unesperaza not safe

I've said it before... it really isn't safe to leave Esperaza.

I needed to get to Nice; to be exact a small hamlet above St Cesare in the mountains by Grasse, from thence to Nice.
Bus from the Esperaza school, train from Limoux to Carcassonne, train from Carcassonne to Marseille, train to Grasse, bus to St Ceasar. Lift the rest of the way. What could go wrong???
Nothing until just outside Toulon, fairly late at night. Misguided girl jumps under train and dies, hopefully quickly. Police and Pompiers hold up train for three hours whilst cleaning up  after her.

Good spirits in the train, the bar still has sandwiches and coffee, people are saddened but coping. (Though the sight of a very elderly lady having missed her connection home, lowering her head and letting fall one fat tear drop will stay with me a long time) 

This is not the time for my kindle battery to expire. Sods law. It expired away, leaving me with nothing to read and no room to draw as the carriage was packed. It got hotter and less oxygenated. People sneezed and coughed. I spent the three hours concentrating on fighting down panic.

On arrival at Cannes, there were no more trains to Grasse - even with a taxi were no buses onwards for the rest of the long journey. So an hotel beckoned. I shot over the road from the station to the first I saw, ignoring the starlets (as I thought) clustered outside. They had a room I could afford. Hurrah.

They took me behind the reception area, across a laundry room where sheets were drying, into a tiny cubby hole without a window, a curious shower and a gash-grinding toilet like you get on posh private boats. It was newly-painted a rich lilac. Except for a paneled wooden head board which seemed to have been newly smeared with  - what, varnish? Splattered and smeared in translucent ochre -

It was a room and the bed was clean. I pulled it away from the wall and tried to sleep. Strange noises abounded. I had nothing to read. Tried to take photos but the camera wouldn't work. It was freezing - there was an aircon unit that blew icy air around the room. There was a TV but it didn't work. I felt it was too late to wake reception, stupidly.

In the morning I discovered that we were above a sex shop and that the girls in the street hadn't been waiting for their limos.... 

the rest of the journey the following day wasn't so bad but many hindrances occurred, not least that the Matisse chapel in Vence that was my treat for getting there was closed for its annual holiday (NOT on the website) The people I was expected to meet got met, eventually, all altered arrangements but it finally came together just in time for me to leave for the return long voyage home. Which was hitchless and actually a delight as luck took me to the feet of an old friend who bought me home on the final lag to a dinner from Ryan and Alicia.

Phew and thrice phew.
And I'm having an exhibition in Nice (1st - 14th May)  next year so it all paid off.