Royalty and Royal Purple

After six hectic days in Cannes, I am now back in London, which means I can get a good night's sleep, uninterrupted by TGVs and rogue boilers, even if I do have to go to work tomorrow. On Boxing Day, I took a morning off from running, although the aforementioned TGVs meant I didn't get much of a lie-in. After some faffing, I went to read in the sunshine at Café 72 on the Croisette. I hope the Good Doctor did not object too much to me reading his new book, The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex, in Cannes, given his shunning of the film festival this year. Canada Chick and I then went to see Hugo in 3D, except because we were in France, when we got to the front of the queue and were charged for a regular movie and not a 3D one, the cashier told me that it would in fact be in 2D. If we wanted to see the 3D version, we would have to go to another cinema and it would be dubbed into French. I quite enjoyed the film but was disappointed that I didn't get to witness the film whose 3D was endorsed even by Mark Kermode.

Yesterday, we drove to Italy, stopping for pizza on the sea front in Sanremo. The French are surprisingly mediocre when it comes to pizza but Sanremo is obviously far enough from the border because my margherita was very good. Sanremo is a pretty town, with a lovely, hilly old town, which is a labyrinth of tunnels, archways and passages (not unlike parts of Marrakesh, although with fewer motorbikes). On the way back, we stopped off in Monte Carlo, which was, as expected, pretty blingtastic, the casino being particularly tasteful. We took a spin on the big wheel and, to Maman's delight, while we were waiting we got to watch the end of the Arsenal-Wolves match on the TV in the big wheel guy's booth (we did well to hold Arsenal to a draw). The Monaco royal family, it seems, were not in residence.

After a week of no shopping in Cannes, I went down to Covent Garden and Regent Street fairly soon after arriving home this evening. I finally got around to buying a new pair of trainers so that I can leave a pair of my older running shoes at my parents' house, which means I don't need to take a pair with me every time I go to stay with them. Sweaty Betty have some pretty good deals during sale season but they only had two pairs of trainers suitable for those of us with neutral gait, one of which was bright purple. I like purple but these shoes, the Asics Gel Tarther, were a bit hardcore and I was about to walk away when the sales assistant told me to feel how light they were and she was right! They were bloody light! I ended up trying them on and as they were reduced to £41 (£36 with my Sweaty Betty members' discount), I bought them. Maybe the sales assistant was trying to get rid of the overly bright shoes or maybe she was taking part in a bet. Either way, I like my new trainers and they will be great for taking with me when I go on holiday because they are compact as well as light (apparently they are the best-selling Asics shoe in Japan and so they have some Japanese characters on the tongue...).