The weather in Aubazine was splendid, the setting delightful, the accommodation and food good, the golf fun. But too many golfers are so obsessive about the bloody game that you could spit, or at least let your eyes glaze over and think about something else.

I looked up a relative who lives thereby and relaxed on his settee with a couple of beers in front of a transmission of Andy Murray's quarter-final match since Peter like most British residents has access to BBC TV. I think that may be bordering on the technically illegal because of all those complicated territorial rights issues and large payments for sporting events that bedevil the airwaves but it's so widespread that it's almost as though a right of way were being established.

Peter is not what you would call a close relative. He's my sister-in-law's sister's husband's brother. Now some languages probably have a snappier word for that just as Arabic for instance doesn't need to say my uncle on my mother's side and my uncle on my father's side since they've got separate words عمّ and خآل.

As far as I know I don't have any American relatives for whom even less snappy expressions would have to be used but in case I do, and for any unrelated American readers here's wishing you A Happy Fourth Of July.