The Good Life France Magazine May/June 2015 | Page 61

An early start took me below Lyon where I joined the auto route A7 the “route de soleil”. I put some serious mileage in, stopping only for lunch near Avignon and commencing the final 180 miles to Menton.

Now firmly in the South of France, the warmth of the sun, the scent of Provence, the roof down of a powerful car, I was in heaven, but there was one last diversion…Monaco.

I have been to Monaco many times and have always been amused to see gentlemen of elderly years driving round and round the principality in some of the best cars in the world, leering at beautiful women. I fear I did not look out of place.

Eventually I pulled up at the address that Lady Monica had given me and was I ever surprised…on several counts. Remember the original invite was “you are welcome to stay with us”. Well it turned out that though the car was indeed Lady Monica’s husbands - he had been dead for several years.

“Us” was Lady Monica, two Siamese cats and a Lhasa Apso dog called Cousteau. The dog was named after the famous French diver Jacques Cousteau because every morning he would dive into the Mediterranean Sea and run along the bottom chasing crabs, popping up for air every few minutes or so.

The biggest surprise was Lady Monica’s house. For some reason I had expected a large Provencal house - not the one bed roomed apartment she lived in…

…Three days later she dropped me off at Nice airport, I wonder if poor old Cousteau is still crawling along the bottom of Menton harbor!