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 . . .

A few days ago I received a call from the UK asking if I could help find some bicycles to rent for a charity ride taking place this week on the French Riviera. The Registered Charity in question was Sugar Free and one of their major methods of raising funds is through sponsored cycle rides. It was originally formed approximately 20 years ago by six families whose children were diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Over a period of the past four years their committee has made direct charitable donations of £80,000 to the Royal Free Hospital to assist in their research programme regarding Islet Cell Transplant.

The Islets of Langerhans are the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin and are defective or destroyed in Type 1 (also known as Juvenile Onset Diabetes). The hospital has successfully undertaken five transplants over the past four years. This is still very leading edge medical treatment as less than 500 such transplants have been carried out worldwide.

As luck would have it, after a few calls I managed to arrange everything and went to pick up the bikes yesterday and brought them to Nice airport this morning: the charity ride’s starting point. From the airport the group were to cycle to Fréjus today, then across to le Lavandou tomorrow, and end their ride on Friday in St Tropez. I found them extremely brave as I know the terrain very well and, while it’s truly scenic and devastatingly beautiful, it comes complete with hills and winding roads made crueller still by a hot Mediterranean sun forecast until well into next week.

Bidding them all a safe and successful journey, I drove off promising to meet them on Friday in St Tropez to pick up their bikes. I have a feeling I’ll find them all very brown, incredibly tired, but utterly exhilerated by their accomplishment. I shall let you know.

PS. Nigel has just read my Blog and said that this is one of the most serious I’ve ever written and not very chatty, which is true. But I admire people who undertake something extra special and go that extra mile for a very worthy cause.

Nigel showed me an interesting article published recently in a September issue of the New Scientist that I found fascinating and felt I should share with you.  As everyone knows, in the very distant past, the division of labour was simple: men hunted and women gathered; and it seems that even today, in our modern high-tech world, women are still the best gatherers. According to a new study by Max Krasnow and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, modern women are better at remembering the location of food such as fruit and vegetables in a market. For their experiment, the researchers led 86 adults to certain market stalls then back to a location in the centre of the market from where the stalls could not be seen. They were then asked to point to each stall’s location; women performed 27% better than men at locating the food.

 And how do we both do in a supermarket? Interestingly, Nigel always goes off to choose the meat while I delight in selecting our fruit and vegetables; our ancestors would be proud of us . . .