My golf trip to Tours last week was a bit disappointing. It started off well. It was a lovely day as I drove up to Vierzon and then followed the valley of the Cher through pleasant countryside and picturesque little towns to Joué-lès-Tours, a rather undistinguished suburb of Tours where after a mildly frustrating search I found my hotel. My problem is that I can't hold more than the first two instructions that a direction giver imparts, sometimes not even that. So by the third junction I no longer know whether it's "keep right on" or "turn right". It often proves to have been "left" in fact.

I found the golf course in the adjacent and prettier town of Ballan-Miré very easily however. At least I found it easily on Thursday. On Friday I was spiralling round the town centre for ages.
It was late in the afternoon, very hot and I'd had a long drive so I decided against a reconnaissance round. I just strolled about and admired the magnificent course, had a drink and a chat in the splendid clubhouse and went back to Joué for a meal.

First disappointment; in Joué there are: a pizzaria, a couple of takeaway pizza joints and a snack bar that closes quite early but only one restaurant. I settled for a snack. I ate in the restaurant on the Friday night and by nine o'clock they had served exactly four people and two more arrived as I left. It's a wonder there is even one restaurant if that's a typical Friday night. My bill arrived accompanied not by a couple of mints or delicately wrapped sweets but by this lollipop. Somewhat incongruous in an establishment all done up in the traditional red and gold of fin de siècle splendour and sporting fine cutlery set on table-covers of crisp white linen.

Friday dawned warm and sunny. My tee time was not till one o'clock so I explored a lakeside park not far away, immaculately kept as all French public spaces seem to be, and then went on to the course for an early lunch on the château terrace and some gentle preparation.

We were on the fourth hole when the storm broke. As much thunder and lightning as you could ask for and buckets of rain. Play was suspended. We sheltered unsuccessfully emerging half-soaked when the storm's fury was spent. Play resumed after an hour. We were on the seventh hole when torrential rain poured from above and borne by wild winds smashed in from the side. Lightning was further away but we couldn't continue playing. We were near the practice area at the time so sought shelter under a tin roofed structure there. When the wind and rain eventually eased off, having heard no signal, we restarted but hadn't got far when someone came out of the clubhouse gesticulating and shouting that it was all over. The rain on a cold tin roof had clearly masked the klaxon.

A great disappointment because it's a lovely course and I would dearly like to have had my full round. I shall have to go again sometime. There was a minor recompense in that all the prizes were put into a draw and I carried off a bottle of very nice Chinon. I know it's very nice because I've already drunk it.

So on Saturday I went into Tours.

Not an unpleasant town by any means but not as immediately impressive as say Orleans. Here's a picture of the cathedral peeping through some trees. Inside the cathedral I found that the altar sheltered a rock. Now I could find no explanation but this must be, if not the entire stone, then surely a fragment of the one that was rolled away on the third day. Why else would you keep a great big rock in your church?

Why would you keep a fountain in your town? Well in the case of Tours it's to commerorate the work of the back-room boys of the American Expeditionary Force that came to Europe in 1917. Usually memorials are to the fighting men but this one celebrates the achievements of those who built a thousand miles of railway and innumerable bridges, who procured weapons and clothing, who delivered food and equipment to the two million men at the front. Tours was the headquarters of this Service of Supply.

I had a very nice lunch before I left, in particular a pudding that was described as raspberry crumble but not as I know it. The raspberry ran through the crumble like a ruby lode and the crumble itself was of a smoothness and delicacy akin to molten demerara. Yummy.