Today was 'builder' day. We arose early, in eager anticipation of our builder arriving at 8am or soon after to attempt a fix on our leaky roof once again. You guessed it. He was a no-show. We were quickly on his case though and walked down to his current worksite elsewhere in town. He was there and promptly assured us he would arrive tomorrow morning. He had it in his schedule! To be honest he did seem sincere, it was very blustery, and so we have refocused on tomorrow morning, and will be up early again. We are forever optimistic!
We then filled in time until we were due to meet friends for lunch over the border in Spain. Our rendez-vous was set for 2pm, but we set off soon after noon, hoping to find a little cafe en route for a coffee and pastry. Otherwise we'd be ravenous by 2pm. The only Spanish town on the way there turned out to be too small to have a cafe, so we ended up going all the way to Garriguella, the town with our lunch venue. Here we did manage to find a little cafe, and a small tabac close by to find a pastry to share.
We met up with Linda and Andrew at Batlle restaurant at 2pm for our 15E menu of the day. We had a very enjoyable afternoon chatting away and savouring the food and rather nice wine. With the weather still warm John and I had thought we might head to the nearby beach afterwards, but the weather had clouded over and rain spotted the windscreen, so we gave the idea away. We were home by 5pm for a pleasant cruisy evening.
Tuesday was again 'builder' day. Yesssss! The first we knew he had arrived was the sound of feet on the ceiling above our bedroom. Our builder had driven his Manitou hoist into a nearby lane, rather than into the square below us. His worker discovered some cracking in the plaster in the ridgeline and set about replacing it. However, we think the cracked plaster is 'downstream' of where water appears in our ceiling so we are not particularly confident that the repair will fix the leak. However, we are very grateful that he fronted up and is giving it a go. We also had a guy appear through the skylight and replaster our damaged ceiling - a painter may come in the next day or so to do the touch-ups.
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| The builder's hoist to access our roof |
Even if the leak isn't fixed, we now know that it's not a major problem and we feel confident about being able to rent the place out again.
The afternoon was given over to some DIY in the lowest level of our stairwell. Next to the doorway paint was peeling away quite badly on both sides. We set too with a scraper to peel the loose paint and plaster off. Without enough plaster to fill it all off again, we drove the short distance to the industrial zone to buy some more. While there we used the carwash and gave the car a good scrub, and also vacuumed it inside. I like leaving it in good shape when we park it up in its storage garage each year, though I don't really know why because it's always coasted in layers of dust when we come back the following year to collect it.
Onwards. Home and plastering the walls, before apero with friends at Le Comptoir.
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| Some of the re-plastering work |
The builder appeared at 8am again this morning to finish off his plastering, after which we packed a bag for the beach, hoping to catch a last day of rays on the shore and a swim. Alas, as per an article in the local paper yesterday, dust clouds are starting to blow over southern France from Africa. Each year they deposit red dust over everything, and the clouds were indeed evident today. It was actually a lot clearer at the coast than inland, but it wasn't sunny enough to tempt us into our swimsuits.
Our planned walk around the coast from Port Vendres to the lighthouse (7km) turned into a shorter wander around the port towards some of the historic defensive forts on the headlands. It was an enjoyable walk. The temperature was in the mid 20s and rather humid, unlike warmer, non-humid weather we've been delighting in for the last few weeks. However, we've also noticed that the days are drawing in, it's much darker in the morning, starting to get dark around 6pm, and summer has definitely departed. Maybe it's time we did as well?
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| Port Vendres |
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| One of the redoubts on the coastline near Port Vendres |
We had hoped to have a lunch of moules frites (mussels and fries) at Port Vendres, typical fare at the restaurants there. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to be on offer as part of the daily menu. Nothing else particularly tempted us so, surprisingly, by 12:30pm we were back in the car heading homeward. We returned to one of the eateries in our square where moules frites is part of a simple three-course menu for 12E and we weren't disappointed.
One of us succumbed to a nana-nap during the afternoon, but once revived we both set to in the stairwell again, finishing the sanding and painting the walls. One more decent coat will see it finished and it should last pretty well for another few years.
Thursday, and it was a day of big wins. We began by meeting up with an elderly English friend, and her cleaner. Sylvie, a lovely French woman, comes in each fortnight to clean for her. We had in fact exchanged emails with Sylvie three years, when put in contact via another friend. It's was nice to meet her in person and we hit it off straight away. She is very happy to clean our apartment any time we have renters next year. We're hoping we get a few takers, for at least a week at a time.
It was then out for coffee time with our friend, while Sylvie cleaned her house. She lost her husband earlier in the year, and enjoyed a long chat with us. She's just turned 85 and is quite a talker. We are very happy to have sorted Sylvie as a cleaner for next year - it has been a major item on our To Do list. It was then time for lunch ...
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| Lunchtime treat - a orange and chocolate millefeuille |
Another big win was reorganising our internet provider. For quite a long time we've been keen to change to a cheaper, faster internet service, and there was a good deal with RED by SFR. Hence, a technician for Red turned up in the afternoon. However, given we are three stories up, the technician didn't want to do the work without having a hoist at his disposal, and was all set to disappear before he even began. We didn't want him to leave without doing the work so we signed a handwritten agreement on the spot that we would attach the cables on the exterior of the building if he did all the wiring. He installed the new system, complete with a fibre connection. It didn't take long, and amazingly it all worked instantly, and it was really fast. Our TV connection is now way better and programmes don't lock up like they used to. We are very happy how it all turned out. We just have to hang out our windows, and also from the apartment below' balcony, to hook the cable around the downpipe. No sweat really.
The last success of the day was finishing off the painting in the stairwell and mopping the floor. It's come up a treat.
During Thursday we received word that one of our close friends has Covid. She was doing a pre-op test prior to having a hip replacement operation on Friday. Obviously her surgery is now delayed, but everyone is an the alert for symptoms. John and I opted not to go on the joint walk today. We stayed in bed and had a lazy start to the day instead. I think it was the better choice!
Earlier in this blog I commented about the changing nature of our stay here in Ceret compared to other years. The aging and compromised health of many of our friends has been a dramatic feature. Two couples who co-own an apartment here will be putting it on the market in another few months' time, and another couple are planning to do the same later next year. Next year it will be different again when we return to Ceret.
Having said that, John and I have not been quite as active as in the past. There are a number of reasons for this. Arriving in July to ensure we could get the car up and running before driving to Italy for the wedding was very taxing, mostly because of the extremely high temperatures. Four weeks of daily temperatures in the high 30s put paid to any notion of striding out on daily long walks. Our month-long trip to Italy was wonderful but I think again the high temperatures and 3000km driving took its toll a bit. By the time we got back to Ceret we were well and truly ready to stay put and have some downtime. I know it sounds a bit self-indulgent that we needed a holiday after our holiday, but it's true. However we both wonder if we've had lingering effects from Covid, and that our energy levels have been compromised because of it and the heat. We have both have had spells of not feeling 100% well and perhaps having some balance issues. Hence, we've tended to spend more time sitting down over a coffee and reading a book than we have allowed ourselves in the past!
However, onwards. On Friday afternoon we wanted to secure the new internet fibre cable to the exterior of our building but the wind was too strong. We've had very strong winds every afternoon for about a week now. The weather is definitely changing but the temperatures have decided to climb again and we are back to 26-28 degrees most days. It's forecast to be 30 degrees on Sunday! Instead of hanging out of windows we spent Friday afternoon doing some prep work for leaving, e.g. sorting and clearing out the bathroom cupboards, John doing IT guff to finalise the internet changeover, going through all our tools and so on. Not riveting stuff but it was fun because it's all gets us closer to packing the place up and heading back to NZ.
Saturday dawned a beautiful day, and we fitted in one of our loop walks before doing a circuit through the morning market. We are definitely going to miss the local produce on offer, and especially the low prices. We bought two very large red peppers last Saturday for the grand sum of E85c (NZ$1.46c). John continues to drool over the cheese counters each week, at both the market and in the supermarket.
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| The cheese counter at our local Carrefours shop. The Morbier on special is 1.19E/kg! |
