Photos & Mic, Jodie & Chloe's visit

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We had 6 good days with Mic, Jodie and Chloe. They arrived, a bit unexpectedly while I was still cleaning the house, on Friday and left Thursday morning to drive back to Lausanne.
We managed to go to Eze, Cassis (a long drive), Ile St Marguerite and the beach at Antibes. We also tried out the swimming pool (see pic) and shopped the Geant Hypermarche.
House feels a bit empty after a nearly-two-year-old's been around demanding toys, books, songs etc

avec Mic, Jodie et Chloe, Juin 2004

dans le piscine de Les Ambassades

France had a Fete de la Musique on Monday night. We saw Harmonie Toot Sweet (they also sang at Adapt in France's 3rd birthday the Friday before) with Margaret and Francois Dutoit, one of Pat's previous managers.
We had a very good night of dinner and wine at Laurie Stevens house in Mougins on Tuesday. She also invited Joh, a dutch guy and Kim, who didn't show up because her younger child was sick. The plan was to stay the night because we had to get up early to walk with the hiking group at 9am.
The drive up with Gillian and Elizabeth was quite smooth apart from the fact that I had too much wine but it was all too good too pass up. It was bad for the drive up to Boreon - I was almost sick on the final bends. We had to wait for half and hour while the others finalised their hotel bills and finished breakfast.
The walk was from the parking where we went to Lac Negre and the five lakes in October but in the opposite direction, to Lac Adus. The group split up at one point so some could avoid crossing a large patch of snow. The six of us remaining saw a grassy col, marmottes, a chamois and the top view of the little lakes. We met there for a late lunch.

Anna left last night on a train to Italy after a week staying with us. We managed a couple more museums that I hadn't been to before: Musée d'Archeologique and the Musée d'Art moderne et d'Art contemporaine where we saw a rather disturbing display of works by a Jean Fabre, containing lots of animal (mainly insects) and human body parts. C'etait trés bizarre. His great-grandfather was a well-known entomologist, Jean Fabre.

Other things we managed to do:
walked around Antibes, went to "bandes dessins", English books and Asian foods shops
walked around old Grasse and saw the costume and jewellery museum
drove to Mons and did a walk downhill towards the aqueduct romaine
found first geocache near the Col de Vence (St Barnabé) (from Geocaching)
dinner in Mougins (vieille ville) with Martin Childs and Norman and Sharon
I played tennis in the heat while Anna went and explored Nice by train