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.