27th - 28th October - Santorini

What a magical day. Eleven years ago we walked the 12km track around the crater rim from Fira to Oia. We enjoyed it so much then that we were very keen to repeat it on this trip. After sleeping in, care of a daylight saving change, and a lovely breakfast on the terrace, we set off at 9:30am. The walk takes you past stunningly beautiful churches, either on the ridgeline or set on the hillside below, through tough scoria landscape studded with herbs (unfortunately not scented at this time of year), rock outcrops, layered coloured lava and wind-sculpted tufa, all set against the background of the caldera and deep blue sea and sky. A photographer's paradise.

Our destination Oia in the background

It was obvious that a lot of new building had taken place in the intervening years, all tourist resorts, with their elegant pools and remarkably public "private" terraces. Some had already closed down for the end of the summer season, so their pools were empty, deck chairs packed away and indeed the complexes looked rather sad and unloved. Not many people were walking the track, so very often John and I would be by ourselves when we came upon a little church or stunning viewpoint. We both loved the raw landscape. The layered lava, with dark red veins through to very black rock, was simply awe-inspiring. For that reason, and the mosaic of white buildings clinging to the astounding caldera ridgeline, Santorini remains the most stunning place we have ever visited.

On the outer side of the island, away from the caldera, the land slopes gently down to the sea, and is dotted with buildings, terraced hillsides (though we couldn't work out what might have once been grown on them), and cropped fields on the flatter land. There is no natural water source high on the island, so water is either gathered from the rain, imported onto the island or possibly obtained from wells on the lowest slopes. We don't know how they dealt with this problem for their crops and lives in ancient times.

When we finally arrived in Oia, over 2.5 hours after starting, we were feeling a little weary. Are we 60 years old now or what? It didn't feel like this 11 years ago, or not that we can remember anyway! After nibbling a nut bar we continued on to the far end of the island so we could once again take in the stunning views looking backwards into Oia town and around the crater rim. We endeavoured to take a photo from the same spot that we had on our first trip. 

Oia town

After that, it was a steep trip down the track to the little fishing port at the extreme end of the island. Again, we had been here before, and had loved the dainty fishing boats, clear blue water and little collection of fish restaurants. There were only 2 little brightly coloured fishing boats left of the number we had appreciated 11 years ago. 

Ammoudi Port

The stiff wind we'd battled all day meant the water was rather choppy this time, but it was still wonderful to be back. In the end we opted to forgo one of the very dear fish lunches on offer in favour of a more relaxed meal later in Oia itself, and hence headed on the trek back uphill on empty stomachs. At around 277 very steep steps, with ramps of 2-3 paces between each step, it was a steady pull. We got passed by tourists opting for riding poor mules. Undaunted we continued on and made it to the top without stopping. Phew. Maybe we aren't too derelict after all! 

Fairly soon we found a quiet taverna, not with a sea view, but with a good menu, reasonable prices and plenty of space. A Santorinian salad and a local briam (oven-cooked vegetables) did the trick, closely followed by a coffee, and then by a pottle of frozen yoghurt complete with yummy toppings from a gelateria next door. 

The tourists here at this time of year are a bit of a mix. the bulk would be 25-35-year-olds, from the USA or often France. There are a few groups clearly here for weddings, with wedding photos being taken here and there, and then there are the Chinese. Unfortunately the latter are very obvious by their loud talking, odd clothing, and their disrespectful trespassing onto marked private property in order to get the perfect selfie. We chose to help a rather upset church warden shoo off some who were chattering away on a church frontage taking shot after shot despite her clearly wanting them to be gone.

Santorini is all about the colour blue

It was very pleasant to lowly amble back through Oia and wander past the shops, but more so the incomparable views that you just had to keep stopping at to try and take in. I have no idea how many photos we took but it could never be enough. It is a surreal environment, that hadn't lost any appeal on our second visit.

Santorini is not short of churches

After a bit of a wait we picked up the local bus back to Fira. It was full to the brim, and the ticket collector was having a hard time getting people to bunch up in the aisle, as well as pay their ticket. It was not an enviable job, and no doubt would be horrible work for him during the busy tourist season, which was clearly well gone. It was just a short step from the bus stop to our hotel, where we quickly stretched out on our cushions in the lowering 4pm sun, with a book and glass of beer in hand.

With daylight saving, it was totally dark by 6pm. We retraced the 200m to the family taverna for another easy meal. They are getting to know us!

Monday morning dawned without wind, and was sunny. It was definitely going to be a warmer day. After breakfast we executed our only real plan for the day - the short walk out to the peninsula of Skaros. We think it is a volcanic plug, i.e. the remnants of hot magma forced up during an eruption. It was perhaps just a half hour walk, but was very much down, then up. 

Skaros

Back towards Fira, the main village on Santorini

It offered stunning views of the sea, and also back to the main caldera rim. The rich red colour of the rock was very prominent, and needed lots of photos by yours truly. We've since found out that Skaros was the location of the most important castle around Santorini, indeed was the medieval capital. Because of earthquakes the inhabitants ultimately abandoned the peninsula and built on the side of the caldera instead.

It did make us wonder about the safety of the buildings. Looking at building practices on the buildings going up or abandoned half-built left John in some trepidation. We imagine that a decent earthquake would be disastrous. A place to visit, enjoy and leave perhaps! Despite that, Santorini has a real magic about it.

25th - 26th October - Ceret to Santorini

Our children had given us accommodation in Santorini as our 60th birthday presents, and so we had booked our visit there for October, coming back via Tuscany. It was an early start for us on Friday 25th. Up at 6am, we were on the road to Spain by 6:45am, and by taking the motorway arrived at Barcelona airport soon after 9am. We dropped the car at the parking building we'd booked and were immediately shuttled to the airport terminal 10 minutes away. There were a number of armed soldiers around, no doubt hoping to avert any hint of renewed Catalan protest action. With a heavy emphasis on baggage scrutiny, we got through pretty quickly and had plenty of time to sit down and enjoy a Spanish coffee and pastry before heading off for boarding. 

We were travelling on Aegean Air. John coped with the miserable legroom OK, and we even got a small meal for lunch, which we didn't expect. All in all the 3.5 hr flight went well, and we had great views flying into Athens airport. 

Over the Peloponnese Peninsula

We were in transit for less than 2 hours and then back in the air on an even smaller plane for the 30-minute flight to Santorini. Since it was getting late when we arrived, and the bus into Thera (the main town) only went hourly, we'd organised a shuttle from the hotel to pick us up. It was ready and waiting, and very flash it was too. Our children had booked the accommodation for us - the place which Bella and her husband had stayed in four years earlier when they were here for a wedding, and it was a step up on something John and I would have chosen. Bonus! It was our 60th birthday present from them. John and I were also looking on it as a wonderful place to celebrate our upcoming 40th wedding anniversary, which is just a few months away. We were in Santorini 11 years before. We fell in love with it then, and always hoped we might get back to it somehow and sometime.

We were escorted to the hotel by its receptionist, as Imerovigli is a rabbit warren of pedestrian alleyways, and we were soon into our lovely room, complete with private courtyard and seating. We immediately sat down outside and admired the stupendous view over the crater and buildings along its ridgeline. 

There are some lovely sights

With a fairly stiff seabreeze it was too cold to sit there for long, so we found the nearest minimarket, collected some water (the tap water is non-drinkable), a few cold beers and a bottle of wine. We put up our feet, shared a beer, then doubled back for dinner to a lovely little taverna we'd spotted nearby. 

Just got the sunset on arrival

At 7pm, it was still pretty early to eat in Greece, but we were starving, and just as well. The meal was  colossal in size, absolutely delicious and ticked any boxes we might have had for reminiscing about Greek food. We shared an antipasto platter (of perhaps 10 Greek foods, every one of them mouth-watering), and then chose plates of fried calamari and lamb meatballs for mains. I really felt I had to try a Greek coffee after that. It came with a huge dose of coffee grounds and perhaps two teaspoons of sugar, and certainly delivered quite a punch. We waddled home and collapsed on the bed.

Appetisers - so Greek

We awoke to a beautiful day, and no wind. Breakfast was served on the top terrace, and we enjoyed the panoramic view, but again the cooling wind was getting up a little. We had an hour wandering around the nearby alleyways, enjoyed a morning coffee back at last night's taverna, then slipped back to our accommodation to watch the All Blacks vs England in the Rugby World Cup semi-final. The ABs were odds on favourite, but the English had been touted as up to pulling off a surprise win. And win they did, with the ABs putting on a disappointingly dismal performance. No doubt it was all due to the huge pressure applied by the English, who thoroughly deserved to win. After settling for a light lunch of bread and feta cheese, we quickly headed back out into the sun and sea air.

It was a 2km walk into Thera itself, and all the way is lined with accommodation places, and also quite a few shops. Once in Thera itself, there really weren't too many people vying for space in the narrow alleyways. The tourist season is clearly very much past its peak, and some places have shut up shop entirely for the season. It means that there are sales on in the shops, but John and I really weren't looking to buy anything. We'd bought a fridge magnet for Santorini 12 years ago, so there wasn't even that to look out for! Also, our bag limit was 8kg on the budget airlines, so we didn't have a lot of leeway. I did manage, however, to pick up some nice necklaces and earrings made from volcanic lava. I'd bought some when I was in Turkey many years ago, and have worn them frequently since.

While in Thera we checked out the Prehistoric Museum, which was well rated. It was good, though small, but had some wonderful relocated wall paintings from a town on Santorini in 1700BC. Life in Santorini was at its peak then, though it had been around since about 5000BC. However, the eruption in 1700BC was the last big one, and that wiped out everything. It was very interesting to read about the early life here, as we well remember learning about early Greek civilisation on our earlier visit to Crete, Knossos and other parts of Greece. It was then time for an ice-cream, as we were flagging a little, followed by the walk back home to put our feet up a little before zooming around the corner to take some photos of the sunset.

Theran wall painting - 1700BC!

Back to the same place for dinner. Why not, because we couldn't fault it and it was very reasonably priced. Because of the big helpings, this time we chose a lot less, and John splashed out on an ouzo. The place is obviously a family concern, with father doing the supervising and the two sons as waiters. It's very casual and friendly. We don't really know if we should be tipping or not, but given the number of Americans we've heard around town (you can't miss them) we thought we should give some as a tip. Many of the tourists we've noticed seem to be French or Spanish.

Karen at our Nefeli Homes rooms

It is so nice being back here. The serried ranks of buildings clinging to the hillside and ridgeline are just amazing, and the essentially white and blue colour scheme glues them all together. It adds up to a simply stunning sight. There have been a few cruise ships in the caldera, but they would be nothing to the number that visit each day during the summer season. 

Virtually every little hotel has a range of stepped units, complete with terraces with seating, sunloungers, sun umbrellas and tiny (some not so) plunge pools. Dotted amongst them are a number of small churches, with their beautiful iconic blue domes. Santorini is so focussed on tourism, the vast proportion of the population must be employed in the industry. Surprising, one of the iconic blue cupolas near us was disintegrating to the extent that we could see through it from side to side. Considering it is one of the standard photos used worldwide to advertise Greece, it seems very strange that it could be allowed to get to that state.

22 - 24 October - Ceret

Our English friends who live most of the year in their remote villa high in the Pyrenees came to lunch on Tuesday. It is always hard to organise a time when we are both in France. They had just returned from a month-long trip to Sri Lanka, which they were keen to describe to us. Clearly they had a wonderful time. For us, it would be lovely to visit but there are other places we'd like to explore first if we can. Lunch was a long lazy affair, and the curry we'd made for lunch suited the cooler, wetter day. 

We have only started to have rain recently, with the temperatures dropping a little at the same time, but the trees have been losing their leaves for a while. However, after last night's storm, they won't be dropping any more leaves for a while. If anything was loose, it was lost. The storm last night was, according to the Catalan news this morning, likened to a hurricane. Ceret got off pretty lightly, as it hit the coast just south of Barcelona the hardest. One person is dead, a couple missing, roads and railways including the TGV to Barcelona impassable. We woke at 3am to incredibly heavy rain, then the noise of massive hailstones hitting the skylights, and seemingly continuous flashes of lighting and rolling thunder. We got out of bed and watched the drama going on in the square below us - the drainpipes were gushing with water and the entire square was awash. It was nothing compared to the volume of water dumped over the border in Spain though. John loved it, me a little less so, but then he always loves thunder and lightning.

18-21 October - Ceret

Autumn has definitely arrived. The last few days had remained relatively balmy, in the mid-late 20s, and sunny, but on Monday 21st it turned much colder and it was the start of a forecast week of rain. The leaves are falling from the trees, and the leaf-blower man and street-sweeper have a tough time of it to clear them up every day. They do a tremendous job, as the town is always immaculate by 8am every morning. That is all except for the dog crap of course. We're not convinced it is getting any less, even though some people now carry doggy-do bags, and the council has employed a 'Pooper Scooper". The latter is a guy who rides around on a scooter with a vacuum cleaner built on the back to suck up all the droppings on the alleyways. I hope he gets paid well.

Lovely autumn light

We had the English couple from downstairs up for apero on Sunday, before they departed back to England. They'll be back in early December, hopefully to find their renovations virtually complete. They are keen to paint their windows and shutters to match ours, but it won't happen for a few months yet. We are planning to recoat our own shutters, which are starting to look a bit weather-beaten after 5 years, before we leave this year. I will also give the details of the paints to the owner of the bottom floor and the first level apartment in the hope he will also paint his. It will give the building facade a huge lift to have all the shutters and windows looking fresh and new.

We bought a garden sprayer and have tried spraying bleach onto the facade of the building, just by leaning outside out balcony windows. However unfortunately it seems to have had little effect in removing the grime. The facade still looks very grim, especially now the neighbouring building has been given a facelift. Plan B might be to now look at pricing up water-blasting the facade (and possibly painting), with the attendant costs of having to have scaffold erected.

Our days are definitely a little quieter now that autumn has arrived. It was pretty cold out on our run this morning.

12-17 October Ceret - Costa Brava

We've been saying farewells to various expat friends returning home. However, at the same time, we've got to know our new neighbours much better. An English couple bought the apartment below us last year, and have had workmen renovating it over the last few months. They've popped over from England for just quick visits, and we'd met them briefly before, but they had arrived for a week this time. On Sunday we arranged to have apero at their place on Monday night. 

A nice display of old Citroens at the local Citroen garage

We in fact met them again on the stairway only a few hours later. The reason - smoke alarms going off in all directions. The couple had been told by their real estate agent that the fireplace worked, though it should probably be cleaned because it may not have been used for years. The couple had booked a chimney sweep for the following day, Monday, however they decided to light a fire that night. Not a good idea. There is indeed no chimney. All the flues were either blocked up or removed when the roof of the building was replaced many years ago. Result - smoke and fire alarms ringing when the smoke worked its way through air gaps in the walls into the other apartments. We had smoke coming out from around our light fittings and the air conditioning unit. The guy came out of his smoky apartment, said it was 'all under control', and asked which smoke alarms were going. The restauranter came out from the bottom floor and disabled his alarms in the first level apartment. Both he and John clearly told the couple that there are NO functioning fireplaces in the building. Much frustration but everyone was reasonably calm, despite the rather dangerous situation that had unwittingly resulted. The smoke slowly cleared but the stairwell remained smelly. Thankfully the firemen didn't arrive. 

Irrespective of this, we did indeed meet up with the couple in their apartment for apero the next evening. We got on well, though virtually nothing was said about the episode of the previous evening!

Thank goodness we were home for the drama, because the next day John and I left quite early for a two day trip to Spain. We love nipping over for just a few days, a couple of times during each stay in France We invariably feel as though we've been away for a week. Typically we plan to do a long walk on the first day, have a late lazy lunch, wander around or go to the beach, tapas for dinner, followed by a shorter walk the next morning and home to Ceret by mid-afternoon.

This time was to be no exception. John had researched walks not far over the border, just in the Pyrenees above Roses, only an hour away. The first walk was only 8km, so we figured on it taking about 2 hours. Wrong. It took us three hours, but only because there were so many small sidetracks on the way, and about a dozen incredible dolmens, megaliths and rock caves to look at. These are all Neolithic, so 3000-5000 years old. They were incredible, and one megalith (stone funeral structure) was one of the largest ones we had seen anywhere. We also came across old stone huts, and a wonderful abandoned farm complex. By 2:30pm we were beginning to think we were going to miss our much anticipated 3 course lunch, because even the Spanish typically start lunch by 3pm. We walked faster...

Lovely abandones mas (farm)

The best of the dolmens

Looking back down to the Bay of Roses

Once we got back to the car, we drove the short distance into Roses, found a carpark as soon as possible, then started scanning for a restaurant. Yes, one was open, though there was no-one eating there. The waitress assured us we were in time - they stayed open for lunch until 4pm. And what a delicious meal it was. Everything we had hoped for, and all for 14Euro. 

Afterwards we wandered around for a while but figured it made more sense to find the accommodation we'd booked. Again, super cheap - 50E, including breakfast. John had spied this lovely stone villa on the internet, and it was indeed very pretty when we rolled up. It was built in 1582. A siesta was definitely on the cards, and I slept for nearly 2 hours. Being the end of the tourist season the restaurant wasn't open but we weren't yet hungry anyway, just thirsty. We jumped in the car for the 5 minute drive to a supermarket where we bought some water, snacks and bananas. We were asleep by 10pm.

Hotel Mas Palou

We woke at 8:30am (we must have been whacked!). Just as well breakfast was 9:00-10:30am (good Spanish hours). Cheese, ham, eggs, fresh rolls, chocolate-coated donuts - what more could one ask for? By 9:30am we were off again, this time driving over the peninsula to Cadaques, 25 minutes away. 

Cadaques is a gorgeous little settlement, sporting white Mediterranean architecture, colourful fishing boats and narrow cobbled alleyways. We had been here briefly once, many years ago. It was a really good move to come back. The 7km coastal track was quite challenging in places, and it took us over 2 hours to follow the narrow rocky track from Cadaques around to Port Lligat. Port Lligat is where Dali lived for a while, and there were lines of people waiting to tour his house. We bypassed it and got back to Cadaques in time for lunch at a little restaurant John had earlier spied. It was a pretty basic affair, and cheap. I wasn't hungry but John convinced me to have a green salad then the main course, which was 'fish of the day'. It turned out to be a big flounder each, and was delicious. 

The trip home turned out to be a long convoluted affair, via a large Asian import warehouse (for various knicknacks), Decathlon (exercise gear), Carrefours (to buy gallons of bleach to try and degrime the facade of our building) and lastly the Nike outlet shop on the border.

It's hard to beat a 75c fully chocolate-coated palmier! - centre row, right

We finally rolled back into Ceret at 6pm, after a very enjoyable adventure. 

4 - 11 October

Where did the week go? It's not as if we've been in a whirlwind of activity. Just the opposite, in fact. We're back on our regular runs/walks, coffee breaks at Le Comptoir, reading, learning Italian, cleaning the apartment, socialising and generally taking it easy. Many of our expat friends have now returned to their home country so it is definitely quieter here.

During the last few days we've tackled a few maintenance tasks. The leak in our ceiling has (apparently, though we're not convinced) been solved, so John gouged, sanded and repainted the buckled plasterboard joints in the mezzanine ceiling. I repainted the bedroom windows and trim that had suffered from the intense summers during the five years since we first restored them. It's very hard to believe it's been 5 years since we moved in to Place des 9 Jets.

Our hopes and plans for the 'villa under the Tuscan sun' have faded somewhat. Feedback suggests we may not be able to do what we'd been hoping. However, to pursue it as far as we can, we have booked a return trip to Cortona at the end of October. We want to sit down with staff at the local council and get the real word on what we potentially can and can't do on the site, what permits we'd need, likely timeframes, costs, options for the water supply and so on. We'll be there just four days, but that should do the trick. We're thinking the project is going to end up in the 'too-hard, too-expensive' basket, but we've learned a lot by going through the exercise, and are still going to keep looking. 

Having said that, we are both really enjoying being back in Ceret, and realise the place has a huge amount to offer. We also keep meeting more and more people. One particular thing that appeals to us is how the locals regularly sit down and have a coffee and natter each day. There is a group of 4-5 men, all retired but in excellent health and spirits, who have coffee and gossip together every morning at Le Comptoir at about 10.30am. The local postie (a woman) has taken to joining them, with big kisses on each cheek all round, before passing out their individual mail then and there. It's all so friendly and jovial. We can't see a NZ postie ever kissing his or her clients.

Our daily medicine

We had lunch out with friends at a local cafe in Ceret during the week. The Friday special was moules frites (mussels and chips). It was a delightful meal, in a garden setting, and all for just 9.50E each. In all honesty, we dine out very little. If we do, we tend it tends to be on a visit to Spain or perhaps Perpignan. 

For a few weeks I've been putting off getting my haircut. Unfortunately, the woman we go to at a little place on the border town into Spain has closed up shop. She gave us consistently good haircuts. Everyone I've tried in Ceret has ended in awful cuts, at much higher prices. However, unable to put it off any longer, I practiced the French words I needed, checked them with John and set off for the hairdresser in the main street. Right. With instructions for a general cut, with only a little off the back and definitely leaving my ears covered, I got the complete opposite. I now believe I have the haircut typical of the 1950s, i.e. like that of a woman you would see on black and white TV advertising a new-fangled vacuum cleaner. Too late I realised that all the women in the hair salon seemed to be getting the same cut! Clearly there is only one style, no matter what you ask for.

In family news, it was our son's birthday on the 11th. He turned 33. Unbelievable. We Skyped and he's enjoying life in San Francisco as much as ever, and appears to have a new girlfriend. Our young grandson is 11 months old and on the verge of walking. It's only a matter of days we suspect.

One of our neighbouring buildings is currently undergoing a facelift. It's being painted a dark brown, with cream trim. It's a huge improvement on its rather derelict appearance up until now, however it's upgrade has also had the effect of making our building look somewhat grim. The surface of our building is basically cream, but with a dirty coating. We've talked with the developer owner of the first two floors and he's shown us quotes which are excessive for getting the facade cleaned and repainted. We then considered the option of just water-blasting the facade, which could be done by standing on each balcony rather than having to scaffold the place. 

We followed this option up with a meeting with an architect from Batiments de France, the national historic places body. He visits Ceret mairie each month. The outcome was that waterblasting might be a bit too forceful for the potentially brittle facade. However, he confirmed our colour scheme for the windows and shutters was fine, and that any repaint of the facade should be distinctly different from the colours of adjoining buildings. OK. Our new plan is to investigate just spraying the facade with a bleach/algae killer fluid in the hope that that will hopefully bring a distinct brightening of the facade. We're now on the lookout for buying a garden sprayer, not something we've had much call for up until now!

The meeting with the Batiments de France guy was strained to say the least. We'd struck the same man when we went to the Perpignan office to discuss the skylights we have put in here in Place des Neuf Jets. He is an incredibly officious, standoffish man, extremely reluctant to greet you, discuss anything, say anything (especially if it is positive) or display any positive body language. However, as with the first time we met him, after about 10 minutes he seemed to thaw out quite a bit, and ridiculously ended up being quite chatty and hard to get away from. He is a real enigma. We found out what we needed to in the end, but came away from the experience shaking our heads and declaring that he was a very sad guy - 'a glass 1/4 empty' instead of a 'glass 1/2 empty' scenario. 

24 September - 3 October

Tuesday was a quiet day. We enjoyed a lie-in in the morning, the first in ages. Loads of sheets and towels needed doing, and the day was generally pretty slow and quiet. In the early evening we joined friends at Le Comptoir for a drink and chat.

Up bright and early, well, at 8am anyway, we set off on our first walk/sprint session in weeks. It went surprisingly well. I put it down to the huge number of squats I did picking up the three kiddies over the weeks, plus carrying Violet around a lot. She weighs a ton, but not as much as Rosie! Heath weighs only one kg less than Violet, even though he is 16 months younger. We're betting that Heath is going to be 195cm (6ft5") and will be built to match. He was just on the verge of walking when the family left on Monday. Perhaps we will be within a week or two. He also got his first tooth during last weekend.

For the next week, we concentrated on getting back into our regular exercise, catching up with friends and enjoying a few lie-ins.

Schoolchildren grouped around an artist in our square

John buying veges at the Saturday morning market.
Note the well dressed butcher outside his horse-meat stall.

However, a great deal of our time was spent on analysing the pros and cons of the villa that had taken our fancy in Tuscany. We spent hours drawing up plans, revising them, emailing questions to the real estate agent, assessing the feedback, writing up new lists of questions, talking about the options and generally trying to be rational about the whole idea rather than being caught up in the emotion of potentially owning a Tuscan villa. It was a very big ask.

We are also working through the process of potentially having the facade of our building in Ceret upgraded. We have canvassed the two other owners and they are interested, provided it doesn't cost too much. I spent six hours scrubbing our three double sets of French doors, their surroundings and shutters. They have come up really well and the paint we used five years ago is still in good condition. We have booked an appointment with an architect with Batiments des France (the equivalent of the NZ Historic Places Trust) to get confirmation of the colours we used (which we cleared with the local council). The cost of repainting the entire facade is huge but the other owners could easily paint their windows and shutters as we have. We are considering water-blasting the facade by leaning out the windows. J&I could do it all if we have access to all three levels. It would make a huge difference, and hopefully avoid having to repaint.

View of our square. Our building is in the centre, with us on the top level

We took a day off on Monday and drove to Girona, just over the border in Spain. We'd organised to meet up with friends Margaret and David from Nelson, who had arrived in Barcelona for a few days on their way home from a European holiday. They took a train to Girona and for us it was only an hour's drive from Ceret. We met up in one of the main squares and had a lovely long lunch together. It was all the more amazing because we've seen very little of them since the days when our kids were born and went through primary school together. However, we have renewed our ties and intend to see more of each other back in Nelson.

Place de l'Independencia in Girona

On the way home we stopped off at the Spanish town of La Jonquera and I picked up some new shoes at the Nike outlet shop. We call in every year, and I always manage to get a new pair of running shoes at a bargain price. John's feet are too wide for most European shoes.

One morning we set off on a hill walk up to the San Ferreol Hermitage on the opposite side of the valley from Ceret. We have done this walk a number of times, but not often in the last couple of years. It was really nice to pull on our hiking boots and set off to head into the hills a bit. It's nice starting to build up our fitness again after a fairly slack month while we were in Italy.

View across the valley towards Spain from the Hermitage

Crocuses in flower, which we didn't expect in autumn.

Work on the Tuscan project continued. I hate to think how many hours were spent on it, both in the daytime, and awake in the middle of the night! We did a full set of plans in 3D using the best information we can work out from the multiple sources we've found. There is clearly no definitive plan available for the site, let alone the existing buildings. The various versions all appear to show different dimensions, and we are working from an average! Word from our agents isn't what we hoped, and there appear to be issues with placing a possible swimming pool, and rebuilding where there have been buildings in the past.