Of mice and men

In the plug adapter bag that lives in my miscellaneous electrical box at home, I have a computer mouse that I've used for years when I travel. It attaches to my Mac with a small hub that is also my SD-card reader (my biggest complaint against Macs is that they don't build in the ports you need).

On Eurostar, the mouse started glitching. Yesterday it was cutting out more than it was working. I switched round all the connections to see if I could improve things but no luck. This morning the mouse had a sad red flashing light but couldn't move my cursor at all. 

What to do? A quick search showed me that Toulon has a FNAC store 10 minutes walk from my little flat. In their after-sales-problems queue, instead of worrying that they had every right not to help me, I looked up the French for 'touchpad' (so I could explain, if necessary, that I don't use it) and was delighted at pavé tactile. I know pavés (setts) as things that get thrown at flics. Tactile paving stones is very memorable. Maybe we'll have them underfoot one day.

My French was up to explaining the problem and assuring them that if they could dépanne me (a lovely word we need in English which means 'to unbreakdown') I would buy whatever bit I needed in FNAC.

It took only seconds to establish that my mouse was dead, but in FNAC's mouse department the sales assistant was bemused that I wanted one with a tail (it may be that I take my battery resistance too far). When he eventually found such an archaic bit of kit, both he and I were surprised that it cost only half the price of a wireless one. I plugged it in, it worked. How lucky that I'd given myself an extra day in Toulon rather than catching this morning's ferry to Corsica.

I rewarded my good fortune with a coffee under the shade of trees in a large, calm, traffic-free square. Of the six cafés there, I chose the one whose clientele was entirely men of non-European heritage. As I expected, this meant that my coffee (like my mouse) cost less than half the usual price.

I had thought that today I might get myself up to a viewpoint on Mont Faron, the mountain behind Toulon but, very sadly, I am here during the four days that the téléphérique is getting its post-summer service. So, I looked at the municipal bus map, identified a bus with a winding route in the right direction and got on. There were fabulous views over the city and harbour on the way up but the final stop, a bit down from the views, was surrounded by entryways marked 'Private property, Residents only.' I guess the bus is for their servants...

I walked back to the previous stop then, given that a climb further up looked out of the question, braved a steep path down the hill towards the city. 

If I'd known about the Photography Museum I'd have gone straight there. Instead I sheltered from the heat of the afternoon in the Toulon Art Museum and its temporary exhibition about Banksy, placing him in the tradition of American and European street art. Really interesting to see a non-UK focus.

I'm sad I didn't know about the Photography Museum, but it won't be a hardship to come back to Toulon. Nowhere can beat Paris where I lived for six very formative months when I was 18 but I think Toulon has ousted Lyon as my second favourite city in France: mountains; sea; large, car-free squares; wide pedestrianised and narrow winding streets, and covered passageways through buildings; a busy food market under the shade of mature trees the length of one street; confident 2D and 3D street art; exuberant flower displays in the streets that are watered at night through a cunning irrigation system built into the hooks that hold them up; a diverse population; a joyous children's centre (extra). I could have spent much longer here but my ferry is booked for the morning.