Tarte au Citron or Mille Feuille?: The Calm After the Storm!

And breath... Desert Storm has ended.

It's Saturday afternoon and it's back to just the two of us after everyone left the campsite around 12 noon. Rick and Jill heading North for a ferry home tomorrow morning and Richard, Charlotte, Annabel and Sam heading South to Marseilles for a British Airways flight home to London this evening. It seems strange to be on our own but boy, if they were to have chosen any day to leave, then today would have been the one. Why? Because since 2pm, we have been subject to storm and tempest, the like that we have not seen for many a year.

After they departed, Linda and I headed off to Nyons to do some shopping but to have lunch first in the old market square. It's hard to believe that we sat in the shade of the plane trees and on my part, enjoyed the most delicious Provençal stew, complete with olives from the region, washed down with a glass of light and very fragrant local rosé. Yum, yum.

However, very soon after completing our meal, having a brief walk around the town and then doing our shopping at the Super U (not a patch on the nearby Intermarché), the skies turned a particularly dark and eery colour and have been depositing vast amounts of rain, interspersed with a spectacular light and sound show, for the past three hours! It's hard to believe the always accurate local forecast that promises from 6am in the morning, the skies will be back to that dazzling blue and temperatures during the forthcoming week will soar to a dizzying 30C. Whoopee!

Before returning to Desert Storm, I wanted to comment on the general cost of living in France, specifically, eating out, but also the cost of other goods. In The UK, we use either RPI (Retail Price Index) or CPI (Consumer Prices Index). One of these is a bit of a fudge but one is more acceptable. I have my own measure however - ICPI. The Ice Cream Price Index which when utilised in any country we visit, generally provides an accurate reflection of the cost of most other goods. ICPI is currently off the scale in France with a large ice cream costing nearly £5! Zut alors! Over $7 in American money (just keeping my new American family in the loop). It's not just ice cream. A bowl of frites the other day in Vaison cost the same as a large ice cream. One large potato to make those chips! What is happening here? It was never a low cost destination for a holiday but after this year, I do wonder if the country will be able to maintain the visitor levels achieved in recent years.

And so everyone has left us and peace and serenity has descended. We feel like empty nesters! They've only been gone a few hours but we keep waiting for our caravan door to open and a smiling two year old and her baby brother to come through the door and instantly put smiles on our faces. I've tried to replicate Annabel's entrance but my smiling face appears to achieve the opposite reaction! Maybe if I repeat the exercise tomorrow when the sun is shining, Linda's reaction might be more welcoming?

I said in a previous post that family is everything to us and the past week has only cemented this view. We have had a wonderful week with everyone and although Sarah wasn't here in person, she was in spirit. Fortunately, we can look forward to enjoying time in South Africa with all our family early next year. No doubt, a Blog will accompany that trip.