Les Dryades is hosting a regional competition this weekend and yesterday I was one of several members giving a hand with the running of the event.

In my case this meant semi hiding behind a bush (so as not to distract the players) on a hole where it can be troublesome to find balls at the point at which they are likely to land.

The only fun is to jump out from behind the bush and give one of these cunning signals, especially the "ball out of bounds" one.

But none of the 75 players put a ball out of bounds on that hole yesterday though many normal players do. My fellow commissaire spent dull moments ferreting around in the bushes and came away with 10 balls.

The other compensation is normally a free lunch but the club is apparently too strapped for cash at the moment. I had to make do with a coffee and a pain au chocolat on arrival and a glass of wine with my lunch.

But at least I'm not doing it today in the rain. Yesterday we had sunshine.