France 2 - allez au Gap!

Our final day of training with senior directors went very well. We had yet another lunch in the sun with an excellent red wine and finished promptly at 5. I then jumped in a cab and headed to the airport to pick up my hire car - a nearly new VW Polo - and hit the road. The drive to Gap takes you up to Nimes, across the top of the Camargue to Arles then across to Aix and up the autoroute to Sisteron and Gap.

Gap is a sweet typically French town on the Route Napoleon and well worth a visit for skiing in winter and lakes in the summer - and it was a beautifully clear morning as I was driven to the Lycee by my host and friend Laurence.

I was very nervous before going on in front of 25 mostly female 18 year olds!

Their English wasn't good and the first silly game was a bit of a nightmare. Soon they warmed up a bit and by the end they were entering into the spirit! As usual these presentations are over before you know it and we were soon ensconced in another great restaurant for lunch (pic attached) where I ate a wonderful mixed fish dish followed by rum babas which were amazing - homemade and soaked in real rum.

I drove back to Montpellier against a backdrop of mountainous landscapes and then because I was early turned of the autoroute and drove across the flat Camargue and saw wild white horses and bulls being bred for bull fighting - as black as sin.

Sitting here now back at La Grande Motte beach the sun is beating down on me for what could be the last time this year - heaven forfend! - Jeremy will just have to book us our next trip toute suite! Can't wait to see la famille now!