Travelling through France - Tuesday & Wednesday

Tuesday

I am awake first in the villa at just before 7:30. No early rising kids it seems. I spend an hour or so reading Kepler's Witch as the household gradually wakes up and some sort of order begins to take shape based around breakfast. Jerome admits to his mother that the shutter to the balcony has been broken (by Vanessa last night) and this starts them all off on another animated discussion. Vanessa is wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a strappy top this morning. Jerome thinks she should wear more but I am quite happy to see her in this outfit.

We have breakfast and I have various pastries and items of fruit given to me for my journey. I am on my way by just after 10:00 after quite a remarkable 24 hours!

Overnight, I have discovered that I was biten dozens of times by mosquitoes yesterday. My left arm is particularly bad with 15 bites from my elbow to my fingers. These have swollen up somewhat am I am forced to use most of our remaining cream this morning - not good

I rang Linda from a service station to update her on what has happened with Jerome and our trading planes and to discuss the remaining wine buying. No news from Emma for the last few days.

My drive is mainly spent pondering on the new trading plans and what we'll need to sort out over the next few weeks. I am tentatively planning to have us both ready to trade by the week commencing September 6th (after I will have finished my dissertation - hopefully - and when Emma will be on her next trip to Africa)

A gradual increase in tiredness as I make my way round past Carcassonne and up towards Toulouse. My target is Cahors which I roll into about 7:30. The really good Supermarket for wine is still open and though rather dead on my feet, I finish our trip's wine buying with 24 Cahors reds and a dozen other local wines. Then to McDonalds for a Big Mac. As luck would happen, this is located close to the French equivalent of a Travel lodge and I can't resist a room for E45.

I was probably asleep by 8:30

Wednesday

Overslept and didn't wake up until 7:45. Still I am out the door by just after 8:00 and soon on the motorway to Limoges. A stop at a service station for food reveals Linda's favourite rose wine on sale, so two more bottles are bought - that definitely is the end of wine buying.

The weather gets worse as I head north. Past Tours it becomes quite dark and then starts to pour down. This happened last time I drove to Cherbourg and is not a good advert for this region of France.

The last photo from this year's road trip - an Aire somewhere near Tours - Wednesday afternoon

I arrive at Cherbourg around 5:00 in plenty of time for the departure at 7:45. Time to have a rest, read a bit, have a really good stretch. I actually have a sleep on the boat, stretched out between two rows of seats in a quiet area. Then the final hour or so to drive from Portsmouth to home. No chance that I will unpack much tonight

Travelling through France - Jerome in Nice

Up and away by 7:15 from the Hotel Turino in Chiavari - not sure I would be in a hurry to go back. At the moment, the Italian Riviera holds little attraction. Initially I set off up the coastal road having forgotten how slow these windy, twisty roads are - it is very scenic though. At the much larger Rapallo I am able to pick up the autotrade again and am soon making better time. Sadly I then take a wrong turn at Genoa and end up stuck on an elevated motorway that takes me down to the docks. There is a truly huge ocean-going cruise ship in dock and a rather nice galleon, but I am distressed to lose nearly 30 minutes on this detour as I struggle to get back out again.

As I entered France, a message from Jerome asking when I will be arriving - my phone obviously doesn't like working in Italy. But I find the road where his mother's villa is surprisingly easily. Chaos reigns in the villa. There is the mother, Jerome and his two kids, his younger sister Vanessa (who looks really gorgeous in a small bikini), her husband and their three kids, plus Celine, an old friend of Vanessa and Jerome's, and her two kids. Seven kids between the ages of just over 2 and about 8.

Luckily they decide to take most of the kids to the beach and so Jerome and I can chill out on the balcony and have a good chat. And so to a surprising development. Jerome really wants to be involved in my trading project and is prepared to stake £10k into it himself. Moreover, he thinks he has three or four people that he can persuade to do between £5k and £10k on an 80-20 profit split. This proposal offers all sorts of interesting possibilities, not least the sharing of the long hours actually trading and I am very excited about it. We have a look at some of my systems and set out some of the core ideas - not everything at this stage though. So when Jerome is back in the UK next week, we are going to pick up on this immediately. In the meantime, he has ordered a copy of Patterson's The Quants.

There is more confusion related to lunch. The barbeque is not working, the kids are back later than expected, chaos reigns again. During the general debate, it is decided that I should stay the night after all and can sleep on the sofa in the lounge. Cue drinks for me. Lunch slowly develops and is eventually served on the balcony at around 5:00pm - crab salad and lamb chops. By now Jerome and I are settled into a second bottle of wine and everything seems fine. I remained very impressed by Vanessa in her very sexy bikini.

Soon after "lunch" a major argument develops between Vanessa and her mother. Jerome says that this is quite normal. We continue to discuss trading ideas and other stuff - especially music. Gradually the kids begin to get tired and are put to bed. Then a rather surprising plan in which Jerome, myself, Vanessa and Celine are going to go out into Nice for dinner. The girls get changed - Vanessa choosing a tiny green and white dress which she refers to as her "Russian whore's outfit". I am very impressed again. Celine rattles off several drinks before we leave and is soon quite drunk. So at around 10:30 we set off for Nice centre in the car - Vanessa driving. A quick wander round the centre finds us in a restaurant by Nice night market. The centre of town is jam packed with people. Apparently there are several Russian oligarchs in town and we keep an eye open for them without success. Celine is very drunk by now. Apparently she and Jerome have had a thing for one another for many years and they become increasingly close as the night progresses leaving me to chat to Vanessa. Odd to be eating pasta with clams at midnight!

We are home by 1:00 with a new crisis when we get back in as Celine's son is really upset about something. My new plan is to try to leave around 10:00 tomorrow for what will be a very long driving day.

Vanessa and Celine in Nice