Summer Cote d'Azur style

The summer has truly arrived on the Cote d’Azur, with some very hot temperatures. The schools are also ending for the year, which means, among other things, that teachers start inviting each other’s over for dinners, aperos, and the like. Which, considering the fact that a rather large proportion of our friends are colleagues of Mathilde, means we were rather busy this week.

Things kicked off with Antoine inviting us over to their house in the hills of Carros. Julie and Aurelien were (naturally) also present. Apart from the usual eating and drinking, the plan was (as most years) to come up with a “farewell song” for some colleagues leaving for retirement. This involved Aurelien and Antoine crooning and playing the guitar mostly, with the ladies coming up with witty support/suggestions. And for me it meant mostly drinking wine and eating – good match for my skillset then ;-)

On Tuesday night, we were invited over to Aurelien and Julie’s place over in Le Cannet (near Cannes). This time, we had some guests all the way from California joining us. Yep, Gilles and Valerie, along with young Celian and Hector were back in France (Gilles and Valerie are ex-colleagues for Mathilde, who moved to California a year ago – we spent a few days with them during our visit in California a couple of months ago). Great catching up with them again! Welcome back ;-)

All this partying means a bit of sport is needed to keep, you know, fit. So I decided to make some proper use of my mountain bike and go for a bit of proper mountain biking. I chose a rather easy trail near Pegomas, near Cannes. The bike ride took me past the Siagne River up towards the Massif of Tanneron. After some (for me at least!) steep climbing for about half an hour, I made it to the highest points, with some great views over the massif and the surrounding country-side. The ride downhill back to Pegomas was quite good fun, heading down some rather bumpy roads through some mimosa plantations. Good fun, must try it again sometimes!

The social calendar continued to be busy – on Monday it was our turn to entertain in our humble abode. All the usual suspect where present this time – Antoine, Claire and their kids, Valerie, Gilles and their clan, Julie, Aurelien, Marie, Vincent and his lady friend, as well as Maite. We sent the kids upstairs to watch Madagascar, and us adults got up to the usual (drinking, eating; discussing the ‘bac – as usual I concentrated more on the eating and drinking since I’ve not even taken the ‘bac ;-) ).

On Tuesday, there was a kind of “leaving party” at the CIV (the school where Mathilde works). Apparently it’s kind of boring (you know, long-winded speeches for the teachers retiring or changing schools), so I didn’t go along for that… I did naturally show up at Maite’s place for the after-leaving do drinks, though. Most of the usual suspects were there, and the discussion subjects pretty much the same as the night before – but hey, there was food and wine, so I was happy ;-).