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.