John Edward Cooper’s Notes

[i] I’ve located this on Google Street View as Quai des États-Unis.
[ii] This was Rue Saint-François de Paule/Cours Saleya
[iii] The east end of Rue Saint-François de Paule

Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 10:42:02


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 10:54:34
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:17:00
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:17:26
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:20:50
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:23:02
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:24:44
Views during free time


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 11:28:22
Views during free time

We decided to go to the meeting point, but weren’t clear exactly where it should be. The street, the end of which I thought it should be,[iv] seemed never-ending after we started along it; and we thought she couldn’t possibly have meant us to go so far from the where she’d left us, so we turned back. Perhaps she meant back at the other end of the arcade, we thought; but there was no-one whom we recognised there. “Somehow,” Janet wrote, “we’d both got it badly wrong and couldn’t find anyone.… After my initial panic and our wandering around together and separately to try to find someone, anyone [from the party], we recognised (didn’t!), I said we should get a train or bus back to Villefranche. I suggested we try and find a Tourist Information Centre and finally, after a fruitless search, I stopped a young lady and asked if she could direct us to either the railway station or a bus stop… Turned out she was Italian and didn’t speak French — and very little English.… However, she… directed us to Albert I Place where we would be able to find a policeman who’d be able to help.” We were then on the promenade,[v] and after Janet had given her a hug we followed her directions till we got to an avenue off to the right.[vi] On the farther side was a park.[vii] “We turned off the prom,” Janet wrote, “and a single decker bus appeared so I went on and explained where we needed to be. There was a male conductor and he asked the female driver who told us to stay on the bus and she’d show us where to get the №81 bus to Villefranche.… She wouldn’t accept any money — we were quite willing to pay.”

[iv] As it was, in fact: the east end of Rue Saint-François de Paule
[v] Quai des États-Unis
[vi] Avenue des Phocéens, where in fact Rue Saint-François de Paule ends and where we should have gone to board the coach
[vii] Jardin Albert 1er

Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:24:46
Bus driver, who showed us extraordinary kindness


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:24:46
Bus driver, who showed us extraordinary kindness — detail


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:25:02
Bus driver, who showed us extraordinary kindness

We followed her directions,[viii] found the №81 bus stop, and within half an hour were back in Villefranche. (I hated the feeling of being lost, but the experience of kindness from strangers was one not to be missed.)

[viii] From the photographic evidence below, along Boulevard Jean Jaurès and into Place Garibaldi

Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:25:20
Short walk to the bus stop


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:26:34
Short walk to the bus stop


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:34:02
Bus from Nice to Villefranche

We got off when we saw the fortress, but it took some time to find our way around it, down to sea level, and back to where the coach party first gathered. “It was hot and I was flagging,” Janet wrote. “Suddenly, a couple appeared that I recognised as being on the tender boat with us. We told them what had happened, then saw our tour guide. We shouted to her…” We were still descending on the path around the fortress, and the area where we’d gathered earlier, and where she was, was below. She was turning away, so we called out. When that had no effect, I called out with my best French accent, “Allô!” That got her attention. “…and we explained what happened,” Janet continued. “She said she’d advise the ship, so we toddled off.”


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:53:44
Villefranche: going down to the port


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:54:40
Villefranche: going down to the port


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 12:58:24
Villefranche: going down to the port


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 13:38:00
In Villefranche

We went to one seaside restaurant, and told the proprietor that we only wanted a drink. But after Janet had disappeared to the loo, he brought the food menu and set up the “specials” chalkboard up resting on the back of one of the chairs. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, and when Janet returned I told her I didn’t want to stay, so we left. The next place we went to, though, was almost as uncomfortable to be at; but Janet was hot, tired, and needed a drink. What happened there was, that we were about to sit in one umbrellaed location that was not set up with knives and forks, but the waitress told us to sit somewhere else nearer the building, which did have knives and forks and place-mats. When a waiter came he wasn’t happy that we were there when we only wanted a drink. So we told him that we’d been sent there by the waitress, and he snatched up the knives, forks and place-mats, brusquely and with an ill grace. When the nuclear bomb or the tsunami hits the French Riviera, the bus drivers will be miraculously spared, but all the restaurateurs will perish. We had a little wander about after that, but our heart wasn’t in it. What’s more, by now my feet were sore. Janet stopped at an open window in a building to buy ice cream. I realised, walking on a pace or two, that it was part of the first establishment we’d visited. Indeed, as Janet waited, she heard one of the people within tell another “…toilette…”, talking about her, so she walked on. We got the next tender boat back to the ship. Copied today’s photos (58) from the camera (13:51–13:53). An hour still needs to be added to these computer times to bring them into line with local time; there’s insufficient time from the location shown above (13:38) to walk down to the jetty, board the boat, transfer to the ship, get to our cabin, boot up the computer, connect the camera, wait for the Fuji FinePix software to auto-start, and import the pictures (13:51). What’s more, Janet wrote, “We got a boat straight away and were back on the ship by 2pm. We had a quick wash-and-brush-up then went to the Pool Bar. I had my choc bars [chocolate bars for dietary purposes that she buys from Boots] and a Coke Light and [John] had some Thai food from the buffet. Then we returned to our cabin. [John] had a kip and I updated this, etc. What an adventure we had today! We did real good. Such fun! Much better than getting our tour coach!” Presumably, before I lay down for my “kip”, I copied the photos from the camera (reading the times now as 14:51–14:53). Janet continued: “Just after 4pm I lay down on the bed to see if I could sleep (or just rest) but I was wide awake so decided to go off and have a wander. I wrote a note for [John] — then he woke up. He got into bed ‘proper’ and I wandered off. Checked out shops — all closed. Asked at hairdressers’ how much a wash and blow-dry would cost. £25. Well, stuff that! I’ll do it myself tomorrow. Wandered up to the Pool Bar. Found a seat. Had a drink then ‘watched the world go by’ until ca.4.45pm. I then returned to the cabin to find [John] fast asleep. I sat on the bed and updated this and read a mag. At 5.45pm I woke [John] to see if he wanted dinner. The Lido wasn’t at all busy. Where was everyone? We returned to our cabin — then Ricky appeared, to clean it ([he was] late tonight), so we disappeared for a drink. We ended up in the Argo Bar and caught the tail end of Boros Art’s 6.45pm performance. They were brilliant. It’s such pleasant stuff. Quite beautiful, really. We returned to the cabin to find a towel snake on the bed.…”


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 19:37:40
Towel “sculpture” in the cabin


Wednesday 28 August 2013 — 19:37:40
Towel “sculpture” in the cabin — detail

“Quick wash-and-brush-up then we went to the Broadway Show Lounge for ‘Skoolz Out’,” Janet wrote. “Can’t beat live entertainment. It was great. Boros Art and that cheered us up a bit.” On 26 Aug., when we went to see the “Modelled By Motown” show we arrived not long before the show was due to start, and found that all the best seats had been taken; we had to make do with ones round the left side of the stage. So today we went a bit earlier. We found some seats up in the balcony, but the balcony rail was a bit high for Janet to see over properly; so she went to look for seats in the stalls, while I waited up here in case some we saw down there were taken by the time she got there. They were still unoccupied when she got there, and waved for me to come down. Janet went on to add: “…Neither of us was very warm once we got back to the [ship]. I wore my denim jacket at dinner, and wasn’t all that warm even then; and we both wore jackets to the show, and, again, weren’t all that warm. When we returned to the cabin [John]… tweaked some photos and I had a shower.… I’ll get my head down soon as it’s 10.15pm and I’m tired now.” My original brief writing says “Day 224”, but I can’t remember when it was that I did Day 224’s Bible reading, playing the audio through my in-ear phones and following the text on the computer screen. Continued and finished editing, and arranging in the PowerPoint presentation, photos from 26 Aug. (thirty-one of them, 20:20–22:47 — i.e. 21:20–23:47). Copied the additional photo of today from the camera (22:57 — i.e. 23:57).

[Thursday 29 August 2013]