We’ve spent our first night in our apartment! Not a great
thrill unfortunately, we still haven’t got our heads round it all. Up and away
early to Perpignan for another round of urgent purchases. We toured round half
a dozen shops making snap decisions on, amongst other things, giant pots of
paint, 25kg of plaster, a TV, monitor, small
appliances, microwave (they are all combo grillers and microwaves here), and
much much more. We’d hoped it would be quite fun going shopping with compulsory
spending, but the reality is that there’s so much to do in so little time. By
4:30pm we had visited half a dozen major stores, filling the car up, and were
back to Céret to unload, turn round and drop it back to Perpignan. The only
major purchase we haven’t sorted is the kitchen (we think we know what we want - an all-inclusive one complete with appliances) but there are better ones
around, but which take much more effort to sort, and more money. Unfortunately
the one we tagged last year is no longer available.
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| The shambles in our apartment |
Got an unpleasant surprise when the man at Europcar tried to
charge us 1 full day’s hire for the 3.5 hours from 3pm to 6:30pm, and for the
tank of diesel we had prepaid for in Paris. Hopefully sorted without extra cost
though. Coming back was our first chance to use the €1 buses that the regional council
provides for the entire area from Perpignan to the Spanish border. All very
easy to use – 45 minutes to Céret and home to another bread, cheese and pepper
meal. We’ve been having muesli, fruit and milk twice a day, as we have no means
to cook, nor a fridge, and are not up to going out for a dinner.
A nice
surprise was connecting up the TV to the aerial outlet and finding an onscreen
planner like SKY or Freeview with 20 channels in HD, though of course in French.
However some can be given French subtitles which will help us. Tomorrow’s going
to be a good day with no time pressures. Unbelievably, we have taken four days
to have our first wine, a glass of local red with our dinner.
