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Day Two: Raining on my parade
Mar. 27th, 2011 07:08 pmNot really up betimes. Then again, although my watch claimed that it was 9.30am, I'd had the odd non-pleasure of putting the clocks forward twice within 24 hours. So it was 7.30am Birks-bodytime.
Of course, as my normal getting-up-time is 5.30am, this still qualifies as near-elevenses in the Birks daily routine.
It was a bit of a struggle getting the shower to work properly ('tis ever thus) and, in a moment that would make Chris Evans p0roud, I found that I had actually forgotten my toothbrush. I'd noticed that my normal travel-pacvk toothbrush was somewhat worn, so I took it out of the travel-bag. Unfortunately I forgot to replace it.
"Don't forget your toothbrush" is a rather ancient homily for those travelling light. Surely these days it would more likely be "Don't forget your iPhone".
This morning I decided to head out to a market just north of the main railway station. I had vaguely been expecting a sort of set of stalls offering knick-knacks, collectibles, etc. A bit like Greenwich Market. What I actually found was a fresh fruit, vegetable, flower and fish market. There were some professional market stalls with stuff brought in from the wholesaler, but also smaller stalls where people were selling their own homegrown stuff. Fantastic. I spotted many homegrown artichokes, lots of salad stuff, raw and cooked beetroot, and some utterly brilliant tomatoes. The big ribbed beef tomatoes were attractive enough, but pride of place went to the Sicilian "tomates noire", -- tomatoes of a dark-red-dark-purple hue, which looked absolutely sensational.
Then I found the fish stall section. Wow. I mean, I really have to live here some day, just so that I can do my shopping in this market for a few months. Barracuda, unsliced tuna (although no whole tuna, that would have been too excessive), and that rarity in the uUK, piles of fish just marked "soupe".
This was a nice hour or so's stroll, but the weather was clouding over badly, just beginning to spit rain as I returned. I had a nap, and when I woke up it was raining -- more persistently than I've ever experienced in Nice. Bleaagh. It's now 7pm and it's been coming down for hours.
Still, I've finished "Lustrum" by Robert Harris, and I'm cooking myself a bolognaise sauce with fresh tagliatelle (three times as expensive in Monoprix as in Tesco, dammit!).
"Lustrum" turned out to be better than I expected when I was about a third of the way through, but the force of being "historical" weighed on a writer of even Robert Harris's talent. Too many players, too many years, too few pages.
I also looked at the router and its connection and reckoned that I could move it down to the main room, provided that I didn't want to watch TV at the same time. French broadband seems to use the TV connection socket a la Virgin broadband in the UK. If I bought a splitter I could watch the TV and have the router running. However, disconnecting and reconnecting the router in a different socket was not without its risks, given the problems I had yesterday even getting connected, but I reckoned that it was worth the gamble.
At first it looked like an abject failure, and I'm still not confident in the line's stability. However, this might be something to do with overloading the network. Afternoons at weekends seem to be the worst. Last night and this morning it had "settled down" on the upstairs connection, so let's hope that it does the same down here.
Later: Gave up on the downstairs connection. For some reason it's far more unstable than the connection in the bedroom.
Some pix:
My apartment block on Rue Pastorelli. Last October I was on the first floor. Now I am on the sixth, which as you can see has a slightly different format. The flats are wider and have an upstairs "garret" for the bedroom and shower room.
One of the fish stalls.
Just look at that tuna! ("thon") Yummo.
Still fucking raining. And not drizzle. Proper full-blown rain. Glad that I am not here just for the weekend!
__________
Of course, as my normal getting-up-time is 5.30am, this still qualifies as near-elevenses in the Birks daily routine.
It was a bit of a struggle getting the shower to work properly ('tis ever thus) and, in a moment that would make Chris Evans p0roud, I found that I had actually forgotten my toothbrush. I'd noticed that my normal travel-pacvk toothbrush was somewhat worn, so I took it out of the travel-bag. Unfortunately I forgot to replace it.
"Don't forget your toothbrush" is a rather ancient homily for those travelling light. Surely these days it would more likely be "Don't forget your iPhone".
This morning I decided to head out to a market just north of the main railway station. I had vaguely been expecting a sort of set of stalls offering knick-knacks, collectibles, etc. A bit like Greenwich Market. What I actually found was a fresh fruit, vegetable, flower and fish market. There were some professional market stalls with stuff brought in from the wholesaler, but also smaller stalls where people were selling their own homegrown stuff. Fantastic. I spotted many homegrown artichokes, lots of salad stuff, raw and cooked beetroot, and some utterly brilliant tomatoes. The big ribbed beef tomatoes were attractive enough, but pride of place went to the Sicilian "tomates noire", -- tomatoes of a dark-red-dark-purple hue, which looked absolutely sensational.
Then I found the fish stall section. Wow. I mean, I really have to live here some day, just so that I can do my shopping in this market for a few months. Barracuda, unsliced tuna (although no whole tuna, that would have been too excessive), and that rarity in the uUK, piles of fish just marked "soupe".
This was a nice hour or so's stroll, but the weather was clouding over badly, just beginning to spit rain as I returned. I had a nap, and when I woke up it was raining -- more persistently than I've ever experienced in Nice. Bleaagh. It's now 7pm and it's been coming down for hours.
Still, I've finished "Lustrum" by Robert Harris, and I'm cooking myself a bolognaise sauce with fresh tagliatelle (three times as expensive in Monoprix as in Tesco, dammit!).
"Lustrum" turned out to be better than I expected when I was about a third of the way through, but the force of being "historical" weighed on a writer of even Robert Harris's talent. Too many players, too many years, too few pages.
I also looked at the router and its connection and reckoned that I could move it down to the main room, provided that I didn't want to watch TV at the same time. French broadband seems to use the TV connection socket a la Virgin broadband in the UK. If I bought a splitter I could watch the TV and have the router running. However, disconnecting and reconnecting the router in a different socket was not without its risks, given the problems I had yesterday even getting connected, but I reckoned that it was worth the gamble.
At first it looked like an abject failure, and I'm still not confident in the line's stability. However, this might be something to do with overloading the network. Afternoons at weekends seem to be the worst. Last night and this morning it had "settled down" on the upstairs connection, so let's hope that it does the same down here.
Later: Gave up on the downstairs connection. For some reason it's far more unstable than the connection in the bedroom.
Some pix:
My apartment block on Rue Pastorelli. Last October I was on the first floor. Now I am on the sixth, which as you can see has a slightly different format. The flats are wider and have an upstairs "garret" for the bedroom and shower room.
One of the fish stalls.
Just look at that tuna! ("thon") Yummo.
Still fucking raining. And not drizzle. Proper full-blown rain. Glad that I am not here just for the weekend!
__________
