I’ve already failed in my declared intention of recording all this year’s golf outings by virtue of having forgotten to take my camera to St Agathe. I went with John on Thursday and we played our reconnaissance round in appalling weather. We both slipped and fell on the precipitous 18^th fairway and turned up at our hotel soaking wet and covered in mud.

Since most people who stay there have gone to Néris-les-Bains for the spa they are probably used to customers who look as though they have just emerged from a mudbath. The “curistes” as they are known come in all shapes and sizes and presumably hope to go home in a different shape and size but judging by how they tucked into their dinners I think it is a forlorn hope.

The town has been known for its baths since the days of the Romans but was most heavily patronised, and that by the rich and famous, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. There are: several monumental hotels; an impressive railway station; a grandiose theatre; the spa of course which does not lack presence; but precious little else.

At breakfast two curistes were engaged in lively conversation from opposite ends of the room. I was perforce privy to their intimate exchanges concerning the various disorders which it was hoped a session in the spa would alleviate, as well as their reminiscences of the bad old days in the building trade (it seems they had similar careers) when they would spend the day running up five flights of ladders with bags of sand or cement on their backs breathing in noxious dust to the detriment of their long term health but without its interfering in the short term with their ability to sow wild oats on a Saturday night and take part in 50 kilometre cycle races on Sundays.

By some coincidence both had experience of working with Turks so they swapped opinions on their merits and demerits. One recounted how having left his wife to supervise a job while he got on with some paperwork a Turkish worker came into his office and declared that he would not suffer being told how he should be doing his job by a woman, even when she was right.

The weather of the day of the competition itself was much better. The rain only began to pour down after I had finished, and I played quite well just missing out on a prize.

Today by contrast I played miserably (I put it down to a wrist injury sustained at St Agathe) but thanks to the prize/player ratio came away with six of these.

You may think they are champagne flutes but they are described on the box as “technical tasting stemware cc. 150” so when I bring them back to Edinburgh that is what you will be offered.