Well we did make it across to Nice on Sunday and very nice it was. It was a shame that we missed out a day of our trip, but we made the most of our time in Bristol on Sunday. We went to look at the new Nissan Micra, very cute in a retro sort of way, and then went out for a very nice Sunday lunch at Le Monde. Although it's a French restaurant, we both opted for a traditional Sunday lunch, and it has to be said that the beef was fantastic.

The trip to Nice was mercifully straightforward. Whilst we were at the airport we bumped into a guy called Derek and his mate Ian. We have vaguely known Derek for many years, but this was probably the first time that we had sat down and had a proper chat with him. Bristol is such a small town that pretty soon we realised that shared loads of mutual friends. They were both good company in a pleasantly silly laid back sort of way.

Upon our arrival in Nice we manage to get the right bus into town and before we knew it we were at the apartment. Just had time for a quick scout around the neighbourhood including buying a very tasty kebab, before we went off to bed. The next day we walked all over Nice, new town, old town, sea front and hill tops, eating lots of local dishes before finally ending up in really nice restaurant called Le Lodge. Here, we rested our tired feet whilst drinking a splendid champagne cocktail and enjoying a gorgeous meal. With a nice bottle of claret.. The next day we had enough time to visit the magnificent Russian orthodox church, checked out the local food markets, before enjoying lunch in one of those bar/restaurants that the French specialise in. Lots of very tasty couscous, sent us back to Bristol with our stomachs full and our wallets not too severely stretched. We both think that we would like to return to Nice, hopefully for a bit longer, so that we could travel along the coast and also venture inland to those gorgeous snow capped mountains, which surround the city.

In the past few days, I finished reading The Earthquake Bird by Susana Jones and Nick Mcdonell's 12. Both were intriguing without being completely satisfying. Although I was disappointed with the "spectacular" ending of 12. It was in marked contrast to the preceding pages and seemed to somehow diminish the detached tone that had previously been set in the book. I enjoyed the Susana Jones book more, it has been marketed as a crime novel, but it seemed to me to much more about the way people on the edge of society connect and what they do when those connections are threatened.