On Thursday I had an outing with four of my chums from Les Dryades. We went to a little nine hole course called Chammet on the plateau des Millevaches. It’s a little more than an hour south of Guéret. Set in beautiful wooded surroundings overlooking a lake it is, in fine weather, an idyllic spot.

The weather was exceptionally fine. We played nine holes in the morning, lunched in a nearby village and played another nine in the afternoon before ending up at Pierre’s in Guéret for dinner and a few glasses of vino in the evening.

I know it is reprehensible not to spend every waking minute working on how to save the planet and/or rescue damsels in distress but I find myself more and more focussed on self gratification.

Today at least I was able to bring a little pleasure into other people’s lives as well as my own. Patrick, a Belgian golfing friend who has a holiday home in the area, invited me to an end of season drinks and nibbles do this evening. I initially excused myself on the grounds that I was expecting visitors but he insisted that I bring them with me. So when Andy and Esther arrived this afternoon I whisked them off to his place. There were about twenty people, all of them very worth meeting - from Carmen the former La Scala ballerina to my particular friends Jean and Monique. I think my visitors enjoyed themselves.

Patrick and his wife Catherine are round the world yachtsmen whose voyage website is an absolute delight. For someone like me who has done a little bit of sailing but who quite frankly would feel distinctly uncomfortable out of sight of land in 50 feet of fibreglass it provides an exciting but safely vicarious experience. Read, or just enjoy the pictures of Caramel’s journeys.