Where did those three weeks with Alastair go? We dropped him off at Perpignan train station yesterday, after having him with us 24/7 for three weeks. It was great. We feel rather lonely now and our little apartment suddenly seems much bigger! He is currently winging his way to Columbia, where he plans to kickstart 2½ months of cramming in as much adventure tourism as he can, along with Spanish lessons, getting his eyes lasered and giving one or two lectures to design students at Bogota University.
While he was here we managed to get out and about quite a lot, even though he had heaps of bookings to organise, presentations to prepare and uni work to finish off. Last Sunday we set off for a swim at the beach, partly to have a day away from the Feria festivities and partly because it was high time we saw the sea. Although the day clouded over a little we managed to catch some rays (of the sun variety not marine), while Alastair also jumped in for a swim. On with some walking shoes and we enjoyed the 40 minute coastal walk up, down and along the bays to Collioure. Here we scored some scrumptious ice-creams and had a gentle wander around before retracing our steps back to our bay and the car. Instead of going straight home we diverted to a nearby village to see our good friends Miquel and Pascale. After a wonderful natter (accompanied by a little tipple of the local Banyuls, for the non-drivers anyway) we arrived home just in time to catch the beginning of the World Cup Final. What a great match - though we were all yelling for the Argentinians and not the Germans. Yet another late night and yet another late start to the next day. Most of the games we have seen have only started at 10pm our time.
Thursday saw us off on another expedition to the coast, but this one was far more vigorous. John and I had tackled the walk to the Tour de Madeloc (a ridgeline tower inland from Banyuls-sur-Mer) in the depths of winter very early this year. Of course this time the temperatures were much hotter this time round and we suffered a little, though the views from the top were definitely less hazy this time and well worth the effort. It was a great climb and took just under 4 hours in all.
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| At the Tour de Madaloc |
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| Pastry break |
The best was yet to come however. We had checked out a good place to go for a late lunch and tracked down Le Poisson Rouge at Port-Vendres. What a great spot - right on the water's edge, a very nice waiter, wonderful food and a neat time just chilling out. I think one of the things we have enjoyed most with Alastair is just chatting away and hearing his take on things. An offshoot of this is that John and I are once again thoroughly imbued with the desire to travel again, i.e. explore new horizons rather than perhaps just blobbing here a bit in France. I can hear your sympathetic grunts (or perhaps not!). With renting out Walters Bluff, and the new apartment here in Céret, we should be able to tackle a bit of offshore adventuring, certainly by using home exchanges part of the time anyway.
Back to the restaurant. We were still there at 3:30pm when it shut up shop for the afternoon but the waiter said we could stay as long as you liked, just to use the steps down to the beach to get out. Fine, except when we left the boys decided to crawl under the gate instead of heading down to the beach. Yours truly, not wishing to grovel on the ground in my white trousers, tried to follow suit, only to get stuck behind (literally). Haha. Yep, I started to giggle and ended up grovelling on the ground anyway, much to J & AJ's amusement. Thankfully John didn't have the camera handy to catch me at the moment of contact!
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| Ready for a great lunch after our walk |
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| Prawns, duck and sweet potato |
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| The gate that got me! |
