A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

  Day 1846 (Tuesday) 28 th June 2022 Very early this morning there was some noise outside our front door and when Huw investigated he found that Jean-Louis had brought our shutters back. It looks like he has patched them up a bit and painted them – we were hoping that they would be replaced but no. It was a little cloudy this morning and incredibly humid and I had a good giggle with Badger trying to put my lacy sandals on.   I caught the train to Nice and on my way to school I saw yet another example of brilliant French parking – I love the way they will park anywhere. My hour with the Swedish student flew by and we did a grammar exercise and I could see that she wasn’t comfortable reading out loud, which is a very common aspect of being dyslexic. I told her about the reading rulers, coloured plastic folders that can help speed up her reading speed and she was delighted that I knew so much about dyslexia. I told her some stories of my successes in London and she loved them, especially

  Day 1845 (Monday) 27 th June 2022 It was very warm this morning and Huw had to go to the villa to do some gardening, there is also a very warm, quite strong wind blowing so he didn’t have the easiest of mornings. I caught the train to Nice and enjoyed the views from the platform. By the time we got home this afternoon – the beach was packed and the parking queue was significant.   I was quite early so I went to Parc Mozart where I took this photo of a beautiful tree, according to my App, it is called a Golden Wonder Tree. I was enjoying a peaceful 5 minutes when suddenly I was slapped in the face by a bloody pigeon – it was a real shock and rather horrible. When I told Romain in International House he thought it was hysterical. Just last week I was bragging about having time off in July and August but now I’ve got a new student who wants one-hour lessons every day of the week for two weeks. It’s a bit of a pain having to go to Nice every day for just one hour but it all adds up nice

Day 1844 (Sunday) 26 th June 2022 We went to the fete last night as planned and it was very pleasant and quaint but it went on a bit and we spent a lot of time waiting around. I’m really glad we went but we won’t be going to the one in Beaulieu on Wednesday. We had a glass of rose in a bar very close to the church and people watched for a while – it was very entertaining. We watched the choir assembling in their costumes. We left the bar and joined the onlookers as the procession left the church – the vicar was such a happy looking chap. This was followed by Saint Pierre Enjoy this short video We went ahead of the procession as it was going very slowly and sat on the seawall where the burning of the boat was going to take place and this was the boat. The procession went past the boat so we followed it again into a park area and were entertained by the choir. There was free food and soft drinks but the queues were miles long. The vicar, the statue and a number of other people boarded a