The calm after the storm

We had a massive, but very brief storm on Monday - for about half an hour, it absolutely chucked it down. (Video and pictures at Nice Matin, if you're interested.)

You couldn't see across the road from our flat, the rain was so heavy - and the wind was blowing the rain right at our windows. Which, this being early morning in the summer on the Cote d'Azur, were open.

Much swearing, slamming of windows and mopping of puddles followed. Not how I generally like to start my day, being more of the traditional "Don't talk to me until I've  had at least THISMUCH coffee" type.

The rain stopped and started for an hour or so after that initial burst of fury, and then by about 9:30, the sun was out, the sky was blue and it was as if nothing had ever happened.

There was a nice cool breeze on Monday, at least, which had largely died off yesterday - but the storm did clear the haze from the air, leaving bright blue skies and sea:

And this morning is starting out well, with a beautiful sunrise:

(Yes, I know, for a not-at-all-morning-person, I do see a fair amount of sunrises. Insomnia is a many-splendoured thing.)

What are your plans for the day? And what's the weather like where you are?

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Keywords

The keywords people search to find this blog are a source of endless (well, ok, 2 minutes worth) amusement for me. I know I have a large number of tags to my posts, and some of them are obvious - all the people looking for the storm we had here on the Cote d'Azur in May, or expats in Nice. I can see how that comes up, obviously.

Some of them are questions, and I hope their questions were answered - to the person who was wondering if the immatriculation number from the RSI is the same as the secu sociale number, yes it is. If you have a question and it's not answered by whatever page you land on, do leave me a comment asking it specifically, or email me. My email's on my website. Or you can ask me on Twitter, if you're registered there; I'm @nicolehill.

Some of them are unintentionally amusing - those looking for me to explain the UK government, or Parliament, for instance. Understandable in light of my posts following the last election, but a bit of a big subject to tackle in the abstract!

Two people searched for "What to do in St Raphael when it's raining?" A perfectly good question, under normal circumstances. The timing makes it a bit unfortunate though - both people searched for those keywords the day before massive flash floods hit St Raphael, killing numerous people. I hope you're ok, mysterious internet searchers. My advice in this particular instance would have been "Stay inside, somewhere high up in a tall building."

And then there are some that you just know are going to be disappointed: the person searching for breasts galore probably isn't going to find them here. Similarly, I can't help the person looking for information on the Nice dating scene for people in their forties. Nor can I provide a postal history of Nice, or information on the French tap museum. (If the latter is actually a museum about taps, could someone please let me know more about it in the comments?)

What odd keywords do people use to find the rest of you, those of you who have blogs? (And yes, I'm aware that by including the odder ones here again, it makes it yet more likely that people looking for breasts galore are going to turn up here. Tant pis.)

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Storm pics

It's a bit windy here. It's messing with the waves...

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