Festival de Cannes....

I figured, that as I live just down the road from Cannes I should join the masses and check out the film festival. And so bright and early yesterday morning, I grabbed Lotte (a fellow au pair) and we jumped in Pierre (my little blue Megane) and braved the traffic. The roads were mental and a 20 minute drive took twice as long, but we made it, parked up and headed on down to the port.

On a regular day Cannes is pretty damn chic, but the festival, 100 times more so.

Paparazzi lined the port, armed with huge cameras and step ladders attached to fences so they could just get a few inches or so on each other. The yachts that filled the port were magnificent. Pretty amazing, and I was informed afterwards by my host dad, that the average price of some of the bigger yachts is around 55 miliion. Insane.

So, in the hope of sharing some pavement with Brad Pitt or Jude Law we headed into the action. Some how managing to slip past a security guard or two we mananged to get into the main area, red carpet and all! Not a lot was going on and it seemed relatively small, we decided that the action must be else where, and so we left here. Big mistake. Could we get back in without a pass?? Hell no.
And so our dreams of rubbing shoulders with the stars were shattered.

All was not lost though, we spent the remainder of the day sunning ourselves on the beach.
We did see the odd French celeb being chased around by cameras, but no one to write home about.

C'est le week-end!

I have been slacking on the photo front, so to document the weekend I will use less words and more photos...

This weekend Louise was in England and Ian had a 'golfing Saturday' So I agreed to have the girls....

Saturday I took them kayaking on the lake;

And although the lake was bloody freezing the girls still insisted on swimming. After an ice cream we headed back to get an early night ready for the horse show...

On Sunday we did just that. We headed over to Frejus for the day to watch the horse shows, they were incredible... There was western displays, gymnastics on horses and chariot racing. Unfortunately, I was slack and didn't take a lot of photos. In fact, I took one. When I say 'I', I mean one of the girlies did.
I promise to improve.

Wednesday?

I have been so used to my Wednesday being filled with nappy changing, trips to the park, making chocolate crispy cakes, painting pretty pictures, playdoh..... and so on and so on.

Well Wednesdays here are slightly different.

Please remember that my children here are almost teenagers and so today was almost surreal. Childcare??

I began my day by taking the girls out shoe shopping.... Slightly enjoyable. Then the rest of the day consisted of watching 'Confessions of a Shopaholic', discussing if Chris Brown really hit Rhianna and why he did it, contemplating whats better - leg waxing or hair removal cream, deciding on hair removal cream being the better option and putting this into practice and then a manicure to round off the day.

And inevitably, there were a few full blown arguements between sisters. Complete with the oh so familiar phrase 'You don't understand me', 'It's my life' and a door slam or two for good measure.

The scariest part? I remember being exactly that way. And as I settled down with my reflective cup of tea at the end of the day and I felt a little sorry for my poor Mother, who was put through all that hecticness..... by me. Sorry Mum. Never will I slam a door again.

Don't get me wrong, I had a lovely day, I absolutely adore the girls, it was just a MASSIVE change from the Wednesdays I am used too.

And now I prepare for tomorrow - Lesson one of my new French class. Lets hope I can remember a word or two....

For Rosie.

This is a 'supportive-friend' post for my dear friend Rosie, the rest of you need not feel obliged to read it!

Dear Rosie,

I recieved your wonderful, wonderful letter this morning and was a little sad to read that you have given up on your running abilities and so I write to you here as I know the French post is a little sloooow and you may have given up before you recieve my next mailing from France. I will of course write in pen form also.

Rosie, my darling. I have complete faith in you. So much so, I have decided that if you enter this half marathon that you want to do, I will also enter and come home and do it with you. I am due for a visit anyway and October sounds good! So enter. And I will too. Because if I - the chocolate craving, pasta loving, carb-addicted eating machine that I am can do it, any one can.

And so, as promised I have started to do your training regime. I started this morning. Forgetting that I hadn't excercised in 3 months and instead I had sat around eating bread and cheese and consuming vino, I saw that you had got up to 3 miles and figured I could match it. Apparently not.
Stupidly I didn't consider that I live on the top of a hill and in 20 degree heat and off I set.....

Half way, I was near dying. Thankfully I had the wonderful compliation of Aerosmith, Shakira and The Bieber to get me through it.... Nope, not even Paris could make me 'cool'.....

Eventually, I gave up and walked the hill back up and came home and instead completed my 'Pilates for Dummies' DVD. Because if I can't run again just yet, I can at least 'strengthen my core'.

Rosie, we can do this.

I'll keep trying and keep you updated, on here and in our preferred contact method of snail mail.

And get Shannon involved, we do GREAT things when the three of us are together. Quite the role models.

I love a good sunset.

The view that makes washing up in the evening that little bit more bareable.

Cote d'Azur on a rainy day...

This weekend I had a visit from Maggie and Ashleigh.... And unfortunately, a visit from the rain too.
The girls had used the Easter Holiday as an excuse to have a bit of a travel around Italy and on the way back popped in to see me for a couple of days.

Their train arrived into Cannes so I met them there for a stroll along the promenade and then headed back home to get some dinner and an early night ready for a jammed packed Saturday.

6am Saturday morning, we were up and ready to go. A short drive to the train station and we jumped on a train to Monaco.

We walked around the marina looking at the fantastic yachts, wandered up to the castle to check out the views and strolled along the beautiful, narrow, winding streets along the rows and rows of coloured terrace homes.

We grabbed lunch in Moanco and then hopped on a train to Nice to meet Charlotte (another au pair from Paris), as luck would have it, all four of us happened to be in the South at the same time!

Nice was also beautiful. And all four of us being a sucker for a good view, trekked up a mountain with hundreds of stepsin torrential rain to visit the ancient chateau and see the breathtaking views of the entire bay.

Next stop, Antibes. We stopped for a walk but decided that the rain was too damn heavy so we sheltered in a cafe in one of the squares then headed home to the warm and dry!

Sunday, thankfully the sun shone and so a day of sun bathing, swimming and generally chilling out was had.

Although the weather was completely shocking, I had a great weekend and I hope the girls did too. It was wonderful to see them.... And I'll see them in a month when we all head to Disneyland for Maggies' birthday.

The new pad....

Some of you have asked me (the Mother in particular) what my new home looks like..... So, here it is....

 The house.

 The terrace/pool.

 The stables.

Ma chambre.