Homewards

Well, we are now on our way home, but I must backtrack a little.

Our last week in France has been pretty busy. Wednesday saw us having lunch with our Norwegian/Swedish friends and Thursday we made our last trip into Perpignan. We had to collect some tile plinths we had ordered but also fitted in a side-trip to Decathlon (like a mega Rebel Sports store) to buy a bike rack for the back of the car. It will take 3 bikes and we can probably fit a 4^th on the roof-rack or inside the boot, so we are all set for some cycle-touring planned with friends next year.

Some English friends called in for dinner on Thursday night, on the way back up the valley to their lovely mas (farmhouse). A wonderful evening was had by all. Friday saw us praying for news of our mattress, with the latest being that it would definitely be delivered on Monday. It had been picked up by an ‘express’ deliverer, supposedly. We made it abundantly clear that Monday was the absolute last possible day. We had a friend who does changeovers around to show her the apartment in case we have guests before we return.

Saturday was our last market day. We tried to absorb the atmosphere and ingrain it into our memory. A lot of friendly goodbyes to French friends and acquaintances on Sunday morning, but the packing and last minute jobs were fairly much finished by Sunday lunchtime so we jumped in the car and headed to the coast. We planned a last hour or so of sunbathing and after trying Les Criques (a bit shady this late in the year with daylight saving having happened overnight) managed a most pleasant hour at the beach of Argeles. It became a little windy so we packed up and wandered around the port and marina of Argeles instead. We didn’t realise there was so much in the way of apartments, cafes, restaurants and shops there. It is definitely worth a proper visit next year. We were amused by somebody pulling a large trailer out from the sea, leaving his boat behind leaning to one side, firmly grounded on the boat-ramp.

Time to head home to Céret. We had organised with our Swedish mate Mats to store our car in the garage of a friend of his in Le Boulou, not far from Céret. We duly dropped the car at Mats and Marianne’s place and said a final farewell. Mats is renovating his own mas and is aiming to have it finished by 17 May next year (Norway’s national day). We would be returning a bit before then so would be in good time for a great house-warming party.

By Monday we were mentally ready to go.  We had finished all the necessary tasks, but there are plenty of little finishing jobs for the apartment to amuse us next year when we get back. The one outstanding major item was the mattress. Horrors – we got a text early in the morning saying it will be delivered tomorrow. Obviously impossible as we would have been on our way. A very disappointed Karen. I sent a few emails back and forth, and agreed that they would store it until we got back – all too far away and we hate to imagine how many times it would be lost in the meantime. However….just before lunch a call from the delivery people saying they’d be in Céret this afternoon, and since they had a big truck they couldn’t get into the centre where we are. Many minutes of fast voluble French, some quick negotiating and they agreed to deliver provided we would pick it up on one of the larger streets. We didn’t care. Anything to get the mattress. 

At the appointed hour we were down at Place de la Liberte with the previous mattress all wrapped ready for them to take it back.

Got a call from the driver at 3pm, saying he was down by the Capelleta, not where we were, but no problem. I ran down and met him, then lugged the new (and correct) mattress to Place des 9 Jets. He was very pleasant and helpful, and offered to take it upstairs, a most welcome offer. Now for taking back the old mattress – no I can’t do that, I have no order for it. Are you sure? Yes, I’d have another order for that. So back down to Karen stranded at Liberte with the wrapped mattress , and a struggle back upstairs with the old mattress. No alternative but to put it back on the bed as a second base. The new mattress on top is pretty high now! However, no doubt that the new one is what we ordered back in July, and it is properly comfortable. We can confirm on Monday morning that the new mattress was well worth the wait, in all respects.

A climb onto our double-mattressed bed

Monday morning we were up in good time. Bruno at Bar le Pablo insisted on giving us a coffee to see us on our way, as we headed down to the 1 Euro bus into Perpignan for the TGV to Barcelona. So here we are on the train. It’s been another amazing year for us in Céret. The apartment has been a big effort, plenty of tricky negotiating and arranging, but so worth the effort. When we look back objectively, 4 months to transform an empty shell into a superb home was not bad at all. When we started we were thinking of it as a renovation, but the reality was that it was a totally new build in a very awkward location. We feel we coped very well with all the hassles thrown at us, particularly the appalling bad luck we had with deliveries. The sale of our first apartment went very well – we actually made enough to pay for our costs to return to Céret for a good number of years. Having the mattress sorted on the final afternoon was an unexpected bonus, and put a nice final full-stop on the year in France.

We cannot wait to be back in 2015. We need to spend some time in the apartment to enjoy our labours, and we have made an amazing number of really good friends in Céret - French, English, Scandinavian and more. Our French has improved dramatically this year, but we both want to push it along another step, and will have the time to do so in 2015, unless of course we do something stupid like buy another project house!

Last week for 2014

The final week countdown has begun. I must say we will be sad to leave. Rather like 2012, we have worked very hard, but have run out of time at the end of our year to enjoy our amazing location. At least this year we have managed to end with a few weeks of R&R.

On Monday we met another nice couple over morning coffee, then headed off to lunch with our artist photographer friends, near Banyuls des Aspres. Steve has owned his place, a lovely barn conversion, for years. It has many of the qualities we'd be after in our next place, should that ever eventuate. Outdoor space under cover, a few trees, and a pool! Lunch was extremely enjoyable and took quite some time, as it does, and we ended up leaving after 5pm! Still lovely clear warm weather, even nicer than normal for this time of year.

The evening we spent preparing for tomorrow's lunch for our French friends. It was going well until we found the boeuf bourguignon (actually an Italian version) was clearly salted, though I had not added any salt, and one of our friends needs to avoid salt. It must have been the stock cube which I hadn't allowed for, so that meant a rerun in the morning, but a nice meal ready for later in the week.

The mattress saga continues. I rang them up again today, to find they'd done nothing on Friday about getting us the replacement. Supposedly, the new one will be sent today, or the day after or whatever. An email a little later saying it can't be sent today, but will arrive early next week. Unfortunately we won't still be after Monday. Another email back to him to tell him this (again) and a reply saying "Noted". We refuse to be worried about it!

Lunch with our French friends was lots of fun. As always a good mix of French and English spoken, but clearly way more French than there used to be.

R & R, finally

It's over a week since we got back from Spain now and we seem to have been as busy as ever, but in a more enjoyable slower manner. We've been trying to finish off what odd jobs we can, e.g. putting up the large mirror and hanging the curtain in the bathroom, oiling the handrail in the mezzanine and so on. We've also had two trips to Perpignan. The first was a full day at the usual building supply shops returning goods we don't need, replacing them with others, buying new tools like a tile cutter, buying our last round of muesli to see us through to the end of October and the like. 

We are definitely on countdown mode, and have been doing a lot during our last few weeks here. On Thursday we drove into town with two friends (English and Canadian) to have lunch at the Michelin star restaurant that we took Alastair to in June. Back then it had one Michelin star but it now has two, while the price remains the same at 23€ for a three-course lunch. If anything, the food was even better this time and we spent a delicious few hours.The food was fresh, beautifully presented, very tasty and overall, just superb.

Dorade on a celeriac mousse, roast celeriac and red Figueres onion sauce

Of course the saga with our mattress continues, despite it appearing to be sorted. After having it (stupidly) delivered last Wednesday while we were in Spain as we had told them we would be, it was taken back to some depot somewhere, possibly Beziers. Anyway, we had to wait another whole week before they headed back to Ceret with it. Voila, they arrived at 10am on Wednesday earlier this week and cheerfully brought it upstairs. Yippee. A mattress. Straight after they had gone we jumped on the bed - wow, that's firm! I had always been concerned they would try to fob us off with any old mattress after they had mislaid ours, and we had made sure to check the delivery docket that it was exactly what we had ordered. 

However, we both found it hard to sleep and I woke up with a sore lower back. We both grumbled away, searched for the tape-measure and sure enough, the bed was shallower than expected by about 5cm - the top cushioning. It wasn't the bed we had ordered. John managed to get hold of the bed company via email and we actually got a reasonably prompt reply saying he would investigate the matter and get back in touch the next day (today). Needless to say, no word by mid-morning so John rang him. The reply, unbelievably, was that we'd got a new model of the bed we had ordered, and yes it was supposed to have 5cm less depth. However, he would try and source an 'old model'. That left us feeling very suspicious they had just tried to put one over us. Given their track record, how were we going to get one bed collected and another delivered with only one full week to go? We are now feeling more hopeful though, with the latest correspondence saying a mattress matching what we had ordered in July had been located and would be despatched 'express'. Fingers, toes, elbows and ankles crossed it will arrive next week, and be the same as the mattress we had at Place de l'Eglise.

Now I've got that off my chest, I can relate some of the socialising we are enjoying. We recently met a Canadian woman, an artist, who is here for a few weeks. She lived in Céret for six months last year. We invited her around for apero last evening, and co-incidentally received a text from two English artists who had arrived back in town for four days. The first of them is also an artist, the other a photographer, and they are over for a weekend exhibition in a village not far from Céret. We had bought two of the artist's small pieces when he was here with his wife a few months ago. They ended up around here for the apero too, so some  English-Canadian networking was done over the wine and cheese. A very pleasant evening. We have since been invited to have lunch with them on Monday. 

Friday evening we had invited a lovely Norwegian couple, Radar and Karin, around for apero. We had got to know them a little at Bar Pablo. They have been coming to Ceret for 14 years and we are looking forward to seeing a lot more of them next year. 

On Monday we drove up the valley to have lunch with English friends who live in a tiny hamlet, and the extremely enjoyable protracted lunch/afternoon tea for eight people could not have been bettered. We finally learned that our host has in fact been a professional caterer, so that explains the incredible lunches we have enjoyed at their table on a number of occasions.

On another note, today has been great fun in terms of integrating into the French community here. It began with our usual pre-breakfast walk, where we chatted with a local Catalan homeowner and part-time horticulturalist who we often pass but had not before spoken with. We talked about looking for mushrooms beside the road and the cèpe season which is now in full swing, and apparently very good this year. Voila, we found a very large  mushroom not too far on and picked it. John asked a French woman we met if it was indeed a cèpe, a much sought after variety ('porcini' in Italian). She thought it was, We bumped into our Catalan man again and he congratulated us.  Next stop was the pharmacy, where everyone goes to get their mushroom collection checked out. A fellow customer approved our find, as did the pharmacist. Lot of French spoken so far and we hadn't even had breakfast. 

Our first cèpe

John excitedly sliced up the cèpe and cooked it with garlic, butter, eggs and milk. What a tasty omelette. John got even more excited and wanted to go cèpe hunting. I wasn't as keen but we thought we'd tackle our 1½ hour walk up above Ceret, through the forests, and see if we could score any cèpes along the way. We set off at 11am and were back again at 1:30pm, after doing lots of successful foraging along the way. About 15 large cèpes found their way into our collection bag. 

Coming back down the track, fallen chestnut husks everywhere

Coming back into Ceret. The tall plane trees in the centre mark the old part of town.

First stop was Bar Pablo for a coffee and all three waiters, two of them seasoned mushroom collectors, gave us opinions on our finds. A random customer noticed, and showed us photos of his most recent collection, as did two of the waiters. One had collected 21 and 32 kilos the previous two days. We are onto a winner here - obviously cèpe-hunting is a major community activity and one highly approved of for us to be involved in. More French spoken and everything is going swimmingly. Next, the chef was outside the restaurant below our apartment as we trickled home and he gave us a big thumbs up and told us how to dry the mushrooms and cook them. Wow, what a fun morning.

Our first proper cèpe haul - verified by the pharmacist

Walking in the door of our place just before 2pm, we managed to arrive before the real estate agent who had sold us this apartment arrived. He was keen to see what we had done. He was pretty much in raptures of what we have achieved with the place, and gave us a very nice figure of what he thinks it might be worth. He's a really nice guy and we chatted away for quite a while. More French spoken.

A rapid trip to the local supermarket to stock up on more wine and cheese and get our new collection of mushrooms verified by the pharmacist. We bumped into other Norwegian/Swedish friends and now have lunch booked for next Wednesday.

We still have a key to our old apartment building entry and used this to retrieve our bicycles which we still had stored in the top level storeroom. Managed to get these down the three stories and wheeled them to a friend's place just around the corner. He's very happy for us to store them as long as we like in his very large ground-level cellar - very helpful and a big improvement on having them 3 floors up.

Rapidly back to our place and just in time to receive our Norwegian friends for apero.  John is now looking up recipes of how to use our hard-earned cèpes in a dish for the lunch we have invited our best French friends to on Tuesday. We have been to a number of lunches at their respective homes and are invariably treated to excellent French cuisine, so we are hoping we can pull off something tasty in return.

I'm very much enjoying all the French I'm speaking. I've had conversations with well over a dozen French people today, some simply social, some necessary to keep life running smoothly. We've both come a long way with our French. It is quite a buzz having a decent conversation in a foreign language, and a major help in being accepted into the community here.

These last few weeks have been really enjoyable. Work has settled down for both of us, with Karen's book having gone to print, and me having the first Friday I can remember without a work email to be actioned over the weekend. The weather has been just gorgeous, with most days clear and sunny, and still in the mid-20s. Many people say September-October are lovely months here, and we can only agree.

We have certainly been enjoying our new-found freedom. On Saturday after the market we headed out to have a look at Port-Vendres. We really enjoyed our stays in Spain on the coast, and have been thinking way into the future, about where we might want to settle down (should that ever happen!). A coastal location has always appealed to us, so we thought we would check out Port-Vendres before we leave France this time. Most interesting. We had a good walk through the village, to realise that it consists of the waterfront row of shops and restaurants, and not a lot else. Compared to Céret it is drab, untidy and clearly less well-maintained. With a little disappointment, we headed back to Céret having decided once and for all that Port-Vendres isn't a place for us to live in. There is so much about Céret that suits us that it looks like being our northern home for some long time to come.

On the way back home we diverted into Palau-del-Vidre, a town which specialises in glass-blowing. A very smart and clearly affluent little town, full of activity with families young and old out and about. We were fortunate to be able to watch a glass artist making a couple of gorgeous balls for banister-ends. Fascinating. Another place to add to the "list of places to take friends and visitors".

Sunday had us back out in the Roussillon plains, this time to a little art festival in the generously-named Sainte-Colombe-de-la-Commanderie (hardly more buildings than words in the name). Our excuse was that friends were exhibiting, but half the enjoyment is ignoring the GPS once in a while, and enjoying the little country lanes and villages we pass through while it gets us back on track. Some of the little places on the way were really sweet. We couldn't live in them though - no 7-day bakery, and worse still, no cafes with proper espresso coffee.

Typical view of the Roussillon plains - little roads, vines, copses of trees, dotted villages

We stopped off on the way home at a random spot for some more cèpe-hunting, again successful. They really are prolific this year. I do enjoy a bit of hunter-gathering. I suspect the French do too. I have read a number of times that they still like to think of themselves as people of the land, and I imagine that going out and gathering wild food helps them feel that way.

We are already looking forward to being back here in 2015, without a place to renovate, as there is still so much to explore, and an increasing number of places so good they require return visits.

Away to Palamos

Having reread the last blog entry and feeling then we were finally in a position to unwind, well, scrub that. At least for the week following the house-warming anyway. Last week was one to forget about really. We thought we had various things in hand but ended up totally frazzled by Friday. Chasing our mattress, which was somewhere in France, was turning into a nightmare. After our zillionth email to the company they finally came back and said "Oh yes, there is a mattress in our warehouse and we'll send it out to the delivery people tomorrow". Hooray. A phone call confirmed we should get it at the end of the following week. We had been intending to have a week away in northern Spain as our much needed holiday next week, so plans for that changed yet again. The earlier vision of two weeks in Corsica and one week in Italy had disappeared into the ether many moons ago. 

Anyway, we also finally managed to make contact with our builder again (after walking twice to his remote depot) and various email and phone messages left on his cellphone and with his receptionist. "Oh yes, we can come back next week and finish off the stair-rail, leaking skylight and everything else." We agreed on Thursday, hence our holiday in Spain was now reduced to Sat-Wed. He better jolly well turn up.

John's work has cranked up again and he only ever seems to tread water with it - keeping up with the daily demands without actually being able to advance the new project work to be done. I was also trying to wrap up the last of the editing of John's father's diary and was running around in circles a bit. We were both burning the midnight oil. All-in-all, we packed our bags on Friday night and left town early on Saturday morning. At the last minute we'd booked a place right on the waterfront in Palamos, a town we had visited about 3 weeks before.The apartment is in a divine location, looking right over the marina, where we can watch the fishermen working away on their boats. It is now Tuesday evening and I can genuinely say we have had a fantastic time here. It's been the total break we have desperately needed.

View from our apartment over Palamos marina

It's time again for some observations. It's been fascinating spending a decent amount of time in Spain, and properly relaxed time at that. We've spent a number of hours at a cafe with specially comfy seats, having a coffee (if it's morning) or beer (if it's not). We don't think being in a holiday resort, as Palamos clearly is, shows you the best of people. There is a shocking number of pot-bellies here, male and female, young and old. The worst was a day when a cruise ship berthed, and the average weight of the town went up by 15kg.

We have been trying to search for an explanation of the size and shape of the Spaniards. They are decidedly larger, taller and more heavily-built than the French we are used to. It defies the normal logic that peoples get smaller as they live closer to the equator, also the Moors were slight, so added Moorish stock doesn't add up either. Perhaps the larger northern Vandal and Goth stock didn't settle in southern France, but kept going until northern Spain.

Had one very strange experience, which perhaps says we have been away from NZ for quite some time. A young couple with two kids in tow went past, and the woman spoke something to her husband, in an unusual clipped accent. We looked at each other in surprise and thought wow, that's the first time either of us had noticed a New Zealand accent as an actual accent rather than just normal. It was seriously "beached az", if you've seen the Youtube clip.

On the subject of New Zealanders, we for some reason are assumed to be French here in Spain, and not English. Perhaps it is the way we pronounce Hola on greeting people, there are few other clues as far as we can tell. When in France we typically get taken as being Dutch, Belgian, German or sometimes English.

It is now Thursday - to return to the story, our time in Palamos was perfect. Some of the highlights were the wonderful walking tracks around the coast. The coastline is heavily indented into gorgeous little coves, sandy or rocky beaches, well tree'd headlands, tiny little paths down to the shore, rock walls galore, some extremely grand and well walled-off residences, tunnels, old fishermen's dwellings now used as family holiday homes, the odd ruin (e.g. a 6000BC Iberian village on one peninsula) the occasional bar or restaurant at the back of a beach, lots of happy sunbathers. We could have walked forever along the coast, the track connecting villages and towns for a huge distance. We managed a trek north of 3 hours one day and south for 4 hours another. It was just beautiful, and something we are very keen to come back and repeat - next year.

The walking track weaves its way around this sort of rugged coastline

Old fishermen's huts, now used as baches. All the residents obviously know one another extremely well.

Iberian village, 6000BC, on one of the peninsulas north of Palamos.

The original fishermen's huts typically are tiny with barrelled roofs.

Typical cove, though some are much smaller.

Taking the waters

On the walk south, having reached Platja d'Aro two hours along the track, we felt in desperate need for some sustenance. We chose a local bar where great, simple and authentic Spanish food was served. It was not particularly elegant but was delicious, and the experience was all the better for the loud banter between the locals, usually between tables on the opposite sides of the bar. It was really fun to be in the mix. We didn't really intend to eat very much but it was hard to turn down a 3 course meal, with bread, water and wine all for just 9 Euro. And of course, it wasn't just a glass of wine each but a bottle. If one of us had wanted a red wine and the other a white we would have had two bottles given to us. The singles at the tables all had a bottle as part of their menu del dia. It was with a new (slightly loose) spring in our step that we set back off for the two hour walk home. 

You wouldn't believe the noise level. One table of 4 men made as much noise as an entire New Zealand restaurant. The Spaniards talk very loudly, and often have quite resonant voices, no doubt pitched for carry and volume. There is a lot of talking from one table to another, or from the footpath to tables well away. Talking all at once is another speciality. It was amazing to be caught in the middle of a particularly loud set of talkers.

Locals' bar where we had lunch.. Wearing only our running gear we didn't feel out of place.

When we weren't walking we did the exact opposite of exercise and either ate (local fish cuisine), drank (coffees or beers on the waterfront), lay prone (on the beach or as a siesta), sat (people-watched, read, looked at the marina), wandered (shopping or totally aimless) and talked. What a fine time.

We had one particularly enjoyable dinner in Palamos. The food was nothing amazing, but the hosts were great, He was a Frenchman from one of the various Villeneuves near Boulou. 

Palamos is a lively fishing port, though not as many fishing boats go out daily as used to be the case. The fish market was right below us at the marina. It really was something to see the fishing boats tie up at one end, the men bring the fish into the building and the women (wives?) sell it immediately to the public.

The men unload the fish and box some of it for dispatch

The women sell some of the catch at the front of the fish market

Our favourite fish - sonsos on the left (sand-eels), anchovies, sardines on the right.

On the way home on Wednesday we spent the morning at Calella de Palafrugell, a lovely little coastal town we discovered a wee while ago. It is very pretty but alas, being October, it is now virtually shut up. The tourists have mostly gone, many of the restaurants, bars, gelaterias and shops have closed, and those that are open have very high prices. We had contemplated staying here but are now very glad we opted for Palamos - a much bigger place, with a large resident Spanish population, and lots more to see and do, though clearly not as picturesque.

View back to Calella from the coastal track

We now feel very much refreshed and ready to tackle what will no doubt be a fairly busy last three weeks in Céret. It would have been easy to stay longer in Palamos but had to get back to Céret for the delivery of our mattress (late in the week) and for our builder on Thursday. Well, I guess you won't be surprised to hear that we got a call on John's cellphone on Wednesday morning when we were walking the coastal track at Calella saying, voila, "We are in the square below your apartment and can you come down and sign for the mattress". John was really annoyed. So dumb. Having made a date to deliver it late in the week, they came early, hadn't contacted or confirmed an earlier appointment with us and then were no doubt miffed they had to turn around and take the mattress back again. They wouldn't leave it in our hallway, though we would be home later in the day.

So, we continue to be mattress-less, no word from them today but at least we know there is a mattress somewhere out there. Even better, the builder's workman turned up on time today and is currently walking around on our roof, and at the same time hopefully resealing our roof where we have had a few drips in. We have about four odd jobs for his to finish, including the stair handrail. I have a list of 12 jobs for John and me to do, but we will probably only get 3-4 done. We have to have something to do when we return next year after all. I'm sure we will find plenty to occupy ourselves.

Other news - Alastair arrived in Auckland at 4am on Wednesday morning. My brother collected him and later delivered him to the US embassy for his visa appointment. About 10 words later the interview was over, and now he has a week in Auckland to wait for his passport to be returned, complete with stamp. He's currently spending a few days with my Dad in Pukekohe, and I imagine will be enjoying each other's company greatly.

The House is Warmed

It's impossible to believe it's under 3 months since work started on the new apartment. It feels like a good five months of non-stop work. Initially it was all about arranging, organising, negotiating and planning. It then moved onto checking, and then to real physical labour after the bulk of the building work had been completed. As we sit back finally and enjoy the fruits of our labours, the commencement of work is a distant memory.

We are in a totally different frame of mind as we look on what what has happened since last weekend. We were going full-steam ahead trying to get as much done before our housewarming party on the upcoming Saturday night. John spent virtually two whole days helping the builder's mate who finally turned up to install the balustrade around the mezzanine and top of the stairway. Despite being a carpenter (menuisier) for 20-odd years, he seemed to have a limited idea of how to go about things in the best way and John was virtually telling him how to do it and doing 50% of the work. Frustrating. They finished at 6pm on Friday night. We spent the next couple of hours emptying out the spare bedroom of all the junk it had accumulated. So nice to see the rooms finally emerging from the building mess.

Mezzanine railings up, desks assembled

In the meantime my focus was on ironing, hemming and hanging wardrobe curtains, finishing painting in the top level of the apartment stairwell and scrubbing decades of dirt off the stairs. Between that and various other jobs we zipped into Perpignan for yet more supplies and tools. The cutter we purchased for cutting some of the tiles we propose to put up as an upstand between the bathroom and toilet basins and their respective mirrors failed spectacularly. The first tile broke, meaning we didn't have enough left to finish the whole job. Another trip into Perpignan is on the cards, probably later this week.

Friday was a whirlwind of getting the place tidied (yet again) and cleaned (273rd time perhaps) in anticipation of the party. However, a momentous occasion was anticipated to occur at 7.30am on Friday morning. THE BEDS. In fact we had set the alarm for 7am because our beds had been promised to be delivered between 7.30 and 8am. Yippee. We let down our airbed and jumped on it with glee to help dispatch the air from within. Everything was in readiness. The clutter in the spare room had been dispersed to appropriate storage places, all the tools and materials stacked as well as could be achieved against the back wall in the mezzanine and all was in place for our delivery. 

And, behold, the truck duly turned up on time. He wasn't happy about the entry into the square, and was checking his mirrors which had clearly taken a scrape on the narrow lane. The driver proceeded to carry our bits and pieces upstairs. The single bases and mattresses arrived for the spare room, the base appeared for our room, but, hold on..... where's the double mattress. "Oh, we don't have that". I just couldn't believe it. After waiting since July, when we originally ordered the beds, our mattress hadn't appeared. We promptly rang the company again. "Oh, yes, it appears we've lost your mattress. Sorry". The remedy promised was to build another mattress. "How long will that take?" "Oh, I don't know" Now, do I remember someone suggesting to us a while ago that we should write a book about our experiences of buying and renovating in France? I think it might turn into a horror book if we actually get around to writing it some day. 

Spare room all set for guests

So, back to square one. Blow up the mattress again. But, this time we have the joys of a base to put it on. Now we just about have to jump up onto it. It could be worse though - we do actually sleep very well on it, but it was very disappointing.

And so that was the start of Friday. Given our early start we nipped down to our local baker and put in an order for 3 fougasse (savoury or sweet Catalan pizzas) and some breadsticks for tomorrow's house-warming. We stocked up on other necessities at the market on Saturday morning - olives, tapenade and such like - and spent the afternoon prepping food. John's pavlova didn't come out quite as well as previous ones but still proved delicious when plated up later that evening, as did the aubergine fritters, courgette bruschetta and chocolate brownies with fudge sauce. Excellent, all the bits of our kitchen work fine, and it is plenty large enough for two cooks.

A wedding celebration in the square below s on Saturday afternoon.

We are totally thrilled with 3 Place de Neuf Jets. It has worked out even better than we thought, room by room. The mezzanine is a lovely place to work, the living room no longer has the desk in it so is much more relaxing, the kitchen works very well, and the bedrooms are great. The lighting has been a great success, and when Ikea finally delivered, their furniture has fitted in perfectly. All the hassles have clearly been worth the effort, and we have personally got through it all unscathed! All the same, having the work behind us is a great relief.

People started arriving for our housewarming at 6pm and we had the full complement of over 20 an hour later. Everyone generously brought a plate and we were soon awash with food, wine and bonhomie. What a wonderful time we had, kicked off early by a friend offering a toast to John and I for our perseverance (in the face of perverse French delivery people and tradesmen), vision (for envisaging how to knock the apartment into shape) and execution (for having knocked it into such good shape). It definitely gave both John and I a warm fuzzy feeling and we really were chuffed to have such a nice bunch of friends to share our achievement with. 

In fact, when we discussed it later, John and I feel that one of the successes of the party was to bring together a real mix of people. Many had seen others in the street for years but not been introduced, some lived further out of town, others had heard about others and so on. The mix was thoroughly international with Aussies, English, Norwegians, a Swede and us New Zealanders. We thought our French friends would be rather overwhelmed so we are planning to invite them separately to lunch shortly. Anyway, everyone said what a wonderful time they had had, and how interesting it was to meet new people. So a success all round, we think.

Our house-warming

However, the climax of Saturday's party shrinks into the background when put alongside the other highlight of the week. John and I are very proud and excited grandparents-to-be, as Bella and Nic are expecting a child in March next year. They have kept things pretty quiet until they had the Week 13 scan. They have a follow-up scan waiting until we arrive at the very end of October. We will get to count all the fingers and toes for ourselves. At that stage they will be able to tell the sex of the baby, and are keen to know. I think they have names ready and waiting. The same can not be said for John and I. I'm afraid we can not see ourselves as "Granny", "Nana" or "Granddaddy" so have been trying out all sorts of variations on each other during the past few days. John has pretty much has found something he'd like - "Papa John". I'm still struggling with my own options! In all likelihood by the time the baby is able to come out with a few words it will have decided for itself what it will call us. That's all in the future of course, in the meantime we are just chuffed to bits, and are already planning our trip to Melbourne next March.

Well, to top off a week of celebration, today saw another surprise. Ever since we bought our first property in Ceret in 2009, we have enjoyed the company of, and admired the paintings of, an interesting artist who has his gallery only a few doors away in Place de L'Eglise. He is a very successful painter, exhibiting in Shanghai, Nice and elsewhere, living part-time here and part-time in Menton. We have become good friends with him over the years. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he may give away his gallery here in Ceret, though he will still come back periodically (it is his hometown) to produce more of his landscape paintings. He spied us having our coffee outside Bar Pablo this morning and came bounding over. As he thinks he may not be coming to Céret as often, he wanted us to have one of his paintings. We had always wanted one, but his normal prices were beyond our means, so we had resigned ourselves to just enjoying a lovely book of his paintings that he'd given us. However Denis gave us an offer to make it possible. On looking at his current collection later, there was one which we both took a particular fancy to, and of course it was the biggest one he had. Ouch. A waterfront scene of Port-Vendres, a gorgeous fishing port town on the coast not far from here. He suggested we take it up to our place to see how it looked, and of course it looked even better propped against our rock wall. We decided to buy it, went back to ask him over to see where we planned to put it and he bounded up our three flights. He was pretty chuffed when he saw it, and so are we! It will definitely be something we will cherish forever, especially knowing the painter and the scene so well.

Denis Ribas and his painting

Right now, it is 6pm on Monday night and absolutely hosing down outside. The weather has definitely turned autumnal with the leaves changing colour. The air is a lot cooler, people are wearing trousers, there are very few tourists and the place is much quieter. Mid-September marks the end of the main tourist season, judging by the suddenly empty restaurant seats below us each lunchtime and night. 

Three couples we know are leaving this week. Ceret all of a sudden feels as though it is hunkering down in preparation for winter. John and I are planning to finally take the holiday we have been promising ourselves for the last 3 months and hope to drive to Spain on Friday and find a nice little town on the coast where we can plonk ourselves on the sand (weather permitting), eat copious amounts of fresh seafood for lunch and dinner and generally recover from the pressure of renovation. We will probably be away about a week, having a lunch up the valley with a group of friends booked in for 13th October. We will only have two weeks after that, no doubt doing lots of small jobs around the apartment until we start winging our way back to the southern hemisphere. First stop is Melbourne for 10 days. I never really thought I'd hear myself say "I can't wait to get to Aus!" Haha. 

As I said above, we are now in a very different headspace to what we were last week. The house has been warmed, the pressure is off, we have a holiday on the horizon, a pregnant daughter to cuddle and a return to friends and family in NZ on the books. To a very large extent, as of Sunday, we felt as though a huge load has been lifted from our shoulders and we can now allow ourselves to relax, fully. In fact, when we sat at Bar Pablo this morning, and let ourselves read a book instead of feeling we had a paintbrush or similar waiting for our urgent attention, it was pretty sobering. We realise we have pushed our limits pretty hard. And for those of you who query when our next project is on the cards, I would like to say, and please keep quoting this back to me, "NOT NEXT YEAR".

Winding Down? Not Yet!

We did think that we finally had things under control and could take a step back from working most of the time on the apartment. Well, not yet it seems.

The kitchen guys worked full-time during the week on the kitchen, and only finally downed tools at 7pm on Thursday night. They did a good job, but John is not totally happy with all of it. Yet another case of the French attitude of 98% is good enough. It is now 2:30pm on Sunday afternoon and he's sanding the edges of the benchtop in preparation for its first coat of oil. We promised ourselves we would have today off work, but there you go ....

To backtrack, while the kitchen men were beavering away John was attacking the peeling paint in the top level of the stairwell and spent most of the week scraping, plastering and then painting the walls. Some of the walls were new, i.e. those for our internal stairs. Our apartment legally includes the last level of stairs and stairway so we wanted to get rid of the scummy yellowed paint and replace it with a bright new white finish anyway. The two other owners in the co-proprietary have agreed to get the rest of the stairwell painted white, the dilapidated but pretty wooden front door cleaned and oiled, new letterboxes installed in the lobby, electric interphone installed at the front door and new electric lock. All-in-all it is a major shake-up for the building and will be a huge improvement. 

The lessee of the restaurant downstairs is also going to upgrade his signage and front of the restaurant. He is also about to lease the first floor apartment, which is currently being renovated by the new owner. We are also getting a quote for insurance for the building because it is apparently about 20 years out of date! The second-floor apartment is still for sale, but with the building spruced up as planned, we are hoping someone will want to buy and renovate it. Then the entire facade will have new paint on the shutters, windows and doors and would be looking pretty sharp.

John attacking the stairwell. No easy task on stairs.

I digress. With John working in the stairwell, I tackled the ironwork on the three balustrades. A good dose of steel-wooling, scrubbing, cleaning and finally painting saw them come up a treat. It took a solid day for each. Thursday was substantially spent cleaning inside the apartment. I have lost count of the multitudinous times I have vacuumed and mopped the floors - far more than the number at Walters Bluff during the previous 12 years perhaps (though on second thoughts that doesn't necessarily reflect well on how often I mop the floors in NZ?) Anyway, it has seemed endless because there is always a mess of some sort to clean up and dust just seems to creep through everywhere. 

During the week the builder also came back and finally finished laying the parquet floor in the mezzanine, so that is another job we can tick off the list. And so, at 7pm, when the kitchen men left, we were still contemplating with glee the delights of cooking a meal for the first time in a month. About 15 minutes later, after starting to reduce the piles of kitchenware on the floor and insert them into the designated cupboards (which was a lot of fun) we were both feeling buggered. Too much to do, too little energy to do it with. What was the solution? A trip downstairs to the pizzeria below us, order a pizza and demi of wine, gaze up at the lovely black ironwork on the balconies and contemplate putting the kitchen to rights tomorrow. That's just what we did. 

Attacking the balustrades. Note the 'kitchen' on and under the dining table

Those pink gloves again, now seriously tainted black

We got stuck in on Friday morning and got most things away in the cupboards, dispersed all the piles off the floor, uncovered our dining table, and actually placed dining chairs around it. Voila! We have a dining area and how delighted we are with it! The kitchen has turned out to be larger than we imagined, but so has the dining area. We love the stone wall at the back of the latter, though we have yet to repoint between the stones. That job is on the longer-term list.

The same day we had an lunch date to attend at 1pm but first had an appointment with our electrician. He wanted to finalise the bill, given that a number of things that were in his quote were tweaked as work proceeded. The electrician's outfit is run by two middle-aged French guys, both of which we consider to be smarmy, one far more so than the other. I don't let either of them kiss my cheek (as in the normal greeting here) because I just don't like them that much. They both are verbose, try and talk you around anything and clearly consider they know everything (they sometimes do) and have the upper hand (they definitely do). We had no choice in using them because they work in tandem with our builder and plumber. However, we are civil to them, get on ok, and John converses pretty well with them. End of story, the bill had gone up 1000€.  We want to look at the finer print before we sign if off so left their office feeling fairly miffed. However, I'm sure we can sort it all out amicably.

Far more important was our lunch date and we put the foot down to get there in time. We were heading to the hills, more particularly up our valley to one of the little villages on its northern side, Corsavy, and then a little further on to the tiny hamlet of Leca. We have been here twice before to lunch with some good friends from England, and also to a lunch with their friends (and now ours) who live about 5km further on and even more isolated. What a delightful time we  had. Fine food, fine wine, fine company, a brilliant day, dining on the deck, a wander to the river nearby and generally appreciating the remote forested quiet part of the world in which they live. A gentle 40 minute drive home and all we felt like doing was socialising again so met up with those of our friends who happened to be at Bar Pablo at 7pm and enjoyed an hour of conviviality (but no vino). A very enjoyable day.

The plan for the weekend was to follow in the trend set by the last two, i.e. take it easy and preferably do no work on the apartment. It started off well, A charge up with coffee at Bar Pablo, a quick stop-off at the boulangerie, and we sat down for lunch AT THE TABLE for our first formal dining experience in our apartment. We felt so chuffed :). With the doors open the sounds of the square below drift up, and you feel as though you are dining outside yourself. The babble of conversation, clinking of cutlery and glasses, live jazz from the buskers, swish of the breeze in the trees and one feels replete, in more ways than one. John and I clinked our own glasses in turn.

A first, lunch at the dining table.

Saturday afternoon was a little more energetic. Since our builder needs to have his ladders back,and we'd love to see the end of them too, we were keen to try and finish off painting in the stairwell.. Four hours of hard graft, getting "high" on paint fumes in the confined space, cleaning the stairs yet again, and we have just about finished.  We had bumped into our builder in his local bar on Friday night and he assured us he's now secured the outstanding items for the balustrades around the mezzanine and will be rolling up on Tuesday to install them. Great news. We are expecting he'll be able to take away his ladders and scaffold when he's all done. That will give us even more clear space. The place is definitely getting in order. I've tidied a whole lot of stuff into the wardrobe shelving in the spare room and once we have our two desks and bookcases erected in the mezzanine upstairs that will deal with the books and our work stuff. The only things left to find a home for now are the multitudinous tools, and for those we are planning to build a cupboard/shelf set in the mezzanine. We've bought an extra wardrobe unit to cut and cobble together something to nestle under our sloping ceiling.  

Today is a festival day in Ceret. It's the annual Ronde Ceretane, which is a road race of either 6km or 20km. All shapes and sizes take to it with zest, many in weird and wonderful costumes. The council pays some overseas competitors (Kenyans or similar judging by their sleek physique and fleetness of foot) to encourage a high class field, ensure an ambiance of excitement and challenge, and add lots of fun to the event. It was certainly absolutely amazing to see the first guys just glide by at an enormous rate of knots. The run passes through the main street where crowds wave and cheer, bands play to encourage the runners as they pass, and many others watch the spectacle from their favourite seats in the cafes and bars bordering the course. Part of the festivities is an outdoor lunch, with paella as the main course, in one of the squares. A great fun event, similar to the evening outdoor meal that we've participated in a couple of times during the cherry festival. It's 3:30pm now and I can hear the bands are still going strong. John has just finished giving the benchtop a first coat of oil, and instead of tackling the last round of painting in the stairwell I think we might just sneak out to check out the goings-on around town first.

A well-earned break for the paella cook

Lunch in the square, complete with extremely vigorous local band on the stage at the end.

Last bit - we managed a very quick chat with Alastair yesterday. Unfortunately his Skype link died after only about 5 minutes but it was enough for us to ascertain he is alive, well and continuing to have the time of his life as he traverses South America. He's just finished the Machu Picchu track, but we're not sure what's next on the list. Watch this space...

  

The place is finally coming together.

We are utterly thrilled with the way the whole project has come together. It has exceeded our already high expectations in so many ways. What has surprised us as much as anything is that it feels like a home, whereas the previous apartment felt like an apartment, if you see the difference. This one has a real kitchen, a bedroom away from the living area, room for visitors, and a generous amount of space. We could easily see ourselves living here for a long time, but then with us, who knows what is round the corner!

Kitchen!

An enormous number of boxes containing the kitchen parts arrived on time on Friday afternoon, to be courageously lugged up the three floors by one small but very muscly little fella from Salses. John ended up having quite a chat with him, being a fellow motorcycle enthusiast and also home-renovator. 

A street party with a bunch of friends last Friday night set the scene for a very enjoyable weekend. It was my birthday on Saturday and we managed to get away nice and early at 9:30am (I hear laughing about the lateness of the hour) and drove straight to Palamos in Spain. Our friend Liz had suggested we go to Calella de Palafrugell but we couldn't find any accommodation, nor at nearby Llafranc. The nearest we could get was Palamos, but it's still only 1½ hours away from Céret. Afterwards we found out that Friday had been a local holiday and all the Spanish from Barcelona northwards seemed to have headed for the coast. 

Anyway, Palamos was much bigger than we imagined, and was heaving with people. No worries. We had a wonderful time with a magnificent seafood lunch and people-watching. It's funny. We don't eat much fish at home, but here on the Spanish coast we can't get enough of it. It arrives on your plate only a few hours out of the sea, prepared in all manner of delightful ways, and always with magnificent flavours. Our new firm favourite is a heaped plate of deep-fried flour-dusted tiny fish (sonsos or sand-eels), similar to whitebait. Next would be a similar dish but with fresh fried anchovies. A mixed fish grill is always a surprise as to what it entails, including the heads and tails.

First beers at Palamos

An hour lying on a beach was followed by a beer at a waterfront bar, rounded off by another seafood dinner on the foreshore. Yes, we were feeling very decadent and spoiled but were more than ready to be spoilt on our birthdays. We don't usually do much in the way of anything special so we made up for it this year. We slept well, despite being on a real bed and finding it rather firm and flat compared to our blow-up mattress.

Mixed fish grill - plenty of omega 3 here

Sonsos - delicious

We so enjoyed the seaside atmosphere, the bustle, the food and the very reasonable prices (much cheaper than France) that we found ourselves talking about the possibility of living in Spain instead, at least for a trial sometime!

Sunday morning we were up early (8am), put on our swimwear with running gear on top and set off on the coastal walk around to the next bay. It took an hour and was a lovely track. When we arrived, instead of going further, we needed to sit down at the nearest cafe and downed a hot chocolate and pain au chocolat for breakfast. Yum!! We had hoped to jump into the water in a little bay or two but the weather had been cloudy, though the sun started to break through as we headed back. Arrived at the hotel just in time before check-out. Hung around in the bar a little until Bella and Nic came online and we had a great catch up on Skype. It was Bella's birthday, so birthdays virtually all-round for our family during the previous week.

We finally set off home at around 1pm, only aiming as far as Calella a few kilometres to the north. We are so pleased that we did. It's a gorgeous little town, sloping down to the water's edge, with funny little lanes and vistas in all directions. The white houses, typically with bright blue trim, look very Greek in appearance, adding to the very pretty ambiance of the place. We definitely want to come back and stay here for a few days when we get the opportunity. A short stroll around the coastal edge and we were in Llafranc, again a gorgeous bay and very attractive, but with less variety than Calella.

Calella

One of the beaches at Calella

We reluctantly turned the wheels of the car in the direction of home about 3pm. There was plenty of computer work stacked up and demanding our attention when we got home. After a late night I finally wrapped up editing the last installment of Guyon's diary from the publisher - there's only the index and front cover to decide on now. John still has too much IT work on the go and is determined to make a serious effort to divest even more to his new partner. 

I am writing this while a jigsaw is buzzing away in the background. Yes, the kitchen bench is being installed this very instant. How exciting is that! Well, it's pretty massive for us anyway. 

The two kitchen installers arrived, also on time, on Monday morning and have been beavering away ever since putting all the cupboards together and now fixing in the lovely wooden benchtops. It is now 5pm on Wednesday afternoon and John and I reckon the two men have pretty much talked to each other non-stop since they've been here (barring going home in the evenings of course). We've found out they are a father and son team, and are both very friendly, helpful guys. However, we've had to duck out of the apartment now and again to get a bit of peace. Bar Pablo is not too far away so it's not really a trial!

The kitchen starts to take shape

Kitchen installers deep in discussion - captured in the mirror opposite

Kitchen complete on Thursday evening - just has to be loaded up now