A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

  Day 1480 (Sunday) 27 th June 2021 I had a little bit of a lie in this morning but still got up before I had to thanks to Mr Badger and after breakfast we walked to the train station to start a new adventure. We were going to Saint Raphael, a town we have never been to before – how exciting! Villefranche beach was packed and it wasn’t even 11am. We watched the tourists and wondered how many of those people had or were carrying Covid. I have an awful feeling that it’s going to be the same as last year – we let all the tourists in for the summer and them we’ll be forced back into lockdown in October – it’s not fair! I got a call from Natacha in Monaco yesterday asking me to work with teenagers for three days the week after next and I very reluctantly agreed and then she told me that I have to work with the babies next Tuesday from 5-6 because they like me so much they want to say goodbye to me before the end of term. I don’t believe this for a minute because I hate the little basta...

  Day 1479 (Saturday) 26 th June 2021 Finally I got a lie in this morning, Badger did try to get me up early but I was having none of it and put my head under the covers again. Huw went off for his super long walk and I thoroughly enjoyed a lazy day in the glorious sunshine. It’s been a while since I talked about French wine so I hope you enjoy this article I found on a website called ‘Expatica’ but strangely the author’s name is not provided… Few countries are as renowned for their wine industry than France. Here’s the perfect base for navigating the sophisticated world of French wine. “How does one govern a country with 246 varieties of cheese?!” once asked former French President Charles de Gaulle. It’s true that France suffers from a wealth of choices when it comes to cheese and wine  bien sûr ! When I first moved to France, I lived by a market that offered three full aisles of cheese and even more wine. De Gaulle’s number was an understatement, and today there are well o...

  Day 1478 (Friday) 25 th June 2021 I am so sick of early morning alarms, that is five in a row and Badger tried to wake me up before but I stuck my head under the duvet cover and managed to get back to sleep. It is official, summer is here big time and today I didn’t bother to straighten my hair because it’s just not worth it so I am now wearing my frizzy summer hair and I don’t care! Last night we had a beautiful giant orange moon, it doesn’t look so big in the photo but it was gorgeous. I walked over to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to spend an hour with Eduard and another with Olga. Eduard was on fine form and when I gave him some very challenging vocabulary he invited his 21-year-old daughter to help him and she understood every word, words like ephemeral, sophomoric and urbane, it was very impressive. I worked with him at the dining table and when we finished he had a Zoom meeting so Olga and I sat at the dining table on the terrace and she gave me some fresh strawberries, raspberri...