Happy Bastille Day!

It's the 14th July today, so that means it's Bastille Day! Oddly, given the number of years we've lived in France, this is the first time I've ever been here for Bastille Day; it had better live up to expectations!

Last night Villefranche had a parade of lit-up boats who threw flowers at the people waiting in the harbour (night time version of the Combat des Fleurs, if you ask me), followed by fireworks - which were awesome (pics above are from last night) - and dancing in the main square, where all who were taking part looked like they were having fun. I might post more pics later, but they're up on Flickr if you're really interested.

Tonight, Nice has a big firework display, and there's bound to be music and all sorts of things in Place Massena, so I'll see if I can persuade Paul we should go into town. The problem will be getting back, given the appalling standard of night-time public transport round here. We shall see.

(Oh and my jewellery sale is going well - I've sold 10 things since the beginning of the month, which is rather more than normal! Hopefully the rest of the month will be similarly good!)

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Sunshine and bank holiday weekends

Sun and bank holidays have combined forces and ensured that I've been utterly incapable of posting anything here. Having friends over has meant we had to tidy - our house is spotless, and I've even mopped. Me, with a mop. I can hardly believe it myself.

My experiments into wheat-free cooking continue - I'm trying to make bread out of chickpea flour today.

The dough:

The dough sitting in the warm sun to raise:

I have my doubts, but we shall see what happens - it might work... I shall be sure to take photos of the finished product for you.

While we're looking at photos, this is the best view in the world. It's from the bar I drink coffee at in the afternoons.

You can also have some pretty pictures of flowers - the roses are out in bloom here, and I liked what Beaulieu have done with their roses around the big trees in the park. (We walk through it to go to the supermarket sometimes.)

And one of the large red flowers that grows in the street between here and the bakery:

(All photos taken with my mobile phone, so apologies for any quality issues...)

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Flowers from the mairie

Turns out the event they're hosting at the mairie is a giant market. With flowers and cheeses and sausages and jewellery and Italian lessons and all sorts of things.

We carefully resisted the cheeses and sausages (though the samples were nice) and managed to only buy a couple of flowers - one yellow/orange one and one blue one - to keep Oscar and friends company.

I forgot my camera, so you can't see all the bright colours of the flowers for sale - if it's sunny, I might go back tomorrow, some of those cactuses were stunning! - but I have a photo of Oscar and friends on the balcony getting used to their new colleagues. You'll perhaps notice that Oscar has no orange oranges yet - I blame the loss of the Role Model Orange. But he does have flowers that are beginning to open and smell nice.

Oscar and family:

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