Day 1421 (Thursday) 29th April 2021. 

It was wet and miserable again this morning so I had a lie with Badger because I had my class with Gilles on Tuesday instead of this morning. I had an online lesson with the group from Monaco’s football stadium, which was as great as ever and I’m very sad that we only have two more classes left – I’m going to miss them. It rained pretty much all afternoon and I really didn’t want to go out in it but I had to, I had an hour with Nathalie and an hour with her son Brett so I walked to the station using an umbrella and managed to stay pretty dry. As the train arrived I put my umbrella down and just as I was getting on the train I got drenched by the rain that fell from the roof of the train straight onto my head – it was horrible. My hour with Nathalie was great and we looked at vocabulary for the body because it’s important she knows all this for her job in the pharmacy. Halfway through the lesson her daughter came into the living to practice the piano because she was having a lesson at 6pm and she is scared of her Russian piano teacher. She was wearing headphones which were plugged into the piano so she didn’t disturb us. Towards the end of the hour we looked at the vocabulary for the sexual organs and we could see her shoulders shaking as she had a good giggle, she obviously knows a lot more English than Nathalie realised. Brett’s favourite sport and hobby is tennis so I’d found some vocabulary for tennis. I think he appreciated it but he’s hard work mumbling all the answers and will only speak the absolute minimum.   By the time I got home the weather had cheered up considerably and we had mostly blue sky – life is good again.

Today’s hilltop town or perched village is Coaraze (the following photos are not mine)

The departement of the Alpes Maritimes - Pop.: 700 h. 25km. north of Nice via the N2204 and then D15. Highway A8 exit Nice Est heading Sospel-Contes and then D15.   Classified as one of the most beautiful villages of France, Coaraze is perched at 650m alt and is called the sun village. At only a half an hour from the sea, let your imagination go as you stroll about these ancient narrow streets as if in a time warp. There are arched covered passages, ancient garden gates letting you see through to the whole valley. The winding cobbled streets take you through sunny squares bursting with flowers and lead on to show you the houses of stone, or painted in the Italian fashion of blue, pink, or yellow pastels. Don't hold yourself back from climbing up to the church to see the fountain and the two sundials. Some of the old folks will be glad to tell you the story of Reine Jeanne who  ate her children, or legends of sorcery. Then there is the one about the devil who cut off his tail that was stuck, in order to get away from the Coarazien people who had caught him. This village far away from everything and with such an odd name, stretches out for 1,714 ha. of mimosas, olive trees, cypress trees, oaks, chestnut trees and pines..

What to see: The sundials of: Cocteau, Valentin, Mona Christie, Doukine, Ponce de Leon, Henri Goetz. St. Sebastien chapel. 14thc. church. Chapelle Notre Dame du Gressier or the blue chapel decorated by Ponce de Leon. Architectural details in the medieval village: lintels, doors and windows, semi-circular vaults, entrances.

Leisure activities: Traditional fairs. Canyoning. Hiking trails. Traditional fairs. Summer workshop of medieval songs. Local products: goat cheese, honey,olive oil..

Accommodation: Hotel. Holiday rentals. Gites.

Neighbouring towns and villages: Bendejun (5km), Contes (10km), Lucéram (17km). French phrase of the day: Changement d’échelle If you're a DIY enthusiast you might already know the word échelle, but this phrase does not involve any real ladders. Why do I need to know changement d’échelle? Because it’s a common expression that doesn’t actually involve real ladders. What does it mean? Un changement is French for ‘change’ – un changement   and une échelle means ‘a ladder’ or ‘a scale’. Changement d’échelle is inspired by the English expression ‘scale up’, and can be loosely translated as ‘changing strategies’, ‘changing approach’, ‘restructuring’ or ‘transform’. It all depends on the context, but generally it means moving from one thing to something ‘better’. Businesses use it often to talk about big shifts, but you can also use it about speeding up a process. French Prime Minister Jean Castex promised “un changement d’échelle” of the vaccination programme with the arrival of mass-vaccination centres in early April. Here, le changement d’échelle was a metaphor for moving up one level in the vaccination programme, injecting many more doses of the Covid vaccine each day.  However a changement d’échelle doesn’t necessarily involve going faster, it can also be a change of approach to life, such as moving towards a sustainable diet. You can talk about faire un changement d’échelle – to make a change of scale – or changer d’échelle  – to change the scale.  A similar expression is changer de cap, which means ‘to change course’. Use it like this Il faut très vite changer d’échelle pour la campagne vaccinale si on veut sortir du confinement ce printemps. – We have to change the pace of the vaccination campaign if we want to exit lockdown this spring. Notre stratégie est d’accélérer le changement d’échelle des circuits courts. – Our strategy is to accelerate the shift towards short food supply chains. Le changement d’échelle commence a porter des fruits. – The change of pace has begun to bear fruit.