Well that didn't exactly go to plan!

 Hello little blog, Mummy's home. And she's been very neglectful, hasn't she? Well, there are reasons for that. A lot of reasons. But mainly that my trip to Spain got cancelled and the laptop I took away to load photos onto and update my blog with as promised was the old one with the worn-down keyboard (so it would be less valuable to thieves and less of a problem if lost). Except on my first night it told me it was so old that the hard drive was almost full and trying to deal with that, with rebooking stuff online and with uploading photos in hotel rooms with imperfect WiFi was too much in the end. So here's a quick update, with lots of fabulous photos in another post soon.

Ah, yes, so why did my trip to Spain get cancelled despite my stating in my last post that it had been planned carefully to avoid issues like carnival. Because a bunch of strikes and protests blew up at short notice in France and this caused the cancellation of my train to Spain, not only on the day I'd bought it for but there were no trains the day after either. So if this was all a ploy by the French tourist authority to keep tourists in France, then it worked a treat since I have spent the last nine days in France instead. 

Dear reader, your Auntie Sue here is resourceful and ensures that all her journeys and bookings are fully insured and refundable and so I've got all my money back on the tickets and hotels I wasn't able to use and I just booked alternatives whilst on diversion. So instead of Barcelona I spent time in Montpellier, Nîmes and Marseilles as well as the night in Nice that went as planned. I do recommend Booking.com and Trainline.com.

And there were no comments on my girly clothes - the French do like to point out a nonconformist (ah! c'est un travesti!). Frankly, everyday casual fashions in the 2020s are pretty unisex anyway. And things worked out just fine and I stayed in some lovely places.

Here's a little anecdote. On my first evening in Nîmes, I found a venue to eat at in a street recommended by my hotelier. Carré Jazz it was called, a venue that the locals seemed to frequent (always a good sign). The food was not bad and the local wine was agreeable, too, but the youngish couple who ran it (and she, slender as a rake in skinny blue jeans and red high heels, looked fantastic ...and I really must not eat chocolate mousse but must slim to be fab like that..... where was I?), anyway, the youngish couple had their nephew and niece in that night, aged about 8-10, and while their mother sat chatting with a friend the kids made themselves busy waiting tables, which was cute and often funny as some were tall bar tables that they could barely see over. But they didn't drop anything and were very polite, to the extent that all the customers were more than happy to tip them, which was a source of delight to them and that was sweet to see. 2 euros apiece seemed about right. Don't worry, it's not child exploitation all over again but a bit of fun that we all enjoyed and the two kids were unexpectedly happy from. A nice touch to a good alternative holiday which I had. 

Here by the way, is my chocolate mousse - which they promised me would be excellent and they weren't lying - with the venue picked out in icing sugar.

A proper write up of my trip will be here very soon.

 

Sue x