Tag: family

Flat Battery – Languadoc #5

The village of St. Jean de Fos is very old and its occupants are very sociable.  People kept stopping to say ‘hello’.  For such a small place, the village centre always seemed to be buzzing. I spent the first day here lounging about and getting some rest after our long drive down, but then, on Monday morning I was up early and out for a walk – as I did each morning afterwards.

Our first visit to the (sea) beach took some time to organise as I woke up to a flat battery.

The week before we set off on holiday, I had had a new radio fitted in the car and was told it was connected to the battery but not to the ignition – this would help to remind me to remove the radio each evening and NOT get it stolen1.  Well, the day we arrived, I did forget to remove the radio and although it was ‘off’ it still managed to drain the battery.  Luckily, Jim (Lynn’s husband) had a friend in the village with jump-leads.  Imagine that, jump-leads in the very south of France.  Still, they worked for us and we set off for Agde.  It wasn’t the nicest of beaches, but we were glad to get there after almost an hour’s drive.  I was longing to take a dip in the Mediterranean, it is always so warm. Not today though, because of the recent bad weather, the sea was still fairly chilly.  Still – it wasn’t Scarborough eh?

The drive to and from Cap Agde was stunning.  Of the full thirty or so miles there, roughly eighteen of them were down an avenue of Plane Trees which kept the by now very hot, sun off you while driving.  And, this was not the main road: That was full of traffic trying to get to Montpellier or Beziers.  This was just a local (D) road that went in the right direction. Despite being such a road, we were able to maintain speeds close to the national limit, which in my car at the time, kept fuel consumption to a minimum2.

That night, I set the habit for the rest of the week and played boules outside – with the locals. I really enjoyed that, but it was not what Sharon had come to do, so she sat and read. During this first evening, I was intrigued to find that the village clock chimes the hour twice, just before the hour and just after3. It also strikes just once on the half hour.  However, at first, I wasn’t aware of this and at 22:30pm when it ‘bonged’ once, I thought it was 01:00am and declined another game (I thought they were just playing late). I went upstairs to the flat, told Sharon what time it was and off we went to bed.

She did tell me later that she knew the correct time, she simply didn’t want to embarrass me.

Coming up – the mountains, the lake and the gorgeous beaches of Sete.

1 – Cars in those days were notorious for having radios stolen. These days, perhaps not as much.

2 – I then wrote a paragraph about the taxation of fuel that we have to bear in the UK – nothing changes eh? At the time, French petrol was up to 14p per litre cheaper than at home.

3 – I’ve been to Languedoc and experienced this many times since, but this was my first experience.

Saint Tropez – Final days #8

Tuesday 20th July

We waited in for John Denton to arrive, from Quarry Garage.  I waited outside the camp site for two and a half hours, so I could let him in.  He arrived1 at 12:30pm.  He then checked the car over, drilling holes here and there as he went and then handed us a big handful of cable-ties.  These could now be used to secure the boot and the bonnet whilst travelling2.  Then we all had lunch.  John had brought his four-year-old son Lewis along with him.  Sue had found a turtle whilst I was away this morning and caught it on film.

By the time we reached the beach today it was very windy again, but we were able to set the brolly up as an igloo, so it had less chance of blowing away.  Despite the wind, the sea was very calm, although the surface was cold, with the wind.  It was easy to swim in today, much easier than any other day.  The wind eventually drove us home (via Ramatuelle, after yesterday’s traffic).  After tea we went for a drive and because of the traffic elsewhere, we tried Port Cogolin. Crap!

Wednesday 21st July

We had a straight forward sort of day today, arriving at the beach before 10:00am and leaving when it clouded over around 15:30pm. We then drove up to Ramatuelle for afternoon tea (well you know). We called at Le Cave Minute after this but didn’t get shown around or offered a taste.  We stopped then at Cave Bourrian and bought a red wine which turned out to be NOT very nice.  After tea, Ben did some videoing and we drove to Cavalaire, but couldn’t find anywhere to park.  http://vignoblesderamatuelle.com/.

Thursday 22nd July

We went to the Casino at 08:30am, hopefully for the last time this holiday.  We went for all of the things we need for the journey home tomorrow.  Filled up, checked oil and topped up and then we had breakfast in the café there before driving to the beach via Gassin and Ramatuelle.

Friday 23rd July – Departure

We were up at 07:00am and ready to leave by 08:45am. By 11:35am we were at Montelimar. We set off again at 12:25pm and stopped at a service station south of Mâcon but filled up at a service station just south of Beaune (15:50pm). Stopped again north of Dijon to phone Troyes.  We arrived in Troyes around 18:10pm but took another 30 minutes to find the Formula 1 hotel, which turned out to be miles and miles out of town.

So, we had driven all day.  08:45am to 18:30pm almost 10 hours – 512 miles.

A lot of time was taken up trying to find this place, but we’re here now. Right next door is a place called Fasthotel and they only charge 150ff.  Ours cost 130ff as it is a special offer, nationwide. The room is adequate. It had a clock, a telly and a sink (plus one double bed and a single bunk)3.  We went to the Fasthotel for dinner – they have two horseshoe shaped bars, which turn into dining tables at the suggestion of customers (??).  Two basic menus are offered. The service was good, quick and cheerful and the food was so-so – adequate at the price.

Saturday 24th July

I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went for a walk.  We intend to go down for breakfast at 08:00am.  We were on our way by 08:40am.

We’re driving up the A26 now, from Troyes towards Chalon sur Marne4 and we’ve reached Sommesous (Sue must have been driving).  The fields at either side of the road are no longer the colourful patchwork of wheat, sunflowers, sweetcorn and beet but now JUST wheat (or Barley) as far as the eye can see, just like I imagine the prairies to look like.  Also, here and there, there are enormous silos, presumably for storing all this grain, which is being harvested as we pass.  Some fields have already been cut, but others are still ripening in the sun. Perhaps the grasses are barley, because as we pass the Epernay turn off, there’s a strong smell of malting.  We arrived in Calais at 12:40pm. The ferry was at 15:45pm

So, before boarding, we went to the Continent Hypermarket and bought 5 cases of beer and four bottles of wine5.  We also had a really crap lunch at the Flunch bar, re-packed the boot and drove back to the ship.  On board, I bought 1ltr Asbach and 1ltr Gin and a pack of lighters.

And, that’s it – I have no news of the journey through the UK or what happened upon our return with the car.  I do  know that Quarry Garage were brilliant and that they loaned us a car while they sorted the repairs and dealt with the insurance company.

Thank you for reading.

1 – He didn’t have to come at all, it was really kind of him to pop along and help us make the car safe. He’d been in England, at the garage when I called last week (after the crash), to seek advice on how to make the car safe to drive home. He was coming down to Stay with family on holiday in Saint Raphaël anyway and simply offered to pop along and help.

2 – It just meant that we had to take everything out of the boot each night on our way back, and leave the parcel shelf off, so it could be seen as empty.

3 – I don’t know what Formula 1s are like these days but back in the day they were VERY basic. The toilets and showers were communal and down the hallway. Mostly, I seem to remember that they were also automatic. Since those days (when we were financially disadvantaged), we have progressed up through Premiere Classe hotels and on to Campanile hotels, which offer more comfort and more than adequate dining. We’ve also stayed in traditional French hotels over the years but it seems the we did not on this holiday.

4 – Now Chalons en Champagne – ‘Formerly called Châlons-sur-Marne, the city was officially renamed in 1998.’

5 – Such things were very much cheaper in France at that time.

2nd Weekend – Tornados #7

Saturday 17th July

I still need to write and send a card to Gordon and Pam at Home Farm1.  Today, we went to E.Leclerc at Cogolin for food, which will hopefully last us through until Tuesday, so we don’t have to fight through the throngs at the Casino on Monday. I also needed to buy various tools etc. to mend the broken bed (I really do not remember that).  A hand drill @ approx. £4.00 was needed and bits, also about £4.00 (these turned out to be too small for the drill). I bought brackets and screws but will leave these now for Stephen.  The bed had been bodged before, but is now more secure than it had been. We will just have to be more careful with it.

We had brunch at the caravan before setting out for our daily visit to the beach. As I have forgotten my book (see yesterday’s entry) I am writing this and reading all the documents and leaflets in my hand bag (??), just for something to do. I have also been thinking about the various schemes I need to plan for next year2 and perhaps I can make notes now.  I managed to work out a calendar before it was time to leave at 17:00pm.

Took Emma to see a beach (lol – I guess that she had refused to leave the camp site with us before now), had tea. Sue felt a bit cold, but it’s still mild and light at 21:00pm.

Sunday 18th July

We stayed by the caravan until 13:00pm today as Sue wasn’t feeling too well.  I sunbathed outside, it was very hot. I write a letter to Cameron in and amongst.  We went to the beach later and it was hot, hot, hot. I finished reading MORT and began to read SOURCERY.  After tea, we drove out to look for a Sunday paper, without success3.  Bought petrol in Saint Tropez.

Monday 19th July

We went to St. Maxime today and parked in the port car park. The town is quite nice and we spent a couple of hours walking around.  We had a drink in a bar on the ‘front’ and read the morning papers (yesterday’s Sunday morning papers). We stayed in St. Maxime for lunch as it had clouded over and had begun to rain.  My main course was a ‘house special’ salad and consisted of mixed leaves with dressing, bacon, fennel and small, deep-fried ravioli. We then drove straight to the beach in La  Blanche4.  The sun was hot but still very much overcast.  When it rained, we simply put the towels away and sat it out.  It took us 50 minutes to get back from the beach because of traffic.

John Denton from Quarry Garage5 had been while we were out.  He left a note to say he would be back tomorrow.

We went back out to the Casino Hypermarket (we never learn, it’s Monday again and busy, busy, busy, even after 18:00pm) and came home with a hot chicken.  Some chips from on-site and there we are – tea.

Today, we saw two tornados.  I was out at sea, swimming out by the buoys, when I saw a column of sand blowing onto the beach from the car park.  The sand was blowing up in the air along a path about three metres wide.  As it hit umbrellas, bags and rubbish, it blew them up in the air as well. It looked as if an invisible, petulant child of a giant was throwing a tantrum as it walked down towards the sea.  When it did reach the sea, it turned sharp left and marched on down the beach past Neptune and Liberty café/beaches, throwing mats and umbrellas in the air as it passed.  A little later, we had both been in the sea when something similar happened. This time, we were able to sit, along with everyone else unaffected, and watch the spectacle from the beach.  One brolly was thrown at least 20 metres in the air and was kept aloft while the wind marched quickly down the beach.  Again, as it hit the sea, it turned away from us, but the brolly blew back towards us and landed point down, right by the couple sat alongside us.

Frightening.

1 – We had a caravan at that time, which stayed on a farm near York. http://homefarmyork.co.uk/

2 – At the time, I was employed part-time by Dewsbury College as a chef-lecturer. Each year, schemes needed updating/changing and whilst this was often done by full-time members of staff, we were quite a small department, so I pitched in.

3 – In those days, it seemed to take an age for the English papers to reach the Riviera. Nowadays, in Spain anyway, they seem to appear as quickly as the English editions. But also, nowadays I never want to buy one – all the news I need is on t’internet.

4 – I’m struggling to find exactly where this beach was today. The nearest place I can find with a similar name is Plage de la Bastide Blanche.

5 – Quarry Garage is where we had just recently bought the car from.

Monte Carlo and Crash #3

Friday 9th July

We set off for Monte Carlo about 08:45am – it took us two hours. Well, today was a day for the story books. (This post is all about ONE day). Nevertheless, I’ll start at the beginning. The journey to Monaco took two hours, the roads were clear but it had taken us an hour to reach the Autoroute at Frejus. After another delay, we found our way to the palace gardens car park and eventually to the small shopping area that surrounds the palace. Here, we bought respective parents’ scarves for presents, before stopping for a drink and some lunch at the same café we stopped at last year.  This is on the corner of the palace courtyard and the meal was fine.  I had a salami salad sandwich and a beer, Sue had a croque monsieur and a beer. I then had a coffee and Sue had another beer. This totalled less than 100 francs1, not too bad for where we were. I wondered why everyone was queuing by the palace gates and only realised why when bang on 12:00pm there was a ceremonial changing of the guard. However, as we hadn’t yet paid and Sue had popped to the loo, I couldn’t leave the table to film it.2 We did manage to catch the tail end of the ceremony though.  Hey ho. We then drove on to Eze, where we visited (the Fragonard) Perfumery and bought ‘Beautiful’ for Dorothy and some ‘Cacharel’ for me.  We then drove on to Cannes. The road was clear, as I’d found the non-town centre road and zipped along it to the autoroute exit and then zipped along between Nice and Cannes. Cannes is a very difficult town to understand from what the map displays; the bit we wanted to see, the bit we see on T.V. is in fact La Croisette on our map. Anyway, we spent an hour or so looking around the shops and finished by having ice creams. I had one with cherry ice, kiwi ice (nasty) and banana ice with cream and fruit2.  Sue had her usual Colonel with Perrier and I had tea. 139 francs – whoops.  We then drove home. This took some time. We went via the autoroute and Le Muy but as we drove towards St. Maxime (almost there in fact), we were shunted from behind. We were in front of a five-car pile-up. Nothing could be done, the traffic was crawling along towards the roundabout, about ¼ mile away. No one was stationary, just crawling. However, I heard the bump as car #4 (we were car #1) ran into the back of car #3 with some velocity. Car #3 crunched into car #2 and car #2 ran into us – still with some force.  As I heard the bump, I watched all this in my rear-view mirror and stood hard on my brakes to take as much momentum out of the smash as possible. I was nevertheless, pushed into the car in front of me (let’s call that car #1+).  However, damage to that big old Merc (with tow bar) was so negligible that the driver just shrugged his shoulders and drove off. However, we had had a proper tup.  The gendarmes and pompiers were great and the girl who caused the smash (car #4) was very upset, but mainly, no one was hurt. We were allowed to drive on as ours was the only car not to have a damaged radiator. We made it back to the camp site and then called England for help/advice. We had a lousy meal at Fat Jaques before sitting down to write this. (The story continues in the next blog post). 1 – Around £11.00 https://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html 2 – 26 years on it sounds disgusting, I’d never eat those flavours now and certainly not that much.

Saint Tropez #2 – markets

Tuesday 6th July

After a light breakfast, Sue and I set off to visit Saint Tropez open market.  This was bedlam, just like yesterday. Anyway, we managed to spend an hour or so there before moving on to the beach at La Blanche. We had lunch here and stayed on a couple or so hours. We couldn’t stay longer as the brolly broke. We called at the Casino on our way home to but a brolly (to replace Stephen’s broken one). We also bought a set of boules. We had a couple of beers outside the store and came home to shower and read.  After tea, we played boules for a while and read. Later, we did some Sunday Times crosswords.

Wednesday 7th July

Had a light breakfast, similar to yesterday and packed up for the day. I was quite tired although I didn’t get up until 08:30am ish, and had slept quite well.  We went to the market in Cogolin first and found it to be the usual sort of fayre, not bad but nothing special.  We then drove on to Cavalaire sur Mer to their market, as the day was a little overcast and just the weather for visiting markets. It took some time to find the market at Cavalaire and there wasn’t much of it when we did.  We decided to stay there and have lunch on the beach as we had found a parking place just across the road. We didn’t leave the beach until after 17:00pm today, which shows how much cooler (but still v.v. nice) the weather was.  After tea we played boules and then went to the phones 1. We needed to phone Stephen to find out where the beach chairs were.  Played Boggle and read.

Thursday 8th July

Today was much like yesterday, a little breezy but quite hot. It soon came cool in the evening though. After an early breakfast we went to the (poor) market at Port Grimaud and then up to the (better) market at Ramatuelle. Here, we had a Perrier in the shade, after walking around the very pleasant village. Afterwards we went to the beach at La Blanche 2. We stayed here three or four hours. The water was choppy and therefore it had an unkept appearance. So, not as yet, as pleasant to swim in as last year 3. We called at the hypermarket on the way back to buy some low seats for the beach and some fish for tea. We had a beer here before we left and when we got back I had two more, which knocked me out. I am still feeling tired now, but am determined to have a gin. 1 – Those were the days! There were no mobile phones and there was a need to queue up to use of the few phone boxes available on-site. 2 – I cannot find La Blanche now, but the name certainly rings a very distant bell. It would be somewhere on the Plage de Pampelonne. 3 We visited Saint Tropez as a family several times in the 90’s. This is, so far, the only diary that I’ve found.
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