Summer is here

 This is what we came here for..........30 degree days, all the berry and stone fruit in full flow.......and our own pool to plop into when the mood takes us!!

Yes this is where we are spending a lot of our time now, so the swimming togs are on a constant rotation from the pool to the washing line, to the body, to the pool, to the line......  The evenings are noticeably warmer than in Nelson, so we've been outside eating dinner until after 10pm in just a T shirt.  This photo shows Lew with Lavinia and James, plus James' cousin Sue, all having dinner a few nights ago.

We're still very aware that pretty soon anywhere along the coast is going to become a no-go zone, over-run with tourists (which we are not, or course!), plus the whole of Paris, and all the school kids on holiday.  So, last week we took a trip down to Frejus, about an hour's drive away, and then along the coast to Agay.

Frejus is another Roman town, so we had an obligatory look at the remains of an aquaduct, which was beside a main road, overgrown with grasses, totally un-signed, no information to read - par for the course in France when there's anything pre-15th Century or thereabouts!

The Roman amphitheatre was more interesting, but not very photographic - it has been added onto in a very modern way, to make it fully useable again.  The old Roman parts are clearly visible, with concrete and glass just slotted in to fill up the spaces.  Not to everyone's taste maybe, but at least the historical origins of the building are apparent.

Cultural boxes ticked, we drove along the coastline, stopping for lunch on a little beach with a few French sun worshippers, and the inevitable wrinkly topliss 70-plus year old women!  The French just love to be in full sun, with every possible centimetre of skin exposed to the rays.  No competition for the shady spots over here, Lew and I always have them to ourselves!

We went for a walk along the coastal footpath a bit further along, starting at a little bay overlooking L'Ile d'Or (Golden Island) with a tower.

  For Tintin fans amongst you, this island inspired Herge to write his Tintin story "The Black Island"!!

 In the late 1800's the owner of the island lost it in a game of cards: the new owner, Docteur Lutaud, set up his own fairytale kingdom, and crowned himself King Augustus 1!!  He built the tower, held monumental parties for the Cote d'Azur jet set of the time, and was buried on the island after he died.  His family still own and use the island today.  In fact, there were a number of massive launches hanging around  close to the island, so maybe there was another party about to happen...

 Anyway, with our invitations obviously lost in the post, we went for our walk, climbing up into the red rock Esterel coastline, with great views of the sea and coastal towns further along.

Back at the ranch, we finally got round to having our first attempt at making elderflower cordial.  We've been intending to do this since before we went to Corsica, as the country lane we live on has plenty of bushes.  However, life is busy when you're not gainfully employed, so by the time we went to get the flowers they were really past their use-by date.  We also got side-tracked by the enthralling (to Lew) activity of the lucerne harvesters and balers which were working late into the night to get the crop in.

We picked off the flowers, and covered them with water overnight.

The following day we got to the next instruction: "strain the liquid through a muslin cloth" - what's that, and who on earth would have one anyway?!? And what would the French translation be?!?  I have vague memories of my mother making quince jelly (or could that have been a nightmare - I hate quinces!) and straining it through a pair of tights strung around the legs of a stool.  Not being a big fan of tights, we had to go to plan B: the liner of the skimmer basket from the swimming pool.  Worked a treat, we're just hoping it won't be elderflower cordial "with a hint of chlorine"!!  It looks suspiciously like a urine sample, but lets hope there's no hint of that either.

The week ended with the much anticipated "Fete des Voisins" - translated as "Neighbour's Festival", its basically a pot-luck street party.  Organised by a few of the residents up the hill, everyone just brings some food and drink and you get to "chat" to the neighbours - not quite the case for us of course, but we did pretty well with my French, Lew's sign language, and their English.

The French are great at introducing themselves - everyone made a point of shaking hands and/or kissing and talking with everyone else, even though a lot of them didn't know each other.  There's quite a mix of residents in the valley, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Serbian, so we weren't the only ones who weren't proficient at the native language!

On the language front, I've finally accepted that my French hasn't improved by osmosis and the mere fact that I'm living in France, so I've decided to take French lessons from a French/German couple up the road.  I'm going with Bonnie, a 25 year old south-African au-pair who lives a few doors down.  We were asked on the first day what we wanted to get out of the lessons: I replied I'd like to be able to have a more in-depth conversation with a French person, about issues like tax, retirement, buying a house, climate change etc.  Bonnie replied she wanted to learn slang and swear words!!  Made me feel a bit old and boring, but hopefully we'll get a mix of both!