Cote d'Azur: A week in Heaven

This week we packed the bags, left a grey and bleary Weymouth and headed off to the Côte-d’-Azur in France. A quick 2 hour flight (although somehow we managed to arrive 30 minutes early which is unheard of for a no-frills airline) and we entered a world designed from another colour palette. The sky was deep blue contrasting with buildings in colours of red, okra, and yellow wash. The sun was high in the sky and there was warmth I had not felt since Sydney.

The first thing we needed to do was to pick up the hire car for our 2 hour drive from Marseille to St Raphaël. Unfortunately this required getting used to a whole new concept of driving. Driving on the right, gear stick in the right, rear vision on the right, going around roundabouts on the right, slow lane on the right and driving seat on the…… LEFT (something to remember for later on)! Right. Right, as my Nan would say. The brain can only handle so much change and this was all too much for a left-hander to cope with.

Let me just give you a taste of driving in France. Just like the French don’t like to queue, they don’t like to be stuck in traffic, so they will attempt anything to get around you. Don’t let a 20 tonne truck coming in the opposite direction, blind corners or narrow streets stop you. There is also no excuse for slowing down to let other cars enter the stream of traffic and if you even consider giving way to a car you will hear a chorus of car horns behind you.

The roads are either a spaghetti of narrow mountain roads that hug the alps fearful of the cavernous drop below, or huge freeways that project themselves in a straight line slicing directly through the most impenetrable mountain via gaping tunnels. On the freeways the speed limit is 130km/h which seems to give the French permission to travel at 160km/h. Sometimes the only sign that a Ferrari owned by some Monaco Zillionaire has passed you is its vapour trail. It is amazing that a small dot in your rear vision mirror can be on top of you in a blink of an eye.

And don’t think it is any safer being a pedestrian or cyclist. Weaving through a stream of ‘Tour de France’ hopefuls with their waxed legs and stringy bodies, I noticed none of them had helmets. I suppose the French’s need to look fashionable is more important that staying alive. Another lesson I learnt was that cars ignore anyone on zebra crossings. Some even take great pleasure in trying to get as close as possible to anyone silly enough to venture out on to the white lines (Having now realised that zebra crossings are a form of population control I later decided it was safer to cross the road nowhere near those human target zones).

Having nearly being run into a cliff face by a merging truck, mashed by a 200km/h 4WD and once turning into oncoming traffic, we somehow made it in one piece to our resort - Cape Estrel – where we were to spend the rest of the week.

I need a beer! I think Kathy needed 2.

Floats and cake

There is something typically British about the fair and local fete. It is one of those events that you must do if you are to truly say you have experienced living in the UK. Much like having a pint in a small English pub there are just some things that must be done.

So it was with little excitement and minimum expectation, we went to the local school fete last weekend. On arrival we were greeted by a woman with a bright flack jacket with PTA plastered across it. I soon realised that this was not Police Tactical Assault but one of the dedicated Parents and Teachers Association reps that were directing the days events with army precision.
On entering the school oval there was a sea of children and parents streaming between islands of tents and stalls. The cake stand was overflowing with home made brownies, sponge cakes, biscuits and an assortment of other inedible sweets. There was the jumble stall containing mountains of things parents have always wanted little Johny to get rid of but could never pry from their hand. With broken toys, colouring-in books that were already coloured in, jig-saws with missing pieces, and Barbies with a missing body parts we still managed to come home with a boxful of things.

Then their was the food raffle, toy raffle, alcohol raffle, cow raffle and strippergram raffle (I couldn’t find that one) all enticing your hard earned money for that remote chance to win something you didn’t need or want. Like any good fete, the kids were not forgotten. There were jumping castles, archery, throw the wet sponge, luck dips and even a ride on steam train.

The end of the evening saw us head of to the procession through the main street with floats of all kinds and shapes. There was everything from the ‘young farmers’ in their tractors, to ‘Ms Joans hairdressers’ on the back of a pick-up truck . And just to show that we are slowly becoming part of the community, Adelaide was part of ‘scallywags float’ (where she goes to after school care). And guess what – Adelaide even made the news with a full page photo in the local paper – yes grandma and Jemma – she will post you a copy.

It was an experience that we just don’t seem to have mastered in the City. It was almost reminiscent of the past when children could play outside unsupervised, where mums role was in the kitchen and the fathers stayed at the pub for the 5 oclock swill. Not that this is what we should return to thanks Mr Howard, but it was great to see so many parents wanting to be part of the community and get involved in their child’s education. Connections that I think many of us have lost.

Overall it was a great day and something that typifies life in the south of England. But there is still much to see and do if we can truly say we have experienced Britain. There is the curries in Birmingham; going to an over-prised musical in west end, eating a deep fried Mars Bar and much more. And only 6 more months to do it.

The Magic Roundabout

Now I know my little rant about English road signs may lead you to think that this is just because I am a confused Australian but I feel finally vindicated after reading an article in today’s paper from Jeremy Clarkson (you may know him from lesser roles in ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Who stole my car’). I feel I must repeat his quote below:

“Eventually I arrived at the biggest roundabout in the world looking for signs to the next town on my list. Basingstoke. There aren’t any. The council and the Highways Agency have decided instead to list a number of villages no one’s ever heard of. So, using the sun, I took a stab and miraculously ended up on the right road. Which, with no warning whatsoever, became the wrong road.

I wonder sometimes how much of the traffic on our roads today is made up of people in strange towns trying to make some kind of sense of the signs.

There’s one in west London that says the right turn ahead will take you to Clapham. Yes it will, but it will also take you to Earls Court, Fulham, Chelsea, Putney, Brixton, Brighton, France and the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia. Why single out Clapham?

Then there are one-way systems. The day before my four-hour trip across the southeast I was in Lyndhurst, down there in the New Forest. You arrive at a set of lights and want to go straight on, but instead you’re forced to go left, into a one-way system of such mind-boggling complexity and such length that halfway round most people pull over and try to will themselves to die.

And have you been to Stroud? You arrive from the west and no matter what you do you end up in the railway station car park. And Basingstoke, where you are sucked off a dual carriageway, whether you like it or not, and wind up in a multi-storey car park. And you have to pay to get out again.”

I do wonder if this is a conspiracy and that the Highways Agency is actually run by those companies that sell in-car navigation systems. Here is an example from Swindon. I am guessing they call it the Magic roundabout because, like Harry Houdini, you are going to need some form of magic if you are ever going to escape.

Who is that masked man?

I thought I would post this photo just to prove that I do exist and here in the UK and not just posting a whole lot of postcard photos from the web. Although, looking at the photo I could be anywhere. The beer is not typically english so may be I am really just hanging out in Parramatta?

My version of the story is that Kathy doesnt like taking photos so you never see a photo of me in it. Her version is that she never has a chance getting close to the camera because I spend the entire trip seeing things through a 1cm x 1cm viewfinder.

Anyway - speaking of beer, The UK is awash with an amazing number and choice of beers. There are bitters, stouts, milds, porters, winter warmers and even a few morning mouth washes. There seems to be more choice in beer than the number of English Inns and there is almost 11 Inns for every English person! It is no wonder, with taverns being unearthed in some of the Roman cities and the good old Norman Conquerors who scattered the English countryside with Abbeys and Monastries, each with its own brewery - I reccon those monks had a great time.

As a result you end up with some great beer names including: Old Legover, Gone Fishing, Old Slug, Couch Potato Lager, Bitter & Twisted, Dirty Tackle, What The Fox's Hat, Hopping Hare, Hobgoblin, Fursty Ferret, Hens Tooth, BeeWyched, Wychcraft and my favourite Tangle Foot. The best set of beers I have had so far are: Piddle in the Hole, Piddle in the Wind, Piddle in the Dark and Piddle in the Snow - and yes after drinking all that you do need to do a piddle!

Frank Zappa once said: ‘You can't be a real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline -- it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.’ In that case I am not sure how the UK didn’t manage to take over the world.

Looks like there is only another 2373 beers to taste before I come home.

"I ale, it is such a nourisher of mankinde"
John Taylor 1580-1653

Shacks and Bricks

This week saw the devil transfer from the kids to me so I ended up stuck in bed Thursday and Friday. Having dragged the kids away last weekend I felt I had no excuse, so we packed our bags again this weekend, this time off to Windsor.

First stop (from what I remember through the haze of the fever) was Windsor Castle. The castle dates back to William the Conqueror in 1066. What a great name that is. It just would not be the same if he was known as ‘William the nice guy’. It is interesting that the Queen uses the castle as her weekend retreat. Now I am not saying that the castle is not a nice little weekender and I wouldn’t say no to the old shack but if I had a choice there would be lots of other places I would go to get away from it all.

The next day, with the fever dropping to a nice tropical 40 deg, we went of to Legoland. I think the name explains what it is but for the avoidance of doubt, it is a huge theme park with things made from little yellow, red and blue bricks. It was amazing what could be built – everything from the intricacies of London Eye through to a full soccer game - crowd and all. Also a huge number of rides which the kids had a great time on. Now I know you all know what these little things look like and how much they hurt when you accidentally stand on one but did you know:

• A 2 X 4 LEGO brick measures 16mm by 32mm by 9.6mm high.


• The distance from stud centre to stud centre is 8mm.


• There are 52 Lego bricks for each person on Earth.


• If all Lego sets sold in the last 10 years were placed end to end they could reach from London to Perth in Australia (but I didn’t ask them which way they would go).


• A Lego brick is measured to the 2/1000th of a millimetre


• Six 2 X 4 LEGO bricks of the same colour can be combined in 102,981,500 different ways – go on give it a go!

So another good weekend and hopefully the devil enjoyed the trip as well. Lets just hope he is not invited next time as we are off to France on the 22nd June.

The Exorcist of Nottingham

The week has been interesting with a virus managing to transform our three little children into demons willing to disembowel each other and make life hell for their parents. But despite this, we decided to head away for the weekend – what could go wrong?

So with bags packed and the little demons comfortably tied down, we left for a 4 hour drive to Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. 10 minutes into the journey we knew that the signs were not good with bloodcurdling screams emanating from the backseat. We pushed on, but an hour later, with no warning, Adelaide decides it is time for the re-creation of the Exorcist vomit scene. Not wanting to be outdone, Bethany joins in as body fluids disperse around the vehicle. The demons win this round so we make our way to an overnight stop at Northampton.

The next morning, with multiple drugs trying to keep the demons at bay, we gaffa tape the kids to the roof and head off to Shirwood Forest.

Now I am not sure if I have mention how bad I find the road signs in the UK. They have the unique ability to tell you every single small town name except the one you want to go to. The A52 can become the A51, turn into the A6011 then revert to the A52 all within 100 metres. We even came across a sign pointing both south and north to Bridgeford at the same time!

Despite wanting to bypass Nottingham, somehow we managed to enter the black hole of no return. So with roads signs as useful as a boat in the desert, we get totally lost unable to escape the City. I was just waiting for a modern day Robin Hood to hold up the car and steal from us (although I don’t think they would have given it to the poor). As the demons were starting to gain mystical power by joining their screams together Kathy resorts to scribing a last message in the side of the car in case we never escape and only our remains are found in the car.

Luckily, somehow we manage to extract ourselves from the clutches of Nottingham and made it to Sherwood forest and home of Robin Hood. But with the demon children’s powers now having Kathy under their complete control, the kids went to the playground while Dad managed to escape and have a look around.

But don’t worry Kathy. There are several historian that argue that Robin never existed, and if he if he did, he more than likely lived in Barnsdale in the county of Yorkshire. I just hope it doesn’t change as there will be a mountain of wasted Nottingham plastic bow and arrows, fridge magnets and tacky green hats heading to the tip.

Anyway – with night approaching and a fear that the demon children would gain more power under a full moon we made our way to Cambridge to meet up with Lucy, Steve and kids. Luckily the morning saw a major exorcism undertaken and the kids reverted to their normal disobedient self. What we saw of Cambridge was lovely and in the end we all had a good time at Lucy’s.

I think we will go to Oxford next weekend. What could go wrong????