I managed to avoid the Tour yesterday but it took me longer than anticipated so I was half an hour late for lunch. The others had waited a wee while but had got through their first course.

As a matter of interest, for my twelve euros I had: a starter of cold meats and various vegetables; stuffed breast of veal with gratin potatoes; a delicious homemade millefeuille bursting with crème anglaise; coffee and as much red wine as I felt could safely be drunk before the two mile drive to the golf course, not forgetting lots of crusty bread to soak up the various sauces.

After the golf I went to the pictures. On the way I followed part of the Tour route and took some photographs of the decorations that people put together to celebrate the event. All wasted on the riders, who batter along with heads down offering as little resistance to the air as possible.

A few weeks ago listening to the BBC in the middle of night, as I often do, I heard an item about the Edinburgh Film Festival. A critic was giving his opinion about how the new date for the festival might affect its positioning in the hierarchy of film festivals and what personality it might henceforth adopt. Might it for instance strut its stuff as the Sundance of Europe? Would it attract anything other than a locally based audience? All that sort of thing.

Towards the end of the interview he was asked if he had seen anything special. The only film he talked about was The Lemon Trees. I made a mental note and lo and behold it pitched up this week in the Cinéma Moderne in Aigurande.

Readers with good memories will recall I went to that cinema one wet Sunday afternoon last year and was refused admittance because in the absence of any audience prior to my slightly late arrival the chap had just locked up.

This time the 8.30 show, for which I arrived at 8, attracted an audience of six. It seems that none of the hundreds who had flocked to Aigurande earlier in the day to marvel at the spectacle of the departure of the sixth stage of the 2008 Tour de France had lingered on much beyond teatime.

They could have seen an interesting film. I wouldn’t say it was unmissable but it’s a fascinating look at the Arab – Israeli situation. The story tells of a Palestinian widow whose lemon orchard which she inherited from her father and to which she is emotionally attached (not to speak of her economic dependence on it) abuts the residence of the new Israeli minister of defence. He or at least his security advisors want it chopped down in case of “terrorist” infiltration. She takes him to law.

I won’t spoil it by saying any more. Catch it if you can.