The day started with another trip into Nice to check out the flat situation. Back on the train and off in the centre of town. After a coffee I made quick trip round the old part to find an Irish bar (there are 6) where they were showing the footy/golf/rugby.

The old part of Nice is excellent with even more bars and restaurants then the rest of Nice.

All the bars were busy, no crisis here, and god only knows what it must have been like in July and August. 

Mobbed I can only imagine.

I hopped on my Veloblue and made my way back to the station and so to the campsite. With Dirk and Maja gone I was alone however on my return there were another 4 tents. The pitches are on cascading tiers and each tier is about three feet above the other and I am at the penultimate to the bottom tier.

Little did I know that there had been a weather warning for Nice.

At 4am it started with a massive crack of thunder that awoke the whole campsite. This was followed by another and another. I lay there and thought Hmmmmm, I should go for a Nº1 whilst the rain is just spitting. I will wait until it stops, I thought.  If only I had known what going to happen.

The rain began to get heavier and heavier and heavier.

“Jesus this is coming down now” I murmured to myself. 

After half an hour I was starting to get a bit concerned specifically that I was at the bottom of the levels and could only imagine what the cascading water from the other tiers must be like as it made its way down to mine.

"What do you mean you want to be at the top?"

My fears were justified as I peeped out the side mesh in my tent and saw the water starting to settle on the ground around my tent.

It was a 10 minutes later that I realised

“Oh shit I’m going to have to evacuate my tent if this continues”….

The water kept on coming down and as I pushed down on the floor of my tent it was exactly like a water bed.  I waited and waited but this was starting to get serious.

I had two days ago moved all my bags out of the car and into the ten to save all the weight on the car and it was now that I wished that maybe I hadn’t.

If I was going to mobilize then I had to get ready because I was going to get soaked. My walking shoes that I always place outside the tent but inside the outer cover, were now floating and the water was about  3 inches deep and rising.

That was it, I thought, I had to go now, so I unzipped the tent flap and plunged out into the rain and lightning. I was soaked in seconds and I proceeded to hump my stuff to the car. 

"We are never all going to get in there with all that golf equipment in there"

I looked at the pitch below mine where, not 24 hours previously Dirk and Maja would have been, and it was under 2 feet of water as was the road that passes by along the bottom of that!

The rain continued to come down and all my stuff was back in the car. I had a brainwave and made my way up to the showers for a hot shower and was soon warmed up again. Albeit a bit damp.

My new neighbours were Russians and I heard them moaning about my car door slamming. Jesus I thought what about the almighty thunder cracks and lightening.  Maybe they are used to that wherever they came from, I wonder if they are from Siberia, I guess this is nothing in comparison to Siberian weather so maybe a car door slamming or someone coughing would wake up Boris.

After the shower I returned to Captain Nemo's Palace and sat down on my chair under the tarp.  By this time the rain had stopped and I didn’t realise the chair was soaked.

"So we are expecting some great weather over the next day"

Arse wet I just sat there and who should come out of the darkness but Artemus. He immediately jumped on my lap. How I can have a lap cat in all this, I thought. Still he was warm which helped. After half an hour outside I decided to get into the car and amazingly managed a reasonable amount of sleep.