Apartments in Cannes

Film Festival

2010-05-12T06:10:00.000+01:00

Well, its the last day of my pre-festival week in Cannes checking the apartments and doing a few jobs. The new fence has been installed at last which is a momentus occasion considering how long it has taken to get here! The assemble generale (residents meeting) was an eye opener and went on for over three hours - on a day when the sun was really hot for the first time during my stay. Thanks to Christian who translated for me - my French is still not good enough for complicated meetings etc. though I have been practicing all week and my French teacher wwould be proud of my determination to try - even though many people replied in English so my accent is obviously not perfect!
The atmosphere has changed in the last few days and Cannes is now packed full of men in black suits and black sunglasses, huge groups of excited tourists running around with cameras and people cleaning and painting everything - I even saw them painting the pavement last night! The beach, however, was lovely and deserted so I managed an hour or two of peace and quiet before I came back to clean apartment Leon ready for our Film Festival arrivals late today, the guests are return visitors from last year so I'm sure they will settle in quickly. The lovely Becs will clean this apartment as soon as I leave for the airport in half an hour - assuming the ash cloud doesn't suddenly decend back over France or the UK airspace so watch this space I may be here for the Film Festival if it does!
Bye for now from Sunny Cannes.

Spring Time In Cannes!!

2010-02-16T10:04:00.005Z

I can't believe it got so cold this winter that it was snowing in Cannes and even in Monaco, Becs sent me a lovely photo of the view of Snowy Cannes and it is surreal!

Well at last the sun has come out and our guests are enjoying their trips to the South of France. I had a lovely email form Mark who stayed for Midem in January, which which I have included below - it makes my day to get lovely emails from happy guests. Our MIPIM guests have just left so I hope they will have had an equally good time during their trip. Our current guest who has stayed with us before will hopefully be enjoying some early spring sunshine on the Cote D'Azur.

I am certainly looking forward to getting over there for a week to get a few little jobs done and make sure the apartments are ready for the busy summer ahead. I will also be there to finalise the fence saga ... 18 months to get permission to swap a wooden fence for a wrought iron one! Oh my goodness the cogs grind slowly sometimes but it will be worthwhile and will look really smart when it is all installed and finished.

My French is coming along slowly (very slowly) but I am really enjoying it and looking forward to practicing my new (if limited) vocabulary in a few weeks time. Thankfully it won't all be hard work as my sister and a couple of friends are flying out for the weekend to keep me company and share a few bottles of the local wine!

All the conferences are booked up now until the boat show in September and I have been really busy taking summer bookings - we only have a few weeks left in June, July and August so get in touch soon if you are interested. Speaking of which I have paperwork to do and guests to email so I will leave it there for now.

Enjoy the sunshine in England this weekend whilst we have some!

Kerry

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Hi Kerry,

Just back in NI this afternoon, what can I say, your apartment was perfect! I would be really keen on doing future rentals with you for other events, I have been singing its praises to a friend of mine in New Mexico (we do the same type of job) and he is also keen on maybe using it as well.
The flowers and Moet were perfect (thanks again for helping me with that) just perfect.

The meeting and greeting was spot on, could not have worked out better
The apartment was spotless, what can I say 100%
Bed made, 100% comfy (did crack my head first morning, my fault)
Well equipped for our needs , slight internet problem which you helped sort out (this was our only slight problem)

Knowing Cannes pretty well for the past 15 years was a real advantage as I knew exactly where I was, and for the first time ever I felt like a local and loved it. The apartment was PERFECT for the needs of my stay, close the watering holes and restaurants and very pleasant 10 min walk from the Palais (how could the walk past he marina not put you in a good mood every morning?)I have raved about it to my friends and co workers am torn between wanting to share it and to keep it a close secret for my use!.

Thank you once again, I look forward to my next stay

Kind regards Mark

The summer is over

2009-11-22T16:44:00.005Z

Well, things have slowed down now for the winter season and poor Hannah can have a bit of a rest for a while! Hannah now looks after our apartments and ensures they are clean and ready for arrivals, she also meets our guests when they arrive at the apartment, shows them round and hands over the keys. Together with Becs doing airport transfers for us we think they are doing a fantastic job and we have had some lovely reviews from happy guests - which is what it's all about.

We already have bookings for next summer - including one that came directly from a recommendation from a friend of theirs who stayed in one of our apartments this summer, its great to have people booked in who have stayed with us before - a huge compliment to have people back again, we have had a few of those so far.

Back here in rainy England I have started my French lessons at night school and, I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying them and looking forward to our next visit to Cannes so I can try out my new (if limited) language skills!

The fence saga continues ... last week they finally agreed that we can replace the wooden fence around apartment Leon's terrace with a new wrought iron one. The only snag is we have to delay the installation until the Assemble Generale next June when they will "rubber stamp" the application at the annual residents meeting. Oh dear the cogs grind so slowly in France it is very frustrating - especially as the fence is already made and paid for and sat in a workshop waiting for the go-ahead.

As you will see I have finally sorted out the problems uploading alterations to our website so all the new Leon bedroom photographs are online now and the information about apartment Louie having the new air conditioning installed in the bedroom.

Film Festival and Fences

2009-05-17T10:59:00.005+01:00

Well, this year's Cannes Film Festival is going into its second week and we haven't heard anything from our guests so I guess they must be having a great time. The weather is thankfully much better than last year when it rained and rained throughout the Film Festival - so unusual for May in the South of France. I was there in the sunshine only last week with four of my lovely friends for a pre-birthday girls only weekend - and it seems forever ago already. Roll on august when I will be there again.

We updated the bedroom in "Leon" during the Easter holidays with a pretty French blue & white duvets and wall & new bedside table and accessories but unfortunately my updated website will not upload due to a very frustrating glitch - another job on my seemingly endless list of jobs.

The first of next weeks jobs include chasing up the date of the next Assemblé General - that is the annual meeting of the apartment owners in our building, along with the managing company, to discuss what the money is spent on and to give permission for any work we want to do.
We have a white fence around the terrace which we are going to replace with a beautiful wrought iron fence which is much more in keeping with the rest of the building and will look much smarter. We hoped to have it done by spring but the cogs move very slowly in France and we have had to be patient and wait for permission - though saying that we have already ordered our fence and paid half up front so fingers crossed they don't say no to our request!!! Our limited ability with the French language causes us major headaches with jobs like this - more on my to do list .... book more French lessons for September.

We are still surprised in the present climate how booked up we are, people started booking much earlier and with the exception of 1 week in July for each apartment we are fully booked now until early September. In fact I only just managed to squeeze in a couple of weeks for us!

I will leave it at that for my very first post as I have a list of guests to email today to arrange arrivals and to return security deposits.