The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

My friend is going to drive me to Luxembourg Station at 1215 to catch the 13:11 train to Brussels. I have a carry-on sized wheelie case from which I plan to hang my bigger grab bag full of (now mostly dirty) clothes. My heavy camera outfit (complete with tripod) is…

All went well on the way to my meh hotel in Dijon yesterday. I had left the booking too late because I was hoping to stay longer in Bandol if a couple days delay allowed the dealer to fix Speranza. Once it was clear I’d need to go home and…

On Thursday evening, after learning a little about French justice from my friend’s account of his visit to the family court with his ex wife and their daughter, we set off for dinner in another little yacht/fishing port of which I had never heard. It was just as pretty as…

I had a quiet day yesterday after the various social and engineering excitements of the trip. I did some washing, some reading and watched some TV. My local friends in Mougins had told me I reminded them of Raymond Reddington; the anti-hero of the Netflix FBI procedural The Blacklist. So…

Yesterday was – for the most part – an excellent day. I had arranged with an old friend from Moscow days (let's call him Monsieur D.), now resident once more in his native France, to meet him for lunch at my favourite restaurant in the whole world. I was very…

My first outing from my new base was to visit my friends in Mougins  – let's call them Mr & Mrs L. I respect their privacy so no photos today. I met them 18 years ago through their son. A mutual friend sent him to me in Moscow. He was…

One of my favourite places in the world is the little village of Mougins, up in the hills above Cannes. It was the home of Picasso in his later years and is just ridiculously cute. If you have a mental image of the perfect French village, this is it (although…