Manchester-Heathrow -Nice
Flight delayed from Manchester due to technical problems - missed connection to Heathrow.
Today life is a queue - par for the course with airport security but I’m beginning to bore with it by time we’ve queued for the Nice airport terminal transfer bus and the queue for the rental car at Hertz - it’s France, it’s hot and as usual no-one’s in a hurry - why should they be? - I obviously forgot to leave my Englishness at home when I packed last night.
We head off down the peage to Arles, no time for the red vermouth in St Paul de Vence.... as we pass the turn off at Le Muy above Cogolin and St Tropez, the thunder rumbles, the fork lighting starts, a double rainbow appears and a few ghosts are re-awakened. I’d like to think he was welcolming me home but I think that’s just my vivid imagination and to be quite honest co-incidental, but that doesn’t sound half as romantic - by the time we’ve passed Le Muy it’s all gone, going as quickly as it arrived.
We arrive at Les Rosiers in Arles at about nine just before dark - didn’t get lost - straight there off Junction 7, turn right, right again at the roundabout and next fork right - no getting lost, quite a relief. We sign in, they all seem amiable enough.
Decide to walk into town from Pont de Crau - can’t be any further into town that Mon Travail was from the Chateau on Oleron can it? Yes it can! .... further than we thought - takes the best part of 3/4 hour.... by 11.00pm Frida is exhausted - we have been up since 4.00am.
Sunday night not a bar or café open in sight - just a restaurant full of Greeks in a Trattoria celebrating what looks like a private party.
We go on a bit further and make the end of Boulevard des Lices and decide Frida isn’t going to make it - Dinu looks for cab - nothing in sight we head back to the restaurant.
Just as we arrive so do the police - Dinu decides he’s going to ask the le Gendarmerie for a lift.... I try to hide :o)
They have arrived to sort out an altercation at the restaurant - a further three police cars arrive - most of the party look over fifty, can’t understand what it might be - maybe they haven’t paid the band !
We wait for them to finish and ask then if they knew where Les Rosiers was - they nod “.... could you drop us of?”.... I point to an exhausted daughter.....
(Tempted to get her to feign a bout of asthma but thought better of it thinking they might just rush us back to a hospital in Avignon and start sticking needles in her!)
They drop us at Les Rosiers, sliding the door of the van open with a bemused smile, we wonder what they’ll be telling their mates at the station in the morning - “you never guess who we had last night in the back of the van - a bloody Chinaman and his mate asking for a lift! - what do these bloody tourists think we are - a taxi service?”
Well, I’m sorry but town did look quiet and if three police cars turned up for an altercation for someone’s 55th birthday party... what can they expect?
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