Rendez-vous avec le soleil et le vélo à Cannes

A seagull posing for us on the ferry

Feeding the ducks in the river Sciagne

My hubby having a pause from biking from Mandelieu to Cannes

With our friend Yvonne

the 'old Cannes'

A ceramic artist in Vallauris

Good afternoon to all of you blogger friends and visitors. Yesterday, we came back from our holidays, in la Côte d'Azur. The temperature was in the 30s C. and as I am writing it's pouring down - near Stafford in England. The trip was easy on the way there but on the way back was not smooth, for instance when we turned up at our 'usual' campsite in Calais, the camping municipal, right by the docks,  it was closed and you cannot search for campsites in our sat nav. One French man who saw us stuck in front of the shut gate of the deserted campsite due to be demolished soon kindly told us that there was another campsite in the Bleriot plage not too far away. However, another French mobilehome pulled in and as the campsites were appearing on their sat nav we followed them for a while but this lead us to a wild goose search and time was ticking. In the end I asked again another couple parked in front of a doctor surgery and they reiterated that there was another campsite this time giving us more exact directions. So we found it and it was quieter that the one we were used to.  The lady at the reception told us that we could not pay by card (!) so we told her we'd go and find some cash. It suited us as we wanted to get some shopping in the nearby Auchan and find a restaurant for a bite to eat. When we came back two hours later the reception was closed! It never crossed our minds to ask her if they'd closed as all the campsites we've been are opened till 10 p.m. We left the money,  20 Euros in her letterbox. 

Another tale: we weren't allowed to leave the campsite before 7 am, our ferry left at 7:45 and we worked out that we'd have plenty of time to board. The following morning, we got up at 6:15, hurried to put stuff away, the electric, the bed...and left at 7 am, we arrived at the car ferry place at 7:20 only to see massive queues formed at the English customs, never seen before. Usually, the custom officer would look at the passports and have a quick check on his computer, that would take no more than 2, 3 minutes, for each car in front of us, they were taking a minimum of 5-7 minutes. When eventually we arrived at our boarding booth, we were told our boat was full and put in the 8:45 crossing. I asked what'd happened at the customs and somehow it was a bit of 'rivalry' between the English and French custom officers, but I wonder if they were after something more serious. As we crossed the channel not only the temperature had dropped but the traffic was dense and I am so glad that I was not driving!

We are so grateful to the Lord that we managed to have a holiday this year - as with what happened at the vicarage earlier in June, nothing was certain - and this holiday was great..more to come. 

Peace be with you. Yours in Christ Nicky 

PS..I will accept any translation for the title..hey hey!