Day 992 (Wednesday) 26^th February 2020

The carnival was superb! Huw had checked the starting and finishing time before we went out and also the time of the last train. Thank god he did because the carnival doesn’t start until 9pm – there was no finishing time available and the last train to Villefranche was 11.05 so we had to take Kisbee. As lovely as the weather is by day it’s still pretty cold at night and bloody cold on Kisbee in the dark. We wrapped up warm and Badger has a lovely snooze on the lining of my Italian parka and I felt guilty disturbing him.

 

Because we were properly dressed it wasn’t too cold and it’s really not far anyway. We parked in Place Garibaldi and walked to Massena looking for a bite to eat and a vin chaud (hot wine) but we were out of luck and didn’t find either. We assumed that there would be food and drink stalls and toilets in the arena so we showed our tickets in went in. We were really shocked to see that there was nothing! There were thousands of people there and no food – I thought we were living in France! Despite this annoyance the parade was incredible. There was a warm up man who did very well keeping the crowd going while we waited for it to start and he kept saying ‘tout le monde fait du bruit’ (everybody make a noise) and boy did everyone make a noise or what?

The theme of the carnival was Le Roi de la mode (the king of fashion) and this is the king.

Please excuse the many, many photos but I couldn’t resist them.

We could see that some of the floats were about fashion but there were many others that we just couldn’t see the connection like this enormous skeleton.

 And this doll just gave us the creeps

Most of the music was in English, which was a bit disappointing but having said that French music is mostly rubbish.

Enjoy this short video

I have no idea who these are supposed to represent

It was very strange when the last act arrived and they were Scottish bagpipers and behind them was Queen Elizabeth – why?

This photo of the Queen isn’t mine because mine was blurry

The parade lasted for an hour and a half so we left a few minutes before the end because we needed to find a bar for obvious reasons after standing in the cold for three hours. We walked back to Garibaldi and the atmosphere was great and we had a drink sitting under an outdoor heater. It wasn’t too cold getting home on Kisbee and we were shocked to realise it was almost midnight – and on a school night as well.

We were both pretty tired this morning but I had to work. The sky was blue again and the sun was out but there was a cheeky cold wind so we wrapped up again and Huw dropped me off in Beaulieu.

 

I helped Sarah with a school project and then did a fluency activity with her mum Odile. As I’m sure you can imagine the main topic of conversation was the coronavirus. Being so close to the Italian border is a bit worrying but I still think it’s mostly scaremongering by the Press.

I caught the bus into Nice and it’s amazing that there was very little evidence of last night. My class today was in Elsa’s office (William’s daughter) and after doing some grammar with Marion the topic of conversation changed to coronavirus again. William introduced me to a young English teacher who is going to teach the kids – I was very happy to meet her indeed but he still referred to me working the summer school again!

I caught the tram to the Old Port and it was pretty windy. The good thing about these occasional windy days is that the sea and the sky are an even nicer, deeper blue.