I know…it’s a strange title but it sort of sums up this month of September! We have spent most of September in St Aygulf as usual (whoohoo) and although we have had a great time, things have not gone entirely smoothly all the time. We definitely have had wonderful weather though. It has been wall to wall sunshine almost every day and we have spent a lot more time on various beaches and swimming in the nice warm Med than we have ever done before. A lot of this has been due to one of the big woes mentioned in the title but I will come on to that later. It has been nice though to really relax and we are heading back home next weekend looking a lot more tanned and less stressed than when we came out.
Right, let’s start at the beginning now. We flew out to Nice on September 2nd and that was the first hint that things might not go as smoothly as usual as our flight was delayed for four hours. Woe number 1. Now, we like Edinburgh airport but sitting there for six hours was not so much fun. EasyJet did give us vouchers for a snack and a drink but it was still a long wait. Worse was to come as we realised that the plane would not land until 1.30am…and we knew that the trams in Nice stop at midnight. There were lots of very unhappy people trying to get to hotels and into Nice but happily, we managed to get a taxi to take us to our hotel…at an exorbitant rate! We finally got to bed just after 2am. The next day was better and we got the train along to St Raphael as usual and then took an Uber to the flat…where we encountered woe number2. We could not get the electric roller blind to work which meant we were stuck in the dark living room with no access to the balcony, which is essential to our living here. We had to ring a company to come and try and fix it immediately… and so we met Jordan who managed to get us access to the balcony, but had to dismantle the blind completely along with the housing for the now defunct motor. He was an excellent salesman and we soon had an appointment for him to come & fit a replacement blind the next week. It was a very expensive start to our holiday I can tell you but all is good now and we do have a lovely new blind…and more importantly one which is working perfectly!
Our troubles though were far from over as we move on to woe number 3 and this, my friends, was a huge one. The next day, having done our shopping in the morning taking Sylvie car to the big supermarket at Frejus, we were driving the short distance to the beach in the afternoon when Sylvie suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and would not start again. Geoff rang the insurance who arranged for a tow truck and so she was taken off and after the weekend she went to the garage we usually use here in Les Issambres where, incidentally, we had her booked in for another bit of work we needed to have done that day. The outcome of all this was not a good one…she couldn’t be fixed without us spending a colossal amount of money. Now remember, although we love this car, she is 24 years old and has done over 200,000 kms.. and realistically she is not worth much money even if we sold her. So, the decision was taken to scrap her. We were very upset but it was the right thing to do. We have had a lot of fun with her and have made many memories and so although it was with very heavy hearts we agreed to get rid of her. Arrangements were made for her to be taken away and scrapped, the next week we signed all the paperwork and off she went. Our insurance was cancelled and we were pleasantly surprised to get a nice rebate from AXA so that was a bit of a lift for us. We also, by sheer chance received a message just as all this was happening, that the lady we rent the garage from here in St Aygulf, wants to sell the garage and so we were able to tell her we no longer need it and so cancel our payments for that too. So, all in all things have worked out fairly well. However, we found ourselves carless for the first time here. It is entirely possible to exist here without a car as St A has good shops, restaurants and nice beaches all within walking distance. We were becoming used to walking everywhere (never my strongpoint mind you!) but as we have never had to rely on buses we soon found after a few days that we were missing being able to pop out and about whenever we felt like it. So, we decided to rent a car and after a bit of a problem finding one we have had little Gus (a Fiat 500) to play with for the last 2 weeks. It has meant that we have been able to go to most of the places we like around here and eat out a few times too…but more about that later. He has gone back now as we prepare to go back to the UK and although I quite liked him, Geoff did not! I suspect we will not be hiring him again when we return in April!
While we were carless, we did manage to take a bus along to St Raphael and then a train to Antibes to meet up with my cousin Ken and his wife Joy who were having a holiday in Nice with some friends, who were supporting their daughter, who was competing in the big Iron Man event in Nice that weekend. We had a lovely meet up and we enjoyed showing then around the old town and having a great lunch in one of the squares there. It did prove to us too that we can do things here without a car…for a while anyway! It was lovely day out & another whoohoo moment!
What else have we been up to I hear you ask? The first weekend we were here (and still carless!) we stayed pretty close to home. Happily, it was the weekend of the Fete de l’Omelette Giante and so we joined in all the fun as usual. We enjoyed the dance in the square on the Saturday night and then stood for ages in the hot sunshine the next day, watching the 15,000 eggs mixed and cooked in the giant pan over a fire again. The omelette was good too 
We have been swimming most days and have discovered that we quite like the little beach near the port which is within my walking distance! The only other problem with it is the distance you need to wade out to get to a depth suitable for swimming. But it is a nice place to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine…if you can blot out the mindless music coming from the bars there! The other little beach we have discovered is at one of the calanques (coves) along the rocky coast near our apartment. Although there is no sandy beach there, the sea is usually calm and again is good for swimming. I bought a pair of shoes to enable me to walk across the pebbles and Geoff has bought a snorkel and mask as the sea there is good for seeing fish & other creatures quite close to the shore. Again, we have enjoyed going there in the late afternoons many days.
We did venture a bit further afield in little Gus too. We had a nice visit to Gassin, a small hill village perched high above the Gulf of St Tropez. The views from there were fantastic and we discovered a lovely art exhibition there, featuring lots of turtle paintings which Geoff loved. We celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary one Wednesday by going along to our favourite bistro in Les Issambres where we enjoyed a lovely meal as always. I got some beautiful anniversary flowers from my ever-romantic husband that morning…always a whoohoo moment. We also went along to St Maxime one morning and enjoyed mooching around the shops there. We had another day out driving through the hills to Mandelieu, having a short walk along the river and eating a nice lunch at one of the cafes in the park there. Then we drove back via the Corniche de l’Esterel which is always one of our favourite trips. The coastal scenery is truly spectacular. We also went to the big Festival de l’Air at the Base Nature in Frejus and thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the colourful kites and balloons which were flying happily in the breeze. Our two little granddaughters would have loved seeing that I can tell you. This last Monday we took our last little trip in Gus along the coast to Les Issambres where we saw a bit of the big yacht racing event going on in St Tropez across the bay. We have been watching some of this from our balcony but it is very much in the distance. It was market day there so we had a look around and then I was persuaded by my bad influence of a husband, to buy a pretty jacket that I definitely did not need…but it is gorgeous! Not sure whether that purchase deserves a whoohoo or a woe, as it was an expensive impulse buy! We have also managed to fit in two vide greniers this last week. The first was a small one at the “made in France” village (formally known as the village arts creatif) in Puget which we like having a look around and the second was at Roquebrune on Sunday morning. That one is a big favourite of mine as it is really big and has a great variety of stalls. Geoff is not such a fan…but he usually finds a book to buy! This time there were so many stalls selling clothes, much more than we have seen before. It was like being back in the days of old-fashioned jumble sales. Needless to say, we were not tempted!
Geoff has been playing pickleball a bit with his pals here but because it has been so hot there have not been so many times when everyone wanted to play. He enjoyed his games. but found it hard going with the heat. One of the guys he gets on with, Francois, invited us to come and talk to the newly formed English-Speaking group for French people he is running, one evening, which we both enjoyed. As always though, we couldn’t help but contrast the style of learning with the French speaking group we run in Carlisle! The French always want to be corrected for a start! And they are really happy to write essays and do written exercises as homework…our group would rebel if we did that! We think though, that we might have some interested people who we can team up for Whatsap chats with some of our English group, so that would be good if it works out.
We have also enjoyed meeting up with some old friends whilst we have been here. We spent a lovely evening eating with our friend Gisele and putting the world to rights over dinner. We met up with Mandy and Carolyn (our old cruise mates) for lunch too, which was fun as usual. They really get up to some extraordinary adventures! I also met up with my “new” friend Laurance here in St Aygulf. If you remember Laurance was the lovely lady who found one of my painted stones in April and based on a very nice brief chat on Facebook, became my friend and was kind enough to go and rescue my jacket which I had left behind at the bus stop, when we were travelling home. It was nice to meet her in person one day to recuperate the said jacket and say thank you in person. We have bumped into her several more times over our time here and it is lovely to have someone here to chat to. We were also very pleased to see that the couple who we had begun to be friendly with here in our apartment block, were back again at last. We had not seen them for three years and had begun to think that maybe they were never coming back. as Florence in particular, is not in good health. Geoff “volunteered” us to do an apero for them on Tuesday evening…much to my horror as I hate hosting these things. Happily, we have a very friendly boulanger nearby who made us an apero box of tasty treats which helped! The evening went very well and much to everyone’s surprise ended late! Aperos are never meant to go on so long, but we were all enjoying chatting and looking at photos etc. It was a good evening all round.
There have been several things that have made us truly sad this month I’m afraid. We have heard of three people who have died, all of whom were part of our lives when we lived in France full time. Doug who was the partner of a friend form Issoire, Ron who was a big friend of ours in Sauxillanges, and lastly but certainly not least, my lovely Twitter and Facebook friend, Dawn Marie alias Deems Cox. Poor Deems has not had a great time health-wise for quite a while but her death was a complete shock to all of us who followed her on social media. She worked for Geoff for a while too, and I (and a lot of others) will miss her very much. Our thoughts go out to all their families at this time. It has also made us realise that life is precious and in many cases, far too short. We all need to live life to the full while we still can.
And so, on that philosophical note I will end this post. We are still enjoying life here in the sunshine and will be eventually leaving here on Friday, having a night in Nice, before flying home on Saturday. Then it will be back to reality with a vengeance I suspect. I am dreading having to get dressed in trousers and jumpers not to mention putting a bra on full time again. I’ve spent this month in shorts and strappy suntops! We will see what October brings, but I already know that we will be taking a short trip in Scotland to look after a lovely doggy for some friends as they go away to celebrate their Golden Wedding. I suspect though that we won’t be swimming outdoors then!
A bientot mes amis…