A treat for anyone visiting me around Christmas was plucked from the Lions Club golf competition scorecards at Sully-sur-Loire on Saturday.

Prizes for those displaying prowess on the course included computer printers, golf paraphernalia of all sorts, cases of wine and other costly goods but still left a handy 30, 000 euros or so (not all from that one day) for the children’s cancer charity the Lions were supporting.

For the less successful with club and ball  there is always the leftovers draw and the innocent hand doing the dipping pulled me out a sleeve of three golf balls (always useful) and Jeane Manson and the Choir of the Red Army’s 2006 Christmas DVD.  There’s a medley of carols and Ave Maria and a French version of A White Christmas amongst other goodies that will have my friends vying for an invitation to my flat over the festive season.

Though further encouragement to come over is hardly needed, let me tell you that not only did Jeane Manson (an American resident in France since the seventies) represent Luxembourg in the 1979 Eurovision song contest but was Playboy’s playmate of the month in August 1974.

Perhaps inspired by a need to avoid such excitements I turned in a score of 36 Stableford points at home on Sunday to qualify as a proper prizewinner and, this being a competition enjoying Spanish sponsorship, was rewarded with a bottle of Ribera del Duero and a pound of Manchego cheese.