It seems that not only did everyone from Sugar Free survive their charity bike ride, but they actually enjoyed it! Furthermore, while us lot suffered from very inclement weather on Wednesday and Thursday, they in turn had fantastic stuff. Thursday was by far the worst day on the Riviera with rather spectacular mini-tornados, around 3pm, hitting the coastal region from Menton, across Nice and down to Cannes. Chateauneuf suffered very heavy bouts of rain and storms which interfered with both our electrics and internet service though the most noticeable was the incredible drop in temperature: so much so that I had to dig out an old jumper even though our heating had kicked in.

This morning as I drove over to St Tropez to pick up the rental bikes, I was astonished to see snow already capping the Alpes-Maritimes, the range of mountains separating France from Italy. As it turned out between 5 and 10 cm of snow fell above 1,500 metres yesterday - which could be good news for skiers. Last year the Alps had a very poor covering of real snow and many skiers ended up hiking around the resorts instead. Météo France are predicting further bad weather as of next Tuesday. Just shows you the type of micro-climate we have along the French Riviera.

If bad weather wasn’t enough to end the week, 1,600 cruise passengers from the Island Star (tonnage 46, 811 and owned by Island Cruises since 2002) found themselves unexpectedly in Villefranche-sur-Mer yesterday, rather than ending their cruise in Spain. Cooling problems with the main engines caused the ship to divert and off-load all its passengers - a great many of them British. Evacuated by bus, they arrived at Nice airport, but it took the whole day before everyone was safely on their way home. The company’s blurb reads "A cruise should be about leaving the world of timetables where it belongs" - a memorable epitaph for yesterday’s escapade . . .

I returned the bikes to Villeneuve-Loubet and used the occasion to take a few photos of this remarkable marina. Seen close up it is a stunning piece of architecture. The lads are planning to return next year to raise more money for Sugar Free, but this time starting from St Maxime and then heading across to Toulon. Thankfully, although asked if I would like to help them organise it, I am happy to report that I shan’t need to ride a bike - the last time I did was, oh my, at least thirty years ago . . .

While Belgium, Holland, the UK and Northern France are slowly submerging under buckets of rain and there’s talk of building a second Ark, us lot down here are sweltering under a torrid heatwave. Temperatures just keep on soaring and it’s forecast to get even hotter. 

South-Eastern Europe seems the worst hit, though there are also forest fires in Greece and Italy. Mind you, one French meteorologist, who didn’t give his name, stated that this type of phenomenon only occurred every 20 years. We should be so lucky.

However, there’s a phenomenon that occurs here every summer: the stars come out and play. Jack Nicholson and his daughter Lorraine were seen down in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, David Beckham cycling around the Var, Rod Stewart and his wife Penny were spotted in various towns along the coast while Naomi Campbell and Karl Lagerfeld were seen looking cool in St Tropez.

July is also the favoured month when Jazz and world musicians descend upon the Côte d’Azur: Lionel Richie, Peter Gabriel, Diana Ross, Cesaria Evora, Marcus Miller, Jeff Beck, John Mayall, Keith Jarrett, and many, many more talented people come to enchant and enrich our souls.

While Northern Europe is inundated with water and Southern Europe glutted by torrid heat, we are awash to the sound of music.   

I’m delighted to say that we’ve uploaded the new AMB website onto our UK server. Now follows a couple of weeks of testing as we, and our team of testers, put the new website through its paces. So it’s a minor celebration that we do this evening and heave one big sigh of relief too.

There are a few more articles to finish, photos to drop in and things to tweak but the overall website is looking great. While I had thought the new website would be launched in September, it now looks like being August instead.

Away from computers, we continue to have fantastic weather with temperatures soaring into the 37C/98F and a few dips in our pool have been called for. By 8am this morning the cicadas were already in fine voice; an indication of the hot weather in preparation. And the sky remains, as it has been for several days, a stunning blue.

Sitting outside rather early this morning with Happy Lappy, I chanced to hear and then photograph my arch-enemies; Herons. I find their form almost pre-historic in style and similar to a Pteradactyl. On the subject of reptiles and things, I must admit to a certain amount of hesitation when popping in to the loo after my snake episode but I had a super surprise the other day with the return of Gordon, our cute Gecko.

A few weeks ago he’d spent a couple of days in our kitchen and then one morning scuttled out of the window. These are dear little creatures and a pleasure to come across. During the hot days of summer, they find shade behind our wooden shutters and skitter off into the eaves of our house when it’s time to close our shutters for the night. Some wear battle scars (a tail lost in some inconvenient argument with a cat) while others are fine bodied fellows; sadly Gordon has lost his. However, we are very polite and don’t like to mention it and besides, even without his tail, he still sticks like Velcro to the ceiling!