Cannes

As before it takes time to get computers linked up, but here I am in Cannes! Despite a bit of fog at Luton airport the flight was great with good views as we came down over the sea into Nice airport. It had rained hard the morning of my arrival but by the time I landed it was warm and sunny.

Wendy, who arranges the retreats, met me at the airport with two friends and her dog! She drove us back along the coast road which was lovely and stageringly beautiful in part. As we passed through the walls of the old town of Antebes we were suddenly in a square with a cafe surrounded by narrow streets and the mellow dilapidation so characturistic of the old Riviera. Greame Green (the novelist, however his Graham is splet) used to stay up that street and drink at this cafe!

My little flat is on the first floor and has a north facing balcony. I am a couple of minutes from the Croisette - the promenade road. So I go down to wander along or sit on the public beach further along. Wandering on the Croisette is clearly the thing to do. You join the galmourous, the would be glamourous and a few of us who are far more tatty! Though there are many who have retired here, there are also younger people and families with toddlers. The Croisette is not only used my walkers, you have to watch out for cylists and rollerbladers who whistle past with little warning.

Much of the beach is taken over by resturants, some of which are part of the grand hotels across the road along the Croisette. Often these are taken over for very grand 'dos' - wedding receptions and parties it seems. People arrive, all dressed up in their finery, and can dine and dance with a live band with amazing views across the bay to the mountains beyond.

It is a very beautiful place and I am finding the beauty conducive to more of a retreat time for myself - which I hope will continue over on the island when beauty will be
added to by silence in the monastry and our joining in the monastic times of prayer. It is strange leading a retreat in a place I have not visited but I am getting a good picture from my conversations with people here.

I don't have my camera with me as I type, but I will post some pitures next time, now I have a computer which is talking to the outsideworld!