Pharmacists in Nice are better than Boots...

Lovely people, pharmacists. All sympathetic and soothing of my hypochondria - and I now have waterproof giant plasters (unfortunately not ones with cartoon characters on, for extra awesomeness) so I can even go swimming. And much pain - alcohol wipes for disinfecting things are *brutal*.

We're going to sign our contract today, so as of tomorrow when the builders supposedly finish, we should have a brand new flat! And we can get a bank account and register with the local council and all those good and sensible things we need to do before everyone goes on holiday at the beginning of August.

I haven't forgotten about the European Petanque Championships (Sweden has a petanque team; I bet you didn't know that. They won, too...) but this blog is all about me, and right now, my aching knee is the centre of my world. I had forgotten the grimness of the French police, too - walking back from the beach, they were chasing some poor guy, and started beating him up in front of the hotel. He might have done something to deserve it, but I somehow doubt anyone deserves that...

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A blog is born!

This blog will be a record of our move to Nice and my day-to-day life while I'm here. Intended primarily for my friends and family to see what I'm up to (and to inspire feelings of awesome jealousy, because I'm nice like that) I hope this will also be useful for anyone considering a similar move - when I looked, I couldn't find anything that really helped to explain what it would be like; hopefully this will help!

We moved over yesterday - 35 kilos over our weight allowance (not recommended; really quite an expensive way of doing things...) and then had to contend with an evacuation at Gatwick airport, because the fire alarm had been set off. Fire engines all very exciting, and at least it wasn't raining, but it was a bit of a pain with all our stuff. Having waited almost for ever for some family who couldn't be bothered to turn up on time, we finally took off, beginning our big adventure!

Until we find a flat, we're living in a hotel near the beach in the centre of Nice. It happens to have free wi-fi, so that's where this post is coming from. We booked this for a week, assuming we could find somewhere suitable to move into before that time was up - it looks like we might have already found something this morning! (http://riviera.angloinfo.com has lots of good information about moving to the Cote d'Azur, including listings from private landlords looking to rent their properties. (Moving before September can make it tricky to find somewhere - many people do holiday lets from June to August, charging vast amounts for them, and don't want to do long-term lets until September.)

Lunch beckons, so I will continue this later - the European Petanque Championships should not be forgotten!

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