Day 114 (Friday)

Yet another gloriously sunny day; it’s hard to believe it’s nearly October!

We went for a walk up to the lookout point above the town just to see Villefranche in all her glory. On the way the road was busy and Hyatt, our estate agent was waiting at the traffic lights and she waved at us asking when we were going to see her to sign another contract (she’d made a mistake on the first one.) This little incident really made us feel like we’re locals.

 

On the way back down to town we took a new road (there are so many ways of getting to the same places, it’s like a maze at times) and saw a new restaurant, which looks so quaint, but sadly it was shut.

So we went to the bar tabac in Place de la Paix (Peace square) instead.

It was quite busy and nearly all the customers were French and looked to be nice ordinary working people, which make a nice change from tourists and rich people.

A long time ago when I was a small child my family were in Weymouth visiting my uncle’s family and we were in a big supermarket and Lionel Blair walked into the shop. My father always called him ‘chuchiface’ and on this occasion, he said quite loudly ‘oh look, it’s chuchiface’ right to his face! Coming back to France, when we first arrived we kept seeing a man who reminds me of Lionel Blair and I nicknamed him ‘chuchiface’. He’s quite an elderly man but very well dressed and dapper and we see him almost daily; sometimes in the Palmier at the top of our street, sometimes in the old town but nearly always in a bar. So we were happy to see him here in the Bar Tabac and delighted when he smiled and nodded at us in recognition. I girl at the counter called him because he’d forgotten something and I think his name is Henri but he’ll always be ‘chuchiface’ to us.

In my quest for a job I have printed adverts in French and English and I’ve been putting them up on notice boards in tabacs, bars and supermarkets and I wanted to put one up here so after practicing the sentence numerous times I asked the very nice, polite waiter if I could put one here and he said ‘bien sure’ with no hesitation whatsoever, he’d understood me first time – yay!

When we got home Huw made a lovely statement, he said ‘I’ve clicked, suddenly for the first time since we’ve been here I feel like I actually live here!’