A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 1144 (Mon day) 27 th July 2020 I got up early again this morning and it was hot walking to the station and I was rather jealous of all the people on the beach and swimming. The Grasse train was late so I caught it and got to Parc Mozart earlier than usual so I had a lovely 20 minutes peace and quiet. I spoke to Hayat briefly about my paperwork but there’s one number that is still missing and it could take up to two weeks to get it – in French bureaucracy there is always at least one thing missing, well they did invent the word. I had a bit of a surprise when I went into my new room to see 11 kids. Most of them are teenagers but there are two 10-year-olds, one of them was able to keep up but the little girl was lost but her big sister looked after her. There are three brothers, two sisters and two brothers and a sister. They all seem to be nice kids and no sulky boy, but the volume was deafening for three hours. When I got home I sunbathed for an or so and then we t...

Day 1143 (Sun day) 26 th July 2020 We both had a lovely lie and when I did wake up Badger was ‘holding my hand’. Last night he slept on the blanket I knitted him and he did again this afternoon. I forgot to use this photo yesterday; while were in the happy whale bar with Dee yesterday evening she got a phone call from her husband Pat saying that he’d arrived in Dublin and it was pouring down. He sent her a photo taken from the bus from the airport into the city (he hates public transport) and it looked miserable. Huw and Pat constantly wind each other up so Huw took this photo and sent it to him – how cruel is that?   Anyway, back to today, we had planned on going somewhere but we were both feeling a tad lazy so Huw pottered around the flat and I sunbathed on the balcony for a few hours. When we lost the sun we took Kisbee up to the big apartment as the guests left yesterday so we needed to do some work. The next guests don’t arrive for another two weeks so it wasn’t ...

Day 1142 (Satur day) 25 th July 2020 As always we went to Le Phare last night and Kevin and Angie were there, Aussie John and Chadwick was talking to a man we didn’t know. After about 10 minutes this man turned to me and said ‘all right Trace?’ I didn’t have a clue who he was and at first he wouldn’t tell me as he expected me to recognise him. He looked vaguely familiar but, after e few awkward moments he told me his name, Adrian. Him and Andy were big buddies back in the day and I hadn’t seen him since 1996 and he was annoyed that I didn’t recognise him! It was great to talk about all the people we used to know back then, I’m sure the rest, including poor Huw were bored senseless as they didn’t know any of the people we were talking about but it was good to take a trip down memory lane.  I was amazed by how much he remembered about me because I remember very little about him. He is staying in Andy’s place with his wife and three daughters because Andy is still in Brittan...

Day 1141 (Fri day) 24 th July 2020 It was super-hot this morning and I saw Olivier at the station again going to Monaco – we had a chat across the tracks and he said that him and Audrey may join us in the bar tonight. They are going to the Vietnamese restaurant called the Mekong and if we are still in the bar they’ll come and have a drink with us. Even though it was only 8.30am there were quite a few people swimming in the sea. The class went well and we finished the week playing a board game called ‘Absolutely English’ and even sulky boy became a little animated and won! I think there was some cheating going on but as long as he’s speaking English I don’t care – that’s him covering his face.   During my petite pause I went to see Hayat with my French paperwork and even though I handed her a big pile of papers there was one number missing. Every single time you try to do some French paperwork there is ALWAYS one thing missing. I walked up the train station ...