So why Nice?

What can I say; it feels like home and I cry whenever I leave the place.

It's gorgeous, too. The architecture is a mixture of Belle Epoque, baroque and modern. (Surrey's is a mixture of big red brick rectangles and small red brick rectangles). There's a fair smattering of those magnificently silly buildings which look like they've been designed by sloshed fairies after imbibing far too much of the elderberry wine, or whatever the favourite tipple of sloshed fairies is. Wedding cake architecture at its glorious best.

The sea is sapphire blue, the flowers and palm trees are plentiful, and the English aren't attacked by the French inhabitants for having the audacity to be English.

We once spent a miserable time in Brittany, a cold, wet French version of England disguised as a desirable place to take a holiday. It was the first time we'd been away with all our kids - two being his, one being mine. We rented a house we found last minute on the net, and when we turned up we realised why it was the only one in the whole of France still available at the height of the summer...

...the walls were 2 feet thick. The decor and furniture were from the less desirable Les Miserables period, and my husband spent most of his days with his heart in his mouth as his 11 year old son endeavoured to throw himself out of the largest tree in the garden. (I know the house was horrible, but that was going a teensy bit too far even to my mind).

The evenings were taken up with fending off an Englishman who heard us talking English in the local Co-op and approached us in a friendly manner. We'll call him Gordon here, because there's one particular Gordon who comes to mind who is a complete pain, too. Anyway, Gordon came over every evening to our rented accommodation - unannounced - to try to entice the husband to the bar, with the idea that I would be content to clear up after supper and sit on my own staring at the horrible walls. He succeeded once, but strangely - possibly because my husband values every tiny part of his body - never again.

He did once invite us all over to his house. When I say 'invite', I mean he wouldn't take no for an answer, so off we trooped, only to find his missus prancing around the large garden, naked save for a (very) tiny pair of briefs. She looked aghast at us, and we at her. Tea and cakes were had on the lawn in a manner you would not expect to encounter at a cream tea parlour in rural Devon. ("Would you care for a muffin, Miss Marple? Oh, I can see you already have one.")

Anyway, one evening we took a stroll through the ugly village and waited outside the local creperie for it to open. We were the first customers there, and were shown to a lovely large round table in the centre of the room, where the five of us sat down eagerly anticipating an assortment of kirsch this and flambeed that. We ordered. And then a party of French people arrived. Much noise and activity and kissing of cheeks, with the result we were told to get up and move to a tiny awkward table next to the toilets.

But this was not the end it. Every time Madame passed our table (she was the spitting image of Edith, Rene's wife in 'Allo 'Allo, but without the charm), I was somehow clocked on the back of the head by a stray elbow. English. Guilty as charged.

We left that house two days early, to great consternation of the monsieur who owned it. We told him we had a pressing appointment with a mediocre flea pit in Caen, which, luckily, we stumbled upon after our flight away from Le Colditz. Gordon, however, was more tricky to leave behind, and it is only in the last year - some 8 years after this holiday we had the misfortune to inflict on ourselves - that he has stopped calling us at 3.00 in the morning in a drunken ramble about the good times we shared together.

Nice does not have buildings where the walls are 2 feet thick. Horrible, ugly furniture is not allowed (Nice was Italian until 1860, and a jolly good thing too). And anyone who looks like they are refugees from 'Allo 'Allo is immediately deported back to Brittany, where they belong, and where they may long remain.