Bonjour from Sy Aygulf, where we have spent the last month. We flew out here on the 3rd and are almost at the end of our stay now as we fly back home on Thursday. As always, being back in France has been wonderful and we have had a very relaxing break, despite not always having the weather we would have ideally liked at times. We are getting a little fed up of all the locals saying how pleased they are that the incredibly hot weather has come to an end, after a very hot summer and how pleased to have rain at last….hrrpmh! After a summer of rain and cool temperatures in Cumbria we were hoping so much for some of that heat, I can tell you! Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself a bit so I’ll start at the beginning and tell you what we have been up to.
Our flight out was uneventful…probably the last time we will come into Nice airport without having to have all the digital entry restrictions which are to come next year. We stepped outside and were immediately hit by a blanket of warmth, even though it was 10pm. Great! We stayed overnight at our usual airport hotel and in a slight change from normal, we took the train along to St Raphael for the first time…we usually take the airport transfer bus. It was a lot quicker doing this and a fair bit cheaper, so I think we will be repeating this in the future. Our flat was fine and having turned on the water and electricity we went down to the little supermarket for urgent supplies such as milk etc and then ate lunch at the bar near the flat. Because we were here earlier than normal, after Geoff had sorted out Sylvie car, we drove along to Frejus and gritted our teeth doing the usual stock up shop in the big supermarket there. It always hits us hard in the wallet this shop…we are now so used to good old Aldi prices! That done we settled in for the evening…and then the fun started, as we had the worst storm I have ever experienced in my life. We had torrential rain, thunder so loud that we thought World War 3 had started, and lightning strikes all around us and over the sea. It went on for eight hours! We were amazed that the electricity stayed on (it didn’t in other places along the coast), and that the only real damage we had reported, was that one of the stone crosses on the top of the basilica at St Raphael got hit and fell off into the street below. What a great start to our stay eh?
The weather didn’t really improve much for the next few days which was a shame as this was the weekend of St Aygulf’s Fete de l’Omelette Geant. We managed to get to the open air bal (dance) on the Saturday night which we really enjoyed, but the main event on the Sunday was a complete washout. No one obviously fancied soggy omelette and the grand parade of all the chefs would have led to a lot of collapsed toques (chef hats) so it was all called off. We did wonder what had happened to the 2,000 eggs they use to make the omelette. It was a real shame and so disappointing for all the volunteers who work so hard to put on all these events…much the same as in the UK this year with so many country shows having to be cancelled.
The next few days were better, weather wise and so we quickly settled into our usual life here in St Aygulf. Geoff went off to play pickleball, and has started to try and find other places nearer to here to play, as he finds the drive to his normal place a bit long. There are two new possibilities where some of the local tennis clubs are trying to set up some pickle ball clubs so some progress has been made with that. Most days though, we sat on the balcony in the sun and watched all the boat traffic. I bought some yarn from the lady who has the little shop near the flat (and we had our usual chat about the British Royal Family who she loves…(she is very worried about Catherine!) and sat on the same balcony knitting a jumper for our little granddaughter, painting rocks and reading. We needed a relaxing break and so we were revelling in it! We did get down to the beach whenever the weather was good enough and had a lot of nice swims in the sea too and if the weather was not so good, we walked along the coastal path and sat looking at the sea…just like all the other old folk round here! We love it here…so relaxing 
And of course we are back to French TV…which, incidently, we still quite like! But best of all I am back watching Plus Belle la Vie…which I love! It always takes me a while to get back to who is who but like all good soap operas, it doesn’t take that long to catch up with the storylines! My big problem now, is leaving it again right in the middle of a story about dastardly deeds! I do try and follow spoilers in the UK but it is just not the same…will Luna, Blanche and co end up in taule?? I really need some nice person who lives in France to keep me up to date. Any offers??
One of the other things we enjoyed watching on TV whilst we have been here was the Paralympics. In last month’s blog, I did raise the question as to what the TV coverage would be like, as when we lived in France, there was virtually no coverage at all of the 2012 Paralympics from London as “ French people do not want to watch disabled people doing sport!” Well, what a change now…there was all day coverage and although a lot of the sports we were interested in, were only covered if the French had any medal hopes as usual, it was so much better and we really enjoyed it. Again, we thought that the opening and closing ceremonies were very French & a bit difficult to follow at times and to be honest we did turn off the closing ceremony when it degenerated into all that awful DJ stuff at the end, which is just not our thing. But overall, we were pleasantly surprised and it seemed that both the Olympics and Paralympics have gone down well here in France. Almost everyone we have spoken to seemed to have thought they showed the country could rise to the challenge of putting on this event and making it successful.
We have been out and about while we have been here of course. We have enjoyed a few drives along the Esterel corniche, have had lovely meet ups with our friends Mandy, Carolyn and Julia for lunches and visited St Raphael, Frejus and Ste Maxime for nice strolls around. We also had a nice evening with another friend Giselle who came to our flat for a meal one evening. We were very amused to be caught up in the frenzy surrounding the unveiling of a new statue to Johnny Haliday in Frejus Port one Saturday, when hundreds of Harley Davidson bikers arrived to pay homage to their icon. Johnny was a French rocker super star, who had a huge affinity with the biker community around here – especially around St Tropez. After he died, one of his local clubs (the Desperados) raised funds to commission and erect a statue…only to find that neither St Tropez or Ste Maxime wanted it! So it now resides in Frejus and is likely to become a pilgrimage site for bikers in the future! The unveiling of it was fun though, with the port absolutely resonating to a rock band and literally hundreds of (mostly elderly) bikers and rockers milling about! Personally, I never liked old Johnny, and I really don’t like the statue…but I kept my mouth firmly shut that day!
As always while we are here, we decided to have a couple of nights away…mainly just for a change of scenery and to explore some places a bit further afield. This time we chose to cross over the border into Italy which is about 2 hours drive from here. We enjoyed staying up in the hills above the Italian riviera and really enjoyed visiting some of the little old picturesque hill towns and seaside places there. Geoff (and Sylvie car) didn’t really enjoy all the driving up and down the poorly maintained roads, which we drove along to get to them though! We stayed in a fantastic BandB , near Seborga which was really lovely …and joy of joys, it had a swimming pool which we also enjoyed, although our hosts thought we were totally mad as the water temperature was 14 degrees! It was nice to visit this region for a change, and we loved eating some very nice Italian food, but we decided we like the French Riviera better. I also got very frustrated by not being able to speak or understand any Italian, so I found navigating around the towns where I couldn’t read street names or directions – we got totally lost and cross in San Remo one day - and not being able to communicate with people, very annoying. It has been a long time since we have been in a country where neither of us speaks the language and we both found it very annoying! We were both glad to get back to France and speaking French again! We did get the bonus of driving back into France along the coast though and enjoyed pausing in both Menton and Villefranche (both favourite places for me) on the way home. It was nice though to be “home“again in our little flat
One of the things we really enjoy when we are here is catching up with local and national politics and people’s views on what is happening here and in the world. The French government is not popular here - Frejus of course has a RN mayor - but then again, we always found that French folk were never happy with whichever government they have and the decisions they make…very much like the UK eh? People here are very worried though, about what they see are changes in the climate…. suffocatingly hot summers (which they think is keeping the tourists away) and then all the recent storms and rainfall which has caused lots of flooding and damage near here. The main reason that we do not come here in the summer, is that it is now usually very hot and we would have to spend most of the day indoors in the dark….and again we have heard a lot of people complaining about that and the fact that they have needed to have their air con on all the time, which has boosted their electricity bills of course. Sounds a lot like the UK…but in reverse! We are always interested to watch the news here and compare what we see with what we see reported in the UK.
And so we are almost at the end of our stay here. We have managed to do most of what we wanted to do both in and outside the flat and so will return to the UK feeling good, looking tanned and relaxed. We still have a few more days to go and today we went to a great brocante in Roquebrune - one of my favourite ways to pass a sunny morning…even if it is not Geoff’s! We are hoping also to get a few more beach visits and swims in before we pack the swimmie stuff away and the sun has decided to come out and play again, so there is more balcony sitting to be done too. Today, the Voiles de St Tropez (big sailing regatta) gets under way and so the sea is full of yachts of all shapes and sizes – great entertainment for us to watch.
I am starting to prepare for our trip home…hotel is booked for our last night in Nice, train tickets sorted for the journey from Edinburgh to Carlisle and Hazel’s taxi has been ordered to collect us from the station! We have some friends arriving as we leave, to spend a week in the flat so I am sorting out things here so as to leave the flat all spic and span for them too. So, on that note I will bid you all farewell until next time. One last little note though…the reader numbers on these posts have dropped a lot recently, so if you have enjoyed reading it…and I know many of you have for many years…please could you recommend it to your friends or share the links on Facebook and Twitter.
A bientot mes amis…