Day Twelve - Uh-oh!!

When I finished the last piece I wrote with the words "That's All Folks!" I didn't realise how true those words would be.

Two or three hours after that was posted Tania got an urgent phone call. Unfortunately we were both asleep at the time. Just before midnight Tania woke up and found the messages. Her dad had been taken to hospital and was very poorly. We left the apartment in a very hasty and unseemly manner just thirty minutes later and drove straight to Calais and got a ferry back.

Erm - a ferry!

At the time of writing he has improved after treatment in hospital but the family have been warned to be aware that he could become seriously ill again very quickly.

Understandably, I hope, you will appreciate that there is little more I can add to this now, there are far more important things to think of right at the moment.

I will, however, leave you with a couple of little snippets which should have been included in previous moments in this blog if only I had been endowed with a memory that had any lasting power to it!

I mentioned some days ago that seeing F1 cars driving around Monaco had been ticked off my bucket list. That wasn't the only thing achieved on that list this trip. Whilst I was having a deep chat with Tania overlooking a river I saw a sudden flash of blue. "Did you just see that?" I asked Tania. She had - and told me that my beliefs were correct. So - at long, long last I have seen a kingfisher. Been waiting a long time for that one.

And in my tale about trying out different foods whilst in France I forgot one of the most relevant - and, in its own way, exciting. A tomato.

Now - you must know it couldn't be just any old plum or cherry tomato. Oh no. I've had both of them before. Many times.

I've had to rewrite this little bit because I have realised the cunning French sold Tania and I a dummy. We bought this tomato from a tray marked Zebra Vert. I wrote about it taking the mickey because it was neither green - vert - or resembled in any way a zebra. Fortunately, before I made myself look a complete plonker, I decided to find a photo of it on Google. And - guess what?? Search for Zebra Vert and you get photos of green striped tomatoes. Our one was yellow. And no stripes.

A big, ugly yellow tomato. Descriptive - huh??

So now all I can tell you is that we ate a very yellow tomato. A very big, very ugly, very yellow tomato. It tasted better than any tomato I have ever eaten before. Bloody luvverly, in fact. Try one if you get the chance - but I wouldn't go looking for them in Tesco if I was you. Try a French hypermarket. Look for the biggest, ugliest yellow tomato you can find because there is no way I am going to know what it was called now. It'll be worth it.

So - for all those who have stayed with me thus far this really is the end of this particular trip - and this particular blog. Thanks for sticking with me. And - watch this space from time to time.