Back again, back again

YUP, WE'RE back!

We survived the French union bureaucracy of Nice airport and even got our flight home more or less on time. (People have been known to miss their flights on account of it - but that's another story and I don't want to be negative.)

It was a good holiday.

Expensive, but good.

But I don't want to talk about our hols - Gordon Bennett, what's happened to the country since we left?

Tories in power, Lib-Dems in second place, Labour nowhere - we leave leave the country for a couple of weeks and it all goes to pot!

Sorry, you want to know about our holiday...

Okay, well, really, it was rain, rain, rain.

We had a lot of rain. Wind and rain.

You probably had it better here.

We still enjoyed it, though - in fact it was one of the best villas we have ever rented. We love Provence - the mountainous area just behind the Riviera - and it certainly didn't disappoint.

Highlights: Nice itself of course - the Cotes d'Azur - the blue coast - is well named; it really is beautiful and glamorous and all that.

Personally, I prefer the area behind it: the ancient Romans called it Provincia Romana, from which we get our word "province", and which, in French pronunciation, we get the wonderful region of Provence.

I swear, when I retire, I would love to live here. It's the Englishman's dream of France - villas perched on impossible mountain slopes, a sea so blue it dazzles the eyes, olive oil flavoured - everything...

Oh yes, this is an area to which we shall be returning.

But it's great to be home.