A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 266 (Wednesday) It was cold again this morning but no snow, thank goodness. Caught the train into Nice to see Bruno and Neo and he was very well behaved for the full two hours; not one tantrum today. He also talked more than usual and seems more comfortable talking to me. I managed to get the 12.36 train after running to the station so I was back in Villefranche before 1pm and I was shocked by how cold it was walking home. Huw went into Nice today as well and he got home before me, after lunch it started to snow again and the temperature plummeted, I’m sick of this now and I’m looking forward to the weekend when the forecast is sunny and 17 degrees. I’m also really looking forward to being how and sweaty very soon. I had an email from my sister-in-law ( belle-sœur ) with photos of her garden in Norfolk, I’m really glad I'm here where it's cold but nothing like this.   I forgot to say on Saturday night Helene found a new friend in the bar, Anna from Finla...

Day 265 (Tuesday) There were a few snowflakes this morning but they didn’t last long and by lunchtime, most of the clouds had dispersed but it was still very cold all day. Good news – I had a letter from the bank saying that my bank card has finally arrived in the bank on the top road. Huw had his two weeks ago, even though we applied on the same day. I went up to the bank and it was ridiculously easy to collect the card, so why on earth had it taken almost two months to deliver it to the Villefranche branch? Ah well, at least I finally have it. I was very happy to see Chuchiface in the bar; we haven’t seen that much of him since the weather has cooled considerably. I saw some daffodils in the flower shop so I bought myself some to celebrate finally having a bank account in France. As I was re-potting the daffodil bulbs I took a look at my triffid-like plant and they are flowering. They are rather lovely, if a little bit odd. This afternoon the doorbell rang and when I answe...

Day 264 (Monday) Woke up this morning and it was bloody snowing! How wrong does this palm tree look? And look at our glorious mountains! This is so wrong on so many levels! We had an appointment with the estate agent today to view a studio, which we thought was selling for €100,000 but when we got there it was actually €145,000. The studio was situated in a building where we had viewed another studio last summer but this one was a lot bigger and much nicer, with a great outdoors area. The furniture was all too big and mostly really ugly, especially this breakfast bar.   And this ridiculous oversized ladder leading up to the mezzanine bed. But the studio is a good size and has great potential. We wouldn’t buy it to live in it, but to rent it out and make some money out of it. Time to do some sums and really consider this purchase, we both really liked it and can see amazing potential in it as a holiday home and investment. When we got home I op...

Day 263 (Sunday) Had a lovely lie in this morning after such a busy few social days and were very disappointed that it was cloudy again today. The forecast says that we could get some snow tomorrow – I can’t imagine it happening here but you never know. To think that we were sunbathing on Christmas day and now it might snow!   I found these photos of Nice in February 2005 I really hope it doesn’t happen but if it does I guess I’ll get some great photos. I’ve been making some progress with the language, not much, but some and when I read Peter Mayle’s Toujours Provence I was slightly relieved when I read that Mayle finds French complicated and illogical; have a look at this… I was constantly told that French is a supremely logical language. He goes on to say… ‘ I think that is a myth, invented by the French to bewilder foreigners. Where is the logic, for instance, in the genders given to proper names and nouns? Why is the Rhone masculine and the...