10 December Barcelona - Nelson

We didn't have to check out until midday so had plenty of time to wander around for a bit in the morning, including having coffee and patisserie round the corner from the hotel for breakfast. It was remarkably cold, and we had to be well wrapped up.

With time to burn, we opted to collect our bags just after 11am. It was only a short distance to wheel our bags to the Arc de Triomf subway station, where it was an easy mission to catch the metro, plus change to the onwards one to the airport. It took the best part of an hour and it involved taking endless escalators to descend perhaps 7-8 levels to get to the right trainline. It must have been a staggering effort to construct the subway system.

The trip home went very smoothly. Our bags weighed about 26kg each due to our cheeses and other things we were taking back to NZ, but we had an upper limit of 30kg. We've flown Qatar Airways before, and they've been very good. It was again the case, and given there were spare seats on the flight, the woman at the check-in counter changed our seats so we could have all three of the seats in the middle row. John had a huge amount of legroom, the most ever. The flight only took 5.5hrs to Doha, and we had a minimal 2.5hr wait, just enough to stretch our legs. The onwards flight to Auckland was full, but we both slept well and watched plenty of movies, and the 16.5hrs seemed to go reasonably quickly. We were a little stiff when disembarking, but John's ankles hadn't swollen at all as they often do.

We arrived at about 5am, and had until 9:45am until our flight to Nelson, which allowed plenty of time for us to have a flat white, but more importantly it took quite a while for us to repack our bags so we didn't exceed the 23kg limit. This involved maxing out our hand luggage (a backpack and handbag/laptop each), stuffing cheeses into our sweatshirt pockets, and then donning our rain jackets and putting cheeses and small heavy books in those pockets as well. It made for rather laboured and bulky walking when boarding but we got through with no questions asked. It seemed that most people were boarding with two cabin bags anyway, even though only one is allowed and the constant broadcasts over the loudspeaker system in the airport categorically stated that only one item would be allowed and that could weigh no more than 7kg. We took the safe route anyway. It's only because we were bringing back quite a few books, plus other bulky items, that we had so much luggage this time around.

Sally met us at the airport and dropped us at home. It was lovely to open the front door. Our renters had left it in immaculate condition, even with newly washed sheets on the bed. It was very welcome.

Needless to say, the next 3-4 days were spent adjusting our body clocks, unpacking our bags and all our stored gear, and heading into town at regular intervals to indulge in flat whites, something that definitely can not be found in Ceret, or France. It was lovely to be home, but we are already looking forward to heading back to Ceret again next year...

2-9 December Ceret

We whipped through our Monday morning run, coffee and morning greetings with people to be back at the apartment by midday. An electrician was due from 1pm to fix our electricity problems. Over the years we must have trekked down and up the stairs two hundred times when we used too many appliances at once (sometimes only 2) and the power tripped at the switchboard below. It was compounded this year by EDF putting in a new Linky meter, and failing to connect it properly, so that the hot water could run 24 hours instead of overnight only. If it kicked in during cooking time in the evenings, it meant the tripping occurred even more easily, unless we remembered to turn the water off before dinner, and back on afterwards.

I had rung EDF, the French electricity supplier, to get the allowed maximum power of the whole system increased. They were pretty good about it and said they'd try their best to get it sorted before we left. Enedis, their suppliers, rang back in a day or two with a date after we would have left, and after some discussion they said they'd try to move it forwards. Thankfully they were able to, and a little after 1pm the man from Enedis arrived. He soon found the issue with the meter, even though EDF had said this would need a separate visit (why, one wonders) and within half an hour we had a new 12kva breaker and a working night-rate system. Excellent - a little bugbear from way back solved. That's two good wins this year with the leaking roof sorted too.

The whole of our week has been centred around packing up and cleaning the house. However, we took time out on Tuesday to drive to a town 20 minutes from Ceret, and have lunch at the home of French friends. As usual, it was a tremendous lunch, with great dishes, a muscat or wine matched to accompany each course, and hours of cheerful chatter. We had to leave at 4pm because we had to drive back to Le Boulou to drop our little car back in the garage we store it in each time we head back to NZ. Because of the bus strike we needed to do this on Tuesday, so we could catch the local bus back to Ceret before they went on strike in the following days. Home by 6pm and pretty weary.

The socialising theme continued, lunching at a little local creperie with English friends on Thursday, popping around for dinner with English friends on Friday night, then catching up with more for a coffee at the Saturday morning market. In amongst this we've tried to keep up our daily coffee and read ot the local French paper at Le Comptoir. We have both been absolutely loving the autumnal weather, with clear blue skies, cold temperatures and no wind. The winters are actually very like Nelson's, though a tad cooler.

All rugged up, with the L'Independant

With the colder temperatures most people are having their coffees inside the cafes

We had a pretty special moment at the market, soon after we'd sat down. We have got on nodding terms and share the newspaper with a group of 5 guys and one woman each morning when we typically sit down at Le Comptoir sometime between 10.30am and noon. John walked up to their table today and said we wouldn't be there anymore because we were heading back to NZ. There was much banter and ribbing, especially about the Rugby World Cup, and they were very cheerful about saying goodbye. Then, as they were getting up to leave, two of the guys came over specifically to say goodbye again and wish us a bon voyage. It was very nice.

The Christmas decorations are out in force around the town, and in all the towns we have passed through recently. The local council goes to a lot of effort to erect little Xmas scenes all over the show, as well as place small Xmas trees at the foot of the many of the large plane trees in the centre of town, and hang decorations between the high branches. On Saturday evening there was a lantern parade along the main street, accompanied by a man waving flaming wands, with a mini fireworks display as a finale. The main spectacle were the four women atop high stilts and clothes in blue swaying gowns and luminous wings. They looked pretty good.

Lantern parade

We finished our final packing, ate the last of the food from the freezer (we were down to weird combinations like veges and sardines), then got a reasonably early night. We didn't in fact have to be up early, because our bus into Perpignan wasn't leaving until 10am, but we wanted to make sure we had all the final tidying and bed-making done in good time. Plus of course we had to pop to the boulangerie early in the morning to pick up one of his delicious Jesuites to have for lunch on the bus.

Thankfully the buses were running again, having been on strike earlier in the week, so we didn't have to rely on friends to drive us into Perpignan on Sunday morning. It was pretty sad to say farewell to Ceret. We are both feeling very settled here, probably more so than ever now we have (most likely) given away the idea of finding a doer-upper somewhere else. Canigou was looking stunning as we left.

Farewell to Mt Canigou

We had only an hour to wait  until the Flixbus arrived for the 2.5hr trip to Barcelona, which again went smoothly and without any of the potential strikes that could have struck the French/Spanish border. It was only a short walk to our hotel, so after a 2:30pm check-in we were free to wander around Barcelona for a while.

It seemed colder than in Ceret, yet we were wearing all our warm gear. An unexpected bonus was the short walk to the Sagrada Familia and seeing how it is continuing to progress towards completion. The area around was full of Xmas stalls.

Sagrada Familia

Not far away we came across an immensely impressive building which looked possibly like a mosque but in fact turned out to be a bullring, now unused given the Catalonia ban on bullfighting.

Bull ring in the centre of Barcelona

We found a nice spot to tuck up for a beer and to contemplate the next leg of our trip. A large family soon arrived to take over the chairs next to us, and before long noisy chatter and banter was increasing in volume. It is one thing we have always noticed about the Spanish - they talk LOUDLY and seemingly all at the same time. John watched three of the adults having a conversation and all three were talking at once at one time. Hence, in a group of 9 people there might be perhaps 6 talking at once. It's incredible. Fun, but noisy. Do Spaniards' brains develop differently so they can talk and listen at once? After a while we retreated to our apartment, after scouting for possible tapas options for dinner later in the evening. 7pm is early for dinner in Spain, but we couldn't hang out much longer and opted for a small Korean restaurant just 100m from the apartment. It was easy, tasty and hit the spot.

Monday 9th is D-Day. We fly out from Barcelona airport mid-afternoon, stopping over in Doha briefly before the long haul back to Auckland. Barring staying over in Auckland for a short while because I have an aunt who is seriously ill, we should arrive in Nelson on Wednesday morning. I think it will take us quite some time to revert to our Kiwi personas, but we're up for the challenge!

22 November to 1 December

Our time here has disappeared with unseemly haste. We haven't had a really long spell in Ceret as we've been out and about. With just a fortnight to go we starting looking at what needed to go and what needed to stay. When last in Spain in La Jonquera we stocked up on alcohol supplies, and with our annual 2kg of French cheese each, we'd already got a fair bit of extra weight to take back. We also wanted to take to New Zealand a number of books we'd accumulated in Ceret.

Sunday started with a visit to Saint Jean Pla de Corts, a little village towards Perpignan, to visit an English market there, as another New Zealander was selling a book describing her family's adventures purchasing in Quillan. It was nice to meet her. She and her husband have NZ-based jobs so they can't spend too long in France each year. We had a pleasant walk around the village. It is clearly very old, and a bit less gentrified than Ceret. Rather attractive, but not as lively as Ceret.

Lovely little back garden in Saint Jean Pla de Corts

Sunday afternoon was largely spent preparing for hosting lunch on Monday with our French friends - two couples who we enjoy meeting a couple of times each visit.

Wandering through Ceret - most people are opting to have their cafe indoors now

The lunch took place on Monday, and went well. It's always fun talking French for an extended period, but also surprisingly tiring! Four and a quarter hours must be some kind of record. With our thoughts of Italy, we hadn't been as consistent as normal in talking French on all our walks, and it showed a bit.

The car had been getting noisier and noisier over bumps in the road, and had a sound that to me seemed to be a CV joint issue. Our mechanic, Monsieur Bru, insisted the noise on turning was mainly suspension creaks, so we had decided to get all the rubberised joints replaced. Easier said than done. We walked down to M. Bru to tell him we had received the second lot of parts that I'd ordered online, hoping to get it done soon, but he asked us to bring it in on the following Tuesday.

After the recent cold spell, the weather had got back to normal for November, even a little warmer perhaps. The town was looking splendid, with the soft southern French light that brought Picasso and his mates here early last century. The leaves on the trees were all turning gold, and tumbling down with every breath of wind. It really is a lovely time to be in Ceret, so much so that I think this will become the norm for us - arrive after the heat of summer, and leave when winter sets in.

Leaves in our square

We'd been struggling trying to find matching paint for our shutters. When we first did them we'd chosen a dark colour and a light, but the light turned out to be too light and we'd had to add some dark into it. As a result, the lighter grey was no longer a standard colour. You wouldn't believe the trouble we had trying to find a suitable replacement colour. In France the paint prices are absurd and we were not prepared to pay E16 per silly little 500ml can of tinted paint, so in the end we found a reasonably priced white paint, and a squeeze tube of black tint. This necessitated  trip to a pharmacy where a nice little syringe for dosing out the colour cost just 50c. The pharmacist was most perplexed about why I needed a syringe to do painting. After a whole lot of fiddling we had a colour which looked right when viewed up close, but proved to be too bright from the square below. Unfortunately we only found this after doing several window surrounds! So later in the week we tried some more dark tint - but the colour wasn't quite right - a little too warm. So back to the Monsieur Bricolage store for some blue tint, and finally it looked pretty good.

We dropped the car off on Tuesday as agreed, with an end-of-day finish, so down we walked for 6pm. Not ready - he'd had trouble getting the suspension apart. 3pm tomorrow it would be. But 3pm Wednesday wasn't long enough as when we turned up he was still putting it back together. Three quarters of an hour he said. But after that time waiting outside in the cold, it was clear he had a fair way to go so we gave it away and agreed to go back the following day. Yet another walk down in the morning to see M. Bru, I think our 10th overall, and it was indeed ready. "Tres dur". Clearly there was a different price if we chose "especes" or cash over a full "facture" or invoice, so an extremely reasonable sum of E200 was agreed on, for us to drop in at some point. Off we went and the difference in the car's drive was remarkable. So much quieter and more comfortable, clearly well worth the effort. We were very pleased.

On the Thursday we had arranged to meet friends for lunch at La Galinette, the Michelin-star restaurant in Perpignan where we have lunch twice before. Their E25 menu du jour is posted in Facebook each Sunday - and this week's entree of smoked herrings with Japanese sauce, followed by a pork-belly main and a quince dessert appealed. It was indeed excellent, a nice final splurge before we leave France.

Remoulade de choux rave, sauce daishili, hareng laqué à la japonaise

Perpignan has winter markets apparently, with little log cabins set up along the river. We will note them for a visit another year.

Perpignan winter market stalls

Karen had been disappointed that her favourite hairdresser in La Jonquera had apparently closed, so we popped into the Auchan mall on the way home for her to get a cut there, along with a purchase of cheese for NZ.

Autumn colours of Ceret

Friday was a day for finishing off the painting job. It's rather hard work leaning out over the balcony rail, or stretching up high to reach the top of the window surrounds. We were both conscious that letting go was not a good idea - the square is three levels below. However, the day began with one of our HIIT sessions (run with short distance sprint). I think 'sprinting' is rather an optimistic description, nevertheless we are working hard at building up our fitness again after our two weeks with the flu. 

We enjoyed the Saturday morning market as usual. We had only one more before we left. Saturday afternoon was another painting/packing session. Both of us were looking forward to Sunday, when we were meeting our Luxembourg/French friends for lunch at a small restaurant in their village. They arrived, with one looking rather the worse for wear. They'd hosted over 30 people for apero the day before, kicking off at 11am, with the last people leaving at 9pm. The whisky came out at about 5pm, when it apparently really got going. The occasion was to celebrate the completion of their new house, and everyone invited had had a hand in the build in one way or another, plus wives and husbands. A very successful party, but now they just wanted to recover. However, they were still up for a good natter and honest lunch, followed by coffee and more chatter back at their house. We had a lovely time. They would love to catch up with us if we are ever up around Luxembourg or Vienna whenever they are also up there at their other residences.

We didn't get home until 5pm, so it was too late and too cold to finish off the painting. The weather has been beautifully sunny, but it had turned really cold again. It was only 5 degrees when we set off on our walk/run on Monday morning, and it pretty much took us to midday to warm up again, even after sitting in the sun, wrapped up with layers of clothes and supping our morning coffee. We had been treasuring our coffees at Le Comptoir. We know Sebastian, the owner, well now. There is also a group of retired local French who spend an hour there each morning catching up on the gossip and having a coffee. We now are on a cheery greeting basis with them each day, with the odd brief throw-away joke. They are a very nice group of people.

Repairs and Maintenance

Owning a house in France is not much different to owning one anywhere else. The same goes for owning a car here. Each year there are things that need repairing, replacing or updating.

This year's list of work done is a little larger than usual, perhaps that's because it's now been 5 years since we moved in, and the initial newness has worn off.

So far the house list includes...

• Replastering and repainting half the ceiling joints now we think the roof has finally been made leak-free.
• Gluing in the rawl plugs for the shower grip-rail to stop them working loose every few months.
• Gluing up a shower head.
• Refinishing the wooden bench.
• Mending one of the French door catches.
• Recoating all the shutters, front and rear.
• Repainting the back windows and sills.
• Taking apart, cleaning and returning the toilet cistern valve to stop it dripping.
• Plugging some holes in the stairwell.
• Patches to some peeling paint in the stairwell.
• Mending a broken heater mount.
• Mending our giant pepper grinder.
• Opening a wall, blocking off an old flue with plaster and repairing the wall.
• Taking a little off the bottom of a door to stop it catching - old houses do move, even when made of stone.
• Fix to a wardrobe shelf.
• Got EDF to increase the power supply from 9 to 12kva.
• Tightened all the Ikea towel rails and clothes hooks.

Making a new hole to block downstairs' flue

Some of these have taken minutes, but the painting and the flue block job were significant. At least gardening here isn't much of a chore - three little window boxes really doesn't take a lot of time. Our Ikea furniture is great - no problems there at all despite 5 years of use.

The car hasn't been exempt from work either...

• New contrôle technique (warrant of fitness) - every 2nd year.
• New wiper blades, annual as it sits outdoors all the time we're in residence.
• Recharged air-conditioning unit, annual as it has a slow leak.
• Oil change, annual.
• Fixed glowing airbag light by checking and wiggling the wiring contacts - very relieved that that's all it needed as it was potentially very expensive.
• Had our friendly mechanic replace all the front suspension bushes to improve the ride, noise and steering. A massive improvement for a remarkably small 260E, as I was able to source the parts myself online at very reasonable rates. Ready for a road trip!

Our little Hyundai has proved very reliable, and still suits our needs very well.