OK…just where did this month go then? It doesn’t see like 2 minutes since I was writing last month’s blog post about our preparations for leaving for France and here I am again, writing about us coming home! We are now back home again after spending almost all of April in France. We did have a very good break in St Aygulf and I did do a lot of sitting on the balcony, reading, knitting or painting as predicted in last month’s post! The weather was nice…lots of sunny days but as we thought, the wind remained pretty chilly for most of our stay, so we were glad we had taken some warmer clothes this time. We did manage three very quick (quick being the operative word here!) dips in the sea, but the water was freezing, so most of our visits to the beach were short ones! But I am getting ahead of myself a bit here, so I’ll backtrack a bit and start where I left off last month.
We were due to fly out to Nice from Edinburgh on Friday the 31st of March at 6pm and all was going well until the very last minute when a little ripple went round the departure gate gathering, that our flight had been cancelled at the very last minute. People were not happy as you can imagine, but all credit to the Easyjet staff who really stepped up to the mark and sorted out as many passengers as possible, with newly arranged flights (sadly none were available for that evening or indeed the following day), hotel accommodation or advice re compensation claims etc. We were booked into a hotel in South Queensferry for the night, advised to take a taxi there and re allocated seats of flights on Sunday. I say flights as there were no direct flights available so we were to fly via Paris and then on to Nice….not ideal but at least we would get to Nice! We realised that we had to fill in a day in Edinburgh on the Saturday, which we did by meeting up with our son’s parents in law, Lesley and Dougie, for lunch and then we had a good tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia, something I’d been wanting to do for a while. Our big problem was though, we were not entirely properly dressed for a very cold, damp day in Edinburgh, as we had lightweight clothes with us, more suitable for the temperatures in the south of France. To say that we were freezing all day would be about right! We did get on our way early on the Sunday morning though, and after spending a boring 4 hours in Paris, we arrived in Nice about 4pm. We couldn’t connect with our usual buses along to St Aygulf, so we took the train to St Raphael and then took an Uber to the flat. Of course, being a Sunday evening, the supermarkets were not open, so we had a very meagre meal that night! But at least we were happy to be back in our little flat again, and apart from a dripping bath tap, everything was soon up and running smoothly at last. Just a little further comment re Easyjet…we submitted our claim for compensation (we had had to pay for the second night in the hotel and taxis from and to the airport) and the money was paid into our bank within a few days of doing so. So, although we were not entirely happy about losing two days of our holiday or the cancellation of the flight, we were very content with the way Easyjet sorted everything out afterwards.
We do love having this little flat, where we can simply relax and do very little. Although I said last month that we didn’t need to do work there this time, we did actually end up spending cash as always on the upkeep of the place. We got a dripping tap fixed by our nice friendly plumber friend (who always leaves things until the last minute but who is such a nice guy and very good at doing just what we want) and this time we had to replace our TV which just stopped working suddenly one evening, which we had not anticipated at all. Maybe next visit we will definitely not have any expenses like that…here’s hoping!
We quickly slotted back into our French way of life once again. We loved going to the supermarkets and buying some old favourite food once again, but were a bit shocked by how much more expensive food has become, even since we were there in September. The bill for our first “stocking up” shop was almost double what I pay in the UK. We had forgotten how much we miss French cheese so we have indulged ourselves in lots of St Nectaire, Bleu d`Auvergne, Camembert and goat’s cheese over the visit! We also loved going to the markets again, although once again we found that food was expensive here too…especially fruit. I was delighted that the lady on St Aygulf market who sells the most delicious prunes, remembered me and had my 100gms of prunes weighed out almost as I approached her stall! We went to a local brocante one Sunday and as usual, found the prices there ridiculous! However, I did find a rather nice linen dress which I bought for 5 euros, which I bought very quickly in case the stallholder changed her mind!
We did get out and about a bit too. We tried to continue with our usual “date days” on Wednesdays and enjoyed visiting some of our favourite restaurants such as Antre Potes in Issambres, and the Augberge d ‘Arcades in Valbonne one week where we met one of my long time Facebook friends, Phoebe Thomas, who I have followed for a very long time. She lives near there and has a wonderful gite for rent if anyone is interested ( Lou Messugo – see the FB page). It was lovely to meet her in person at last. We also went to church in Cannes on Easter Sunday and met Jane and Bruce, an English couple who have a holiday home in the same village as Phoebe, so we were able to introduce them to her, over coffee, in Valbonne. We also went away for two nights to Provence as a treat. We had a lovely B and B just on the edge of the Luberon and enjoyed exploring many of the gorgeous hill villages the Luberon is famous for, such as Asouis, Lourmartin, Curcuron, Gordes and Rousillion. The scenery was fabulous and we ended that trip in grandeur by driving home via the wonderful Gorges du Verdon admiring the spectacular scenery there too. It is really nice being able to visit these regions all within two hours’ drive of our base in St Aygulf. Much as we love gazing at the sea for most of our time in the South, it is always nice to see some different scenery too, while we are there.
Talking of gazing at the sea, I have spent a lot of my time this visit collecting small stones and painting them, as I do in Carlisle. I took some of my acrylic pens out with me this time, but soon had to buy more as I really got into the rock painting with a vengeance, whilst sitting on the balcony! I put the painted stones out all over Sy Aygulf for people (hopefully children) to find and was pleased to say that they all disappeared very quickly indeed! I did manage to see a couple of children pick them up and was able to chat a bit to their mamans to try and explain what it was all about. They all seemed really taken with the idea, so maybe I have started a new trend in St Aygulf. That would be great, wouldn’t it??
As always, we have thoroughly enjoyed being beside the sea again…even if it was a bit too chilly most of the time to do more than paddle in it! The coastal walk at St Aygulf (le Sentier des Douaniers) is so pretty and watching the sea crash into the rocky coastline there is mesmerising. The path is very “up and down” at times and needs care to negotiate in places, but we saw so many beautiful plants and flowers along it and of course we looked for and found sea glass in all the lovely little bays too. One day, Geoff found some very strange looking transparent organisms on the shore line in one of the bays which looked almost as if someone had emptied their ice trays into the water. Google searches told us they were “papillons de mer”. which are the gelatinous carcases of a type of sea slug. We also witnessed one day, from the balcony a huge patch of darker blue agitated sea, which was being actively followed by a flotilla of small boats, and which we later learned was a banc (or shoal) of fish (perhaps bonito) coming to the surface. It was fascinating seeing it progress along the coast, before heading back out to sea again. Our son said that we should go out to eat that day, as he thought there might be a lot of “tuna” on the menus, judging by the number of boats which were tracking the shoal!
The last week that we were in St Aygulf, we were pleased to meet up with more friends of ours. We visited Gisele in her new flat in St Raphael and caught up with all of her news which was nice. We also went to see an art exhibition which was showcasing the work of a guy that Geoff had shared a BlaBlaCar journey with from Nice to Clermont Ferrand, when he brough our car down before we left France in 2019, and whose progress in the art world he has followed ever since. It was a strange exhibition…not entirely to my taste I have to say, but Geoff was pleased to meet up with Florien again. And finally, during our last week, we were pleased to see all our “cruise buddies” friends again. We all shared a table on a cruise quite a few years ago now, but as we all got on well together, we have kept in touch since then. Jean and Ewen had come out from Dunblane, to spend a few days holiday and we were really pleased to meet up with them and show them our flat. On the last Sunday we were there, we met them again at the big market in Frejus and then also met up with Mandy and Carolyn , who live permanently on the Cote d’Azur to complete our group and to have lunch together. It was a great way to end our holiday really. Ewen and Jean were flying back on the same flight as us so we met up again in Nice the evening before the flight and ate together in Port Lympia, at a great Italian restaurant we like there.
Our journey back went by without any problems and soon we landed in a cold damp Edinburgh once again. Our daughter and the little one met us at Carlisle station and then we were back home once again. We are now trying to get back into UK life (and weather) again and have started to pick up our routines. And, of course, try and prepare ourselves for a very busy May, which starts tomorrow. We have a lot of family celebrations coming up and some baby (or rather child) sitting commitments to fulfil during May. But as I said at the beginning of this post…just where did April go??
A bientot mes amis…