Great day out at the rugby. Met Guy and his pals at noon as arranged. Game started at five forty five so a bit of a liquid warm up seemed appropriate. Amazingly, apart from an initial difficulty finding the tram, everything ran like clockwork.
At the stadium the queues were fairly minimal helped, probs, by our early arrival and the service at the bar seemed to have improved. This time they had separate people pouring the beers and serving the punters.
The remainder of our touring party arrived just before the start having come by taxi. An element of ‘tour fatigue’ is beginning to show. We will all benefit from the week at the Manoir that starts on Saturday.
Apparently there was heavy rain and thunder overnight. I heard none of it. The deep sleep of the just 🙂. This morning the rain had morphed to a very gentle drizzle which was most refreshing on my short stroll to the snack bar to pick up the bread. Deux croissants et une baguette merci. Oh et un cafe, longue. Pierre does a good coffee fair play. I assume that is his name.
D’aujourd hui we will be recovering from yesterday, sorting out the chalet and packing for the next leg of our trip. A walk to the (pebble) beach is in prospect and maybe, dare I say it, even a paddle in the Med. After all we’ve come all this way…
We did swim in the med at Cassis. Feels like a long time ago now but it was only last Thursday. One week. It’s going to rain off and on all day today but we may well swing by the pool. It has a covered area that I have been using to stay out of the sun but today it can keep the rain off. Doesn’t matter if it is raining once in the pool.
I remember a family holiday to Brittany perhaps fifteen years ago. It rained twelve days out of fourteen. One day looked to be a bit brighter so I bought a load of snorkelling gear and we hit the beach. The boys all went snorkelling and the girls sat on the beach.
After half an hour or so I looked up. It had started to rain and the beach was deserted except for Anne and Hannah huddled under an umbrella waiting patiently for us. We hadn’t noticed the rain. I can still picture the scene.
Some of the others in our group have started wending their way in the general direction of Montaigu de Quercy. It is around 650km from Nice so a fair old distance. Our plan is to drive around two thirds of the way tomorrow. We’ve booked into a nice gaff for the night.
To a large extent we are retracing the steps coming here from Toulouse for which we took a relaxing 5 days. Some are visiting the places we stopped at. Avignon for one. Makes a lorra sense to me. I expect that someday they will get around to finishing that bridge at Avignon. Must have run out of budget. Or the builder went bust, or similar.
We did toy with the idea of leaving Nice today but figured we had already seen a lot of the places en route and that some downtime would do us good.
Right, breakfast beckons. Croissant anyone?
…
Rain has started again. The heavy rain which can be quite pleasant when observed from the covered deck outside the chalet. A river of water is running down the road. A plane flies by on its descent into Nice airport, nobbut six clicks away.
…
Very much a mooching morning 🙂Popped in to reception to ask if we could check out a little later tomorrow as I have a meeting at 9.30am whereas they want us out by nine. Hadn’t quite factored that into my planning. The receptionist needs to discuss with ‘the manager’ so I have to pop back after lunch.
After six days at this site we’ve just spotted that the birds making the racket outside our chalet are green parakeets. Gosh.
…
As the sun creeps inevitably over the yardarm at La Vieille Ferme Camping it has started to rain. Again. It has not yet resulted in the river flowing fast by the deck of chalet C1A but it may yet do so.
I have, as a result, been discouraged from a visit to the bar and am instead helping to empty the fridge by consuming the gin and tonic resident within. Formerly resident.
The river has started as I write. Doesn’t take long here in the Tropic of Provence. The parakeets that frequent the trees around the chalet have stopped squawking. Presumably keeping their heads down.
The defender sits squarely on the drive in front of the chalet. Feels totally at home in the rain.
Two people walk separately past the chalet. A young woman strides confidently up the hill. A man, probs about my age, maybs a little less, walked a more tentatively with what looked like a table tennis bat. There is a ping pong table uo there. They both just scampered back down. Rain must have started again although I didn’t really notice that it had stopped.
On the main road I hear a siren. Feels as if we are cocooned from it all here in the campsite. Live goes on. Births, deaths. Here the main decision is when to eat dinner. I am somewhat governed by THG who has a very high metabolic rate due to her exercise regime. THG is an amazingly fit woman. I am proud to be married to her.
It’s been a wonderful week in the south of France. We would come again at this time of year but probably opt for a villa. The idea of staying in a campsite was so that we could be with our motorhoming pals. Unfortunately the crazy rush to book accommodation for the Rugby World Cup resulted in us having to stay in separate sites. The ones we identified as target sites booked up very quickly.
Funnily enough we haven’t really seen that many rugby tourists here. Maybe this is just a popular site full stop.