A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

  Day 1606 (Sunday) 31 st October 2021 Happy Halloween. Halloween: The ghost stories from France’s most haunted chateaux Château de Châteaubriant. Photo: Klovovi/Flickr Halloween might not be France's most celebrated holiday but that doesn't mean to say the French don't enjoy a good ghost story, writes France based British writer Jackie McGeown. To get us in the mood for ‘Spookmas’, Jackie McGeown, who runs the blog  Best France Forever , tells us some tales of French phantoms and the chateaux they are doomed to haunt for an eternity.     1. The ghost with the wooden leg at Château de Combourg The Château de Combourgis is said to be haunted by a certain Comte de Combourg. Back in his day, he wore a wooden leg and this is the leg that can be heard marching up and down the castle’s stairway. This story makes me wonder if the leg is still wooden in the afterlife or if it’s made of some ghostly material which allows the spirit to pass through walls? In which case, how could it

  Day 1605 (Saturday) 30 th October 2021 Yesterday we meet Oxana and her family in one of the beach bars and it was lovely and warm. They had been for a swim – I bet the sea is pretty cold now but they loved it. They went to the Fragonard museum a few days ago in Grasse – I have mentioned Fragonard before but here’s a little reminder… Shortly after the First World War, Eugène Fuchs and his family left Saint-Chamond and his notary’s practice to settle in the sun-drenched hillsides around Grasse. This entrepreneur at heart was soon won over by the magic of perfume and decided to create his own company with the purchase of two  Grasse perfumeries : Cresp-Martinenq and Muraour. Thus it was that the Parfumerie Fragonard opened its doors to business in 1926. Eugène Fuchs decided to pay tribute to the most famous native of Grasse by naming his business after the  painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard  (1732-1806). The choice of the name Fragonard was also guided by his desire to thank the town that

Day 1604 (Friday) 29 th October 2021 I didn’t go to work today but I wouldn’t say I had a day off either. I had a lovely lie in until the Super U delivery arrived at 10am and I was very surprised to see that it was cool and cloudy, which was a shame for the passengers on these two cruise ships. The light on the sea was quite beautiful. Marie Claire (Seb’s mother) told me that these cruise ships usually have the capacity to carry 3,000 people but Covid restrictions only allow 400 so the town is making very little money out of them and neither are the shops and restaurants, most of the tourists go off in buses to Eze or Monaco – poor little Villefranche. I had to do all my paperwork to get paid for October and Huw did my invoices, which was boring and time-consuming. We both did our Duolingo lessons and Huw cleared out our storage cupboard, which was a hell of a job. I checked to see if I have finally been paid by Ipag and was very angry to learn that out of the 60 hours I have done in

  Day 1603 (Thursday) 28 th October 2021 Yet another super early alarm this morning and we got ready in the dark but when the sun did rise it was magnificent. As much as I appreciate the beauty of these sunrises I’m really looking forward to sleeping through the next three dawns.  There was a cruise ship in the bay when we left this morning and when Huw got home  there were two of them. Shame they didn’t get the usual perfect blue sky. It was pretty cold on Kisbee this morning and the sun didn’t hit the garden at the college until 10.30am and I had to wear a jacket during break – that the first time in months and months. I had the same group of students for four hours this morning, which wasn’t easy  but they are a nice bunch of young people. I had to go to the office at lunchtime to be told about the upcoming oral exams and it was all done in French so I’m still not entirely sure exactly what’s going on. I need to speak to Scottish Gillian in Paris and she’ll put me straight. I ate m