Garoupe Signal Station

No pictures in this post. I was too busy up at the signal station, helping out with doors open day. The queue to get into the observation tower was really long and slow moving, and the coastguards had plenty to do in the normal run of things, let alone the weekend when the public is unleashed amongst their radars, computers and giant binoculars (hint: I wouldn't mind a set for Christmas, but our floors would need to be reinforced to carry the weight). Ideal conditions, then, to do a bit of propaganda on behalf of the lifeboat service.

Our star turn, as it happened, was explaining what was in an inflatable liferaft. We had inflated one just outside the gates, and had displayed the survival gear, including the rations. The kids really liked the emergency rations, particularly the biscuit. I told them they shared their approval with my feathered friends.

Charlie, normally a chap of few words, surprised us all by demonstrating a real talent for sales chat, in French. Boy, did he move a lot of merchandise at the lifeboat stand.

As ever, the coastguards were charming company, and it was nice putting faces to the voices we hear over the radio when out at sea on rescues.

Competitive spirit

The mega-rich know what it takes to get ahead: a ruthless sense of me first! One of them must have been reading my blog, because he (or she) has decided to outdo the view-blocking prowess of the super-yacht "A", by bringing an even bigger one into port, completely filling the horizon. Must be a bugger to park, though...

Aperçu mer...

One of the things that intrigue me about French mores is the lack of salesmanship in selling houses. Photos invariably focus upon squalid piles of ironing, or decaying junk in the backyard. A similar insouciance is only too apparent in the accompanying blurbs, where hackneyed phrases succeed one another with dismaying regularity.

Of these feeble formulae, one is regarded as a particular selling point: "aperçu mer", or sea view. Usually one would need a neck with the length of a giraffe's and the 360° flexibility of a common pigeon's to glimpse the pollution-hazed postage stamp of blue, kilometres away behind the concrete jungle.

In our case, however, there is an "aperçu mer" (and indeed an "aperçu montagne"). And what is more, no buildings can be built to block them. But I speak too soon. In the last few days, various, very large objects have blocked the view.

The first is the motoryacht "A" (comes even before "Aardvark", in superyacht listings, geddit?). To give you an idea of scale, that's a full-sized lighthouse in front of it, just below the silvery funnels.

The other is a massive crane, which waddled into position the day before yesterday, in preparation for two years of noise and dust, as they build an underground (underwater?) carpark next to the port, just on the other side of the ramparts.