A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 85 (Thursday) First thing this morning the sun was as bright as usual and all was well in the world. Huw had to go into the office in Nice and spent a few hours doing my French online course. I am happy to say that I’ve now gone up from 37% to 48% and I achieved this by doing a test. I’m ashamed to admit that I did cheat a bit but I was determined to pass the test as I’ve failed it quite a few times – surely I’m going to start speaking soon? Ever since we got here there has been a really sad little Citroen 2CV6 parked on our street. It looks like it hasn’t moved in years and they are such wonderful, fun cars – what a waste. I’ve never paid much attention to cars but these I love, I just someone would do it up and put it back on the road. On the other hand on the road below us there is another Citroen in immaculate conditions that is used every day and it’s beautiful. And I love these hedges! Near the flat there are also two beaten up Renaults but at least the

Day 84 (Wednesday) Spent a lovely day pottering and reading in the sun, it’s my first full day off in what seem ages and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Today’s ‘French lesson’ from Stephen Clarke’s Talk to the Snail (Ten Commandments for Understanding the French) to give it its full title is: Who are vous? The eternal problem – tu or vous ? Tutoyer or vouvoer, as they call it. Other languages have these familiar and unfamiliar forms , but in France people still use them as weapons. Jean Cocteau summed up the snobbery that  can be involved in making the wrong choice: ‘I’m always prepared to call someone tu , as long as they don’t call me tu in return.’ Tu is reserved for friends, lovers, family, animals, machines and anyone a French person considers inferior to themselves (which can cover a lot of people). In the French translation of the bible, everyone calls each other tu. Jesus and the disciples all tutoyer each other, as you would expect amongst a group of male frien

Day 83 (Tuesday) Super sweaty again today but at least I don’t have to go out until later, there is usually a nice gentle breeze on the terrace. I did a lot of practice of French on duolingo today and after about two hours my score went up from 37% to 38% - not exactly encouraging! After lunch we walked down to town to meet Mara at 3pm to go and see a flat for sale in the old town in the street adjacent to where I used to live and above the Caravel restaurant. It didn’t look much from the outside… … but on the inside it was stunning and it has a fireplace, not that we would need one. The living room is huge, there used to be two bedrooms but they converted it into one bedroom making the living room massive for a place in the old town.   The owner’s name is Marie and this is her (on the left)sitting with Mara while we looked around And she had the sweetest, friendliest small dog  I’ve ever met.