexpensive and decent had been the food. Yesterday we found the exception. “Special white artichokes” turned out to be of the specially tinned variety. The gambas were overdone and frankly the only thing that was reasonable were the anchovies. It as also twice the price of recent meals. However, it was mid afternoon and we were hungry.
Many people whom I had previously trusted had said good things about St Sebastian, but I have had enough of soulless concrete everywhere, so we consulted the terrible guide and took a chance on a place called Lekeitio on the Basque coast, and eureka! it is beautiful. Finally we have found the charming fishing port that we had been promised so many times in the past week. The first peek at the town was paradoxically depressing. After a 10 mile drive through steeply wooded hills, and with the odd house being a much more hospitable alpine style, our hopes that this town had managed to avoid the planning and construction pitfalls that had befallen almost every other town into which we had ventured on the Galician and Cantabrian coasts, the first concrete horrors were visible through a cleft in the hills. However, things improved dramatically as we got into this lovely old town.
OK, this is a crap picture which does not capture the island, the port or the beaches, but it is raining this morning…
We found a hotel in the centre, with private parking and with a sea and harbour view that was beautiful, huge and cheap. We have decided to make it out base for tonight as well, having been constantly disappointed over the past week. One other good thing about this hotel, the Aisia Lekeitio, which to be honest, is in keeping with all other Spanish hotels, is that they don’t allow dogs through their doors. Hence that renegade from the law, Banjo, who has so far escaped justice for his blatant criminal trespass on a beach clearly marked as prohibited to dogs a few days ago, has slept in the car. That means he has not been slobbering, scratching and snoring in my bedroom. That has been the exclusive domain of That Nice Lady Decorator (can you tell she is not reading this daily column dedicated to the furtherance of the influence of Currencies Direct at the moment?).
We headed out into the pretty harbour side and square for a restorative beer, and found a fabulous little bar run by a young Basque couple who spoke enough English to give us some proper guidance as to what to see today. They were of a similar opinion about San Sebastián and have given our tour guide, That Nice Lady Tour Guide loads of useful tips about where to go, A tour of the area is in store today, perhaps with a token visit to St Sebastian just to make sure. I do hope that a Basque museum is on the itinerary, I have always been a fan of that style of clothing, although not necessarily for myself you understand.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
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