Thursday 31st - Food into the pantry

About time we went on a run so headed off before 8am to try and beat the heat in the sun. We have a lovely little loop route just out of town that takes about 25min, which I extend by another 6min 22sec (but trying to reduce this J).

A much more cruisy day today. I had a fine old time transferring the food from the old kitchen area into our new pantry, trying to remove as much as possible from the old kitchen into our living room so we can start sanding the wall, and, with a great deal of difficulty, we manoeuvred our new dryer into the cupboard beside the pantry. It doesn’t have a power connection yet but looks very snug in its little corner. It’s a good feeling getting some of these things into their final resting place. Once we manage to secure an electrician we will also be able to use our oven and cooktop. We are still stuck with just using the microwave to cook and heat food at present. We spent an hour on foot today trying to track down some of the tradesmen who are supposed to be giving us quotes. One electrician promised to provide the quote tomorrow and one of the builder’s on Monday. We shall see.

Irrespective of these delays, we are very pleased with how it is all coming together. We are now essentially living in one room, and are finding it pretty easy really. The sofa unfolds into the bed and is right smack-bang in front of the TV on the wall. We watch very little on TV but the tennis champs are on at Roland Garros in Paris at the moment so we have that on each day at the moment while we are working. It’s a nice diversion.

We bumped into our real estate agent on the stairs late in the day. He must have been showing the couple of guys with him through the apartment that is for sale immediately below us. We have vaguely toyed with the idea of maybe buying it ourselves to do another round of renovation and then on-selling it but have agreed we don’t have the energy. It is exactly the same layout as our apartment.

Work on renovating the large apartment above us has now just about finished and the stairs and lobby have just received a very welcome scrub to get rid of all the dust and mess left by the workmen traipsing up and down.

A drain in the church square was leaking a bit a few days ago so the workmen arrived in force this morning to sort it out. We now have the lovely sound of trickling water going between the channels – it is very refreshing in this heat. There are lots of semi-open channels throughout the town that have fresh water constantly running along them, providing a nice added dimension to the place. The water comes from up in the hills.

Wednesday 30th - Shower and sink working

Today was seriously hot. It got to 32° outside and some 27° inside, though we were not taking any care to keep the inside temperature down. At this time of year the French are closing shutters during the day to keep the cool night air inside, but we enjoy looking out too much to do the same.

Monsieur Enriques the plumber arrived as agreed on the dot of 8am, and spent almost all day here. By the end of the day we had a fully finished and functioning shower cubicle, and a fully functioning kitchen sink and dishwasher. What luxury. All we need now is the electrical quotes to come back so we can get a cooktop going (not that we have bothered to get saucepans yet!). The kitchen is great. So good to have the sink, fridge and plates all in the same room after 8 weeks. And the shower is another step forward, though the over-bath version was perfectly good. The shower does take up less space, which makes the bathroom a bit more generous. We do have a big hole to patch below where the bath was, but that can wait.

Got our second builder’s quote today. Either they don’t want the work or they think they can gouge us, as it is nearly double the previous one (versus the plumbing quotes which differed by a factor of almost 3). Still no sign of electrical quotes .

We’ve been hearing about the Feria – a major event in mid-July to be either strictly avoided or something you must come to. It involves a bit of bull-running, some bullfights, but mainly vast amounts of drinking to the accompaniment of many bands. They set up a huge outdoor bar below us in the church square, and a pissoir in the lane to our left. Residents cover their doors in plastic. I think we may miss a little sleep over that weekend!

Karen was back on window renovation duty. She spent much of Tuesday scraping the loose paint off the windows and shutters in the bedroom and today was sanding the whole lot. Not fun in 30+ degree heat and all togged up to avoid the lead-paint dust.

Tuesday 29th - Kitchen, bath and shower

No work done by John yet because the plumber arrived soon after 8am as promised and has been hard at work all day. J & I have spent most of the day installing the kitchen cabinets properly, the rangehood and so on. The plumber very quickly dispatched the tiles from around the bath this morning and they lugged the brutally heavy cast iron bath down the stairs before lunch. J is now helping the plumber put together the shower components in the bathroom.

Our kitchen in and nearly complete

Monday 28th - S & T leave

Up earlyish for a change. After checking out of the hotel, feeding Jack, packing the car and all the other odds and ends, Suzy and family got away at about 9:45am. They were heading first to Figueres to the Dali Museum, and then on to Barcelona. They have a few days there until Nick, Emma and Jack fly back to Lille on Thursday, and Suzy and Tim fly back to NZ on Friday. It was really great having them here, chilling out with them and also being able to show them around a bit. We could possibly have done a bit more but we had to work around Jack’s feeds/sleeps a bit and everyone was also very happy to just take it easy.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet for John and me. John had some work stacked up to do and I also began having a look at my research, what I need to do before we go to Germany etc. Now that we have people who will be renting the apartment as soon as we leave, we have to be able to give them a definite day when they can arrive, so they can book their tickets. We weren’t sure if we would stay until early Oct (if the renters in our own place in Nelson wished to stay that long), in which case we might have tripped up to Germany for a week or so in around July and then returned to Céret.

However, the latest info from Quinovic is that the renters might extend for up to a month but that will only take them to about 9th Sept, only a few days after we are already booked to return. We will now probably leave Céret mid Aug and spend a while in northern Germany before going straight to Paris for our flight home.

J & I were working away quietly when the doorbell rang and our new Aussie friends (Peter and Julie-Ann) arrived to see the apartment and have an aperitif with us. They leave to go back to Australia tomorrow, but the other couple they have bought their own apartment with (Ross and Liz) are returning on Thursday so we will also meet up with them again sometime soonish. They are all good fun.

John got stuck into his work again after dinner, with a phone call coming from NZ to talk some things through at 10pm. He now has plenty on the books for the next week at least.

Sunday 27th - Prats de Mollo & dechetterie

A fairly slow start to today but the cherry activities of yesterday were all to be repeated in town again today. We opted to have a break from the bands and to head out of town for a day-trip. First of all Tim and Nick helped us carry down an immense load of cardboard and polystyrene packaging we had accumulated. We can only get rid of it at the dechetterie just out of Céret.

Tim had kindly offered us use of the car to cart it all away so that was a great plan. Unfortunately the car was jammed into the carpark, with a small horsetruck jamming its rear. This was a Catalan family giving donkey rides to children as part of the weekend festivities. By the time we had tracked down the owner of the truck, he had moved it, and we had crammed the car to the gunwales with cardboard and polystyrene, we were cutting it pretty fine to get to the dechetterie by noon. We roared out of town, going in the opposite direction to the millions driving into town in hope of finding a carpark, and arrived at the dump with 12mins to spare. Gutting – it was closed and deserted.

It didn’t even look as though it had been open all morning. We had previously checked the website to see that it should be, and even the signboard on the gates at the entrance said it should be. So, what do we do? We had a huge load to get rid of, the rest of the family packing a picnic lunch to head up the valley as soon as we returned, and no other opportunity to use the car to dump the stuff. Suzy and Tim were leaving early the next morning. There was nothing for it but to ignore all the boldly written signs the said the leaving of rubbish at the dechetterie gates was strictly prohibited. We unloaded the whole lot as quickly as we could, at the same time breaking our fingernails trying to rip off all the delivery tickets and dockets that had our names and addresses on them (so we couldn’t be traced). We figure it was the problem of the dechetterie, not ours, as they were supposed to be open. Fingers crossed there was no-one spying on us who took a note of the number plate. We reckon we are probably pretty safe anyway because S & T drove the car to Barcelona yesterday and returned it to the car-hire place so it would be a real pain trying to pursue any penalty payment. Here’s hoping anyway.

Vauban fortress above Prats de Mollo

Back into town and collected the rest of the family and a lovely drive up the Tech Valley to a gorgeous village called Prats de Mollo. It has a small walled town, complete with large church inside and a large Vauban fortress up above it. You can climb from the village up to the castle through an underground passage which was constructed to allow soldiers to have cover while going between the two points.

We had had our picnic lunch beside the river, just below the village, but got cut short by a brief burst of heavy raindrops. We climbed up and had a great view of the valley. It had been threatening to rain more but thankfully it held off, despite thunder rolling around the hills. We were only a couple of kilometres from the Spanish border, and this valley was extremely important to the French Resistance in WWII for getting people out of France and into Spain.

After our walk we repaired to a nice little café but decided the rain was looking really threatening again and we had better head to the car. Safely home by 5pm to find it rather wet in Céret and the festivities had come to a slightly damp end an hour before time. It cleared up again soon after, and music started emanating from the various cafes/bars. The town has been full of bonhomie all weekend and it’s been lots of fun.

This was our last night all together so we decided to do something slightly special. Our options were very limited however because the supermarkets were closed, our kitchen still not functioning, and restaurants probably booked out. We excelled however. Gorgeous titbits and nibbles for aperitif (including pate maison with cherries), takeaway pizzas for the main course, and cherry pie and ice-cream for dessert. A fine evening all round.

Saturday 26th - Fete de la Cerise

The Fete de la Cerise is in full swing. We headed to the normal place where the Saturday market takes place to find it empty except for seats for the evening’s repas en plein air (outdoor meal). The market turned out to have been moved to other streets and expanded with extra stalls. There are three brass bands parading through the streets – from Bayonne, Biarritz and somewhere else. They are having a great time, they are like sports teams on tour and they are in very high spirits. They march through the streets playing, then stop for a bit, and move on again.

Fete de la Cerise

We started the day by having a coffee at our local, Bar Pablo, and watching the bands come and go. A few hours wandering through the main street, which was largely given over to stalls selling cherries and cherry products, then the usual market stalls in the adjoining streets, giving way to a very leisurely late lunch back at the apartment. Nick, Emma and Jack were staying in a 3rd-floor room of Hotel des Arcades, which happened to have a perfect view of the cherry spitting competition at 4pm. Quite fun to watch but not the torrid competition I expected between adults or those from different towns, battling to uphold or surpass previous spitting records. It was instead a very low-key affair, mainly for kids. However, it was exciting enough to need to head home for a cold beer, prior to our repas en plein air which was due to start at 8pm.

Lunch

What a treat we had tonight. The tables lined up in the plaza must have seated around 500 by our reckoning, with extra seats added after the 8pm start. The bands were in full swing still, even after a full day of entertaining throughout the town centre. However, by this time a number were getting slightly or severely drunk, with the effect that their antics livened up even more.

By ridiculous co-incidence we ended up sitting next to a couple from Auckland, and their friend from Tauranga. We haven’t met any other NZers since we have been here. They are just travelling through. The main course and dessert (cherry-themed of course) were just as tasty as the charcuterie appetiser. We were slightly overwhelmed at times by band members dancing on the tables while still blowing their instruments, including the tuba guy. It was such a laugh and everyone was clapping to the beat and having a great time.

We were having a coffee when the band finished off their routine (just as Suzy and I were about to get up and join the conga line). The main entertainer then took over – a long-legged lass with a backing band. Unfortunately she started off with pretty slow songs and most people started leaving. We gave it away at about 11pm, after a thoroughly enjoyable Catalan night of frivolities.

Friday 25th - Collioure and Port-Vendres

Mini-expedition day today. After a cruisy start we got away at 11:30am to Collioure on the coast. It is only a 25 minute trip, but quite long enough. Suzy and I were in the back seats of the 7-seater hire car, and didn’t really play up too much at all.

Collioure is a gorgeous seaside town, with a castle right on the water’s edge and two more slightly inland. It now attracts lots of tourists but it is too early in the season for too many yet.  Because we now live here J & I don’t consider ourselves to be tourists – which is very snobby of us! A coffee by the water’s edge was followed by a gentle wander around the town, looking in at various galleries and shops. Lunch was in a quiet restaurant back from the water’s edge, where a carafe of cold rosé went down a treat with my canard (duck) salad and John’s moules à la crème (mussels in garlic).

Collioure

We climbed back into the car to drive the short distance further down the coast through Port-Vendres and then home to Céret via a quick squizz at a nearby chateau which is up for the sale. The latter is set within a large walled-in park of a garden, complete with a number of follies. The chateau is just stunning but in pretty sad state of repair and would need a few million on top of its multi-million Euro price tag to do it up. Alas, we have to dream on, but it was a very pretty diversion on the way back to Céret.

Emma, Nick, Jack & Suzy

Jack has been a lot more settled today and everyone is pretty chilled out. We were very lucky to fluke a carpark when we arrived back in town, as the place is definitely filling up in anticipation of the cherry festival this weekend. The local council has been working hard, with extra street cleaning over the last few days, stages being put up beside the main street and elsewhere for the planned activities – dancing, music, bands, cheery-spitting competition etc. It should be lots of fun. Brilliant timing on the part of Suzy and Tim to arrive in town for Céret’s biggest festival.

Thursday 24th

Everyone voted for an easy day today. Suzy and co. have been travelling fairly steadily since Sunday and some downtime doing very little was the order of the day. A coffee at the café before lunch, snooze/read, and then gentle wander around town, including a wander up behind the town to get a view of its setting. Return to the café, for a beer this time, and then Nick and Emma took the chance to have a quiet dinner out together while the rest of us had a meal at home and looked after Jack. Jack has been a little unsettled today, probably because of the heat, but he slept very well during the night.

Our living room in fine state

Wednesday 23rd - The Wanklyn family arrives

Summer has arrived. 20° by 8am, and it is just under 27° at 5:30pm, with a nice breeze blowing. Karen is sitting in the window with a beer, a book and a new haircut. Suzy and family will be on their way now from Carcassonne.

We got ourselves out on a run about 11 this morning, we’ll have to make it earlier in future now that the warm weather has arrived. Had a Skype with Sally this morning, all sounds OK in New Zealand, though the dollar has dropped markedly against the Euro. That's a pity for us as we will need to move some renovation money across at some point.

We've had to replace a number of our windowbox petunias for some reason. Perhaps they got some lime from the roof renovations that have upset them. We’ve swapped to geraniums this time!

Suzy, Tim and co. arrived about 6pm after a long day’s travel from near Bordeaux, via Carcassonne. It was great to see them. After unloading Nick, Emma and Jack’s gear at the hotel, and Suzy and Tim’s gear into our apartment, we gathered at our local café and had a very enjoyable coffee together. Home to have a beer (lovely and cold now we have our fridge) and then an easy meal. Since yesterday the weather has taken a dramatic turn and the forecast is for temperatures of 26-27 for the foreseeable future.

A good deal of chatting and catching up and then to bed.

Tuesday 22nd - Scaffold cleared, kitchen arrives

Mark this one down as a red-letter day. Things are coming together nicely. The scaffold guys started the day off well by finally removing the scaffold that has blighted the view in and out of our apartment. How nice to have it out of the way, more light and clarity. I managed to tidy the bathroom, installing some small fittings and the mirror, and assembled another set of shelves to tidy the place further.

Van Central, and our kitchen arriving

Next was a call from the Castorama deliverymen saying they were on their way. Before long they were at Place de la Republique where I’d suggested they arrive, as the normal streets to get to us are blocked by works. I directed him in, then they got to unloading the kitchen and shower. The kitchen is 300kg by itself, and the shower is brutally heavy with its glass panels. Unfortunately they only took it in the front door, not up our stairs, so Karen & I had a torrid time again tripping up and down lugging boxes. As we were contemplating the unit containing the fridge, a couple of M. Freitas’ workmen took charge and helped us lug it upstairs. I don’t know how they did it. It was appallingly heavy and desperately awkward. We took them a thoroughly-deserved 6-pack of beer as a thank-you.

The kitchen is now more or less in its correct position, but more important, we have a cold fridge full of cooling cheese, wine and beer! We’ve been eating heaps of cherries (€5/kg) and strawberries (€1.50-1.90/kg) but we have been forced to scoff entire punnets at once as they simply won’t keep, not even overnight. It’s been awfully tough.

We are delighted with the kitchen. We’d planned on the 3m €1500 white one we’d seen here last year, but that is not on this year’s list, so we changed to a glossy dark slate-brown 2.5m one at an unbelievable €999. It looks perfect. The brown looks great against the parquet floor, and possibly white may have been just a bit much with all the other white we have. So it’s worked out very well. Even the fridge is nice and quiet.

The next good news of the day was that the NZ-Welsh couple Karen had met in Café Gourmandise in Nelson in March had replied to an email we’d sent, saying “yes” they would really like to rent the apartment from the time we leave this year until we get back next year, some 10 months. What a bonus. Not only is it good to have somebody in it, but the rent will sure come in handy. We won’t get the peak-season rates but we also avoid the hassles of employing people here for the changeovers.

Monday 21st

Off to Le Boulou again to change the speaker system which had proved to be hopeless. Didn’t come back with another, but we’ll have to buy something there as the return only gave us a credit, not money back. We may get a satellite receiver there as the one I had my eye on elsewhere has poor reviews. It looked like we might get wet if we delayed our return, but we thought we’d check out Gifi and a clothes shop anyway. Infuriatingly for Karen, I walked out with three shirts, and she despite trying on a zillion items came out empty-handed.

A quick stop at Brico-Marche where I picked up the last of the hardware to install the satellite dish and back home, still dry. I managed finally to get a haircut, something I have been putting off for a while but well overdue. 

Sunday 20th

A nice slow morning, then off to Café de France for some people-watching. After lunch was a session of housekeeping – adding up the bills, emailing and more, plus some work. There was a bit of activity below us today – possibly a confirmation ceremony.

Saturday 19th - Visit to Pete & Jules

In Céret for the market this morning. A little grey this time, and it seems to be reflected in the numbers there. It was a bit quieter than previous Saturdays. Met the Aussies again, and were invited to apero in the afternoon. By the time we’d chatted to them a bit, put the washing on and had a quick lunch, we were a bit late heading out to Le Boulou where we intended to get a few things from Gifi and the other stores there.

The weather looked a bit threatening, and had started to spit by the time we arrived. The first thing we looked at was the electronics shop for a speaker system – the TV and laptop speakers are not up to the task. Finally decided on a set of PC speakers and thought it wise to head back, with the box tucked between us. Managed a quick stop at Monsieur Bricolage to collect some connectors for the satellite dish, and bought some cherries on the way home. The cherries are well in season now, just as well with the huge cherry festival  this coming weekend.

Locked up the scooter in Place des Neuf Jets as normal, dropped off the speakers then along the street to aperitifs at the Aussies’ place. It is a lovely big (120m²) place on the 2nd floor. They have left it in an older style than we have chosen, and it is quite a bit darker, but the amount of space was lovely. They had a couple of Jules’ friends - a pair of single professional women. Wow they were sharp. They had only met for the first time but had spent the afternoon “planking” and were buzzing. A very amusing evening all round.

After we left there some three hours later, we thought we should head to the Musée which was having one of their free museum nights (they happen maybe once a quarter). It has a mix of artists, most from the Picasso/Braque/Miro era when they worked here. Not too excited by it, and off home for some overdue food.

Friday 18th - Shutters

A nice day yesterday, but time to get back to work today. Karen scraped the windows clear of paint while I did a bunch of work, then assisted. The windows and shutters now look so much better.

The good news of the day is that the roof has been finished, and they have packed up their heavy gear and are tidying up. They have even waterblasted the top two levels of the façade so it looks a lovely honey colour. A nice bonus to the work. With a little luck the scaffold will be down early in the week.

Before and after of the shutters and windows

Thursday 17th - Trip to Corsavy and a huge lunch

We had a superb day today. It’s a holiday here (yet again) so we decided we should have a day off as well. After a lovely lazy lie in bed we headed out on our scooter at 11am. We decided to head up our valley (Tech Valley) and travel some of the roads we did when we were here with our neighbours Sandy and Lynette three years ago. It was a great trip that time, and the same this year.

Chapel of St Martin, Corsavy behind

We scooted up the valley through Amélie les Bains and then turned up along the valley side to the little village of Corsavy, visiting the Corsavy chapel on the way. It is a gorgeous chapel, now substantially restored. It was erected in the 11th century as a way-station for pilgrims who were travelling on the Santiago de Compostela route between eastern Europe and the tip of Spain. Just as we were leaving a French woman arrived to show a German friend around, and she was keen to include us in her tour. She said that her two children helped hand-hew some of the replacement building stones, and we could well volunteer to do some ourselves if we were interested. The restoration is ongoing, with the next focus going to be on resurrecting the bell-tower. It would be magic to be involved in something like that.

Water trough in Corsavy

From the chapel we scooted the few kilometres to Corsavy proper and had a wee look at the watch-tower built above the village. It was after 12:30pm by this time and we were quite hungry. We had planned to have a ‘plat du jour’ (plate of the day) somewhere for lunch but Corsavy had only one nice-looking restaurant on offer, and it was advertising a full menu, with wine and coffee, for €31 each (NZ$50). We thought we would treat ourselves and go for it, especially given we haven’t eaten out at any restaurant since we arrived in France over 6 weeks ago, somewhat unbelievably. Getting a couple of takeaway pizzas doesn’t really count. We thought we would head further up the valley after lunch, visiting the church at Montferrer.

We sat down for lunch at 12:45pm and emerged 3½ hours later, sated after an extremely pleasant and relaxed meal. The restaurant was pretty much full of locals, all no doubt enjoying their typical leisurely lunch (maybe a little extended because it was a holiday). We certainly didn’t expect the meal to take over 3 hours, but it was very pleasant just sitting back and taking it easy. With a full bottle of local wine to get through (and of course J couldn’t have too much since he was driving) I had to pace myself but still ended up very cheery after having eaten 5 courses of food. Bella always says I am a cheap drunk. I suggested J should buy a seatbelt for me on the scooter for any future ‘long lunches’. No, I actually wasn’t that bad. Our meal started with charcuterie (slices of a home-made paté, salami and cured meat) with bread, followed by a grilled trout soaked in garlic, followed unexpectedly by a mushroom omelette. By this stage we were expected dessert but the waitress brought out a large plate with roast guinea fowl and carrots, with salad. A glass of delicious ice-cream was rounded off with an espresso each. Wow!

Corsavy from above

It was close to 5pm after we had had a short walk around the village so instead of heading further up the valley we opted to just head home. The Tech Valley is gorgeous and we are looking forward to exploring it further. There is so much to see within an hour of here, even Spain. The scooter is great. It gives us such freedom, and appears to run well. It is the Mercedes of scooters, with lots of instruments, a clock, trip computer, temperature, and more.

Home to a few cups of tea and an apple for dinner!

Wednesday 16th

The multiple clock idea was a good one, and they look good up on the wall, the only trouble is they make a hell of a racket! We endured one night and then gave it away. J took the batteries out of them so now they permanently set on the time differences between Céret/Munich, Melbourne (where Bella and Nic live) and Nelson, i.e. 9 here, 5 in Melbourne (which just happens to be tipple time so we can have a drink at any time of the day) and 7 in Nelson.

Today we put in a solid day’s work. I spent all day painting – finishing off the shutters and putting the white enamel on the internal doors in the living room/bathroom. A very smelly job with the oil based paint and I was very pleased to finish it. J spent most of the day on his work again, but thankfully the pressure for him is now off. 

We headed out for some fresh air at 5pm for a pastis and glass of wine at Bar Pablo, having a chat with one of the Aussie guys while there. It was lovely sitting in the sun for a while. The weather has been pretty up and down really – some very hot days but many still with a pretty cool breeze. We always have all the windows open during the day because of the painting fumes, and that makes our apartment quite chilly at times. I am often stripped down to minimal painting attire because I get hot painting and climbing up and down the ladder all the time, while J is huddled in the corner at his desk in layers of clothes.

Couldn’t be bothered thinking about dinner last night so bought a mushroom pie to cook up in the microwave and a couple of ice cream cups for afters. Pretty bad really!

Tuesday 15th - Appliances arrive

Another good sleep. We tend to be running later hours here than in NZ. At home we used to get up not long after 7am, here it is after 8am, with the whole day set back several hours. We rarely eat before 8pm, often 9pm or even later, as we tend to get stuck into something and don’t want to stop until it is done.

Another call from Monsieur Antonetti upstairs to discuss the aerial and cabling that he is very keen on getting sorted. The whole building's aerials run through his apartment and he is determined to put them in more public spaces, and also put our sat-dish cable somewhere else too. Partway through the visit to him, Karen came rushing upstairs with a delivery man on the end of her phone, about to drive away with our appliances for the second time as he couldn’t get close to us because of building works in some of the streets. I rushed down to see him in Place de Liberté, and pointed him to an alternate entry that made it acceptable.

Clocks, painting, table and furniture.

So finally at 10am we had a washing machine, a dryer and a dishwasher all sitting in our apartment. Wow. What excitement. I soon had a load of washing on (our first set of sheets and a bit more) to test the machine out – all good. Let’s hope the kitchen and shower arrive soon, as we need both for the plumber, and also the refrigerator now the weather is warm. Karen is now onto the first of the windows, while I’m doing more chairs, some work and other odds and sods.

We fluked a frame at IKEA on Thursday that looked to match a painting we had loved and bought in Xi’an China, and today we slipped the painting in to find it a perfect fit for the matte that the frame came with. So after 5 years rolled up, it has pride of place above the mantelpiece. I had a bright idea in Auchan a few days back that we have a series of clocks with Céret, Nelson and Melbourne time on them (we are always wanting to know the time in NZ and Oz), and they too have been printed, made up and put on the wall.

Monday 14th - More Ikea

Good news in the email this morning. Our rental agreement has come through in Nelson, and we have tenants for at least three months. It is at a decent rate, though not as much as we had hoped as the market is very different to that of February.  The rent will pay for the underestimations for our changes here! We slept very well. The new bed is very comfortable and we are glad we got it rather than a standard folding bed (called a clic-clac here) which tend to be smaller and always have lumps and bumps.

We finalised the scooter insurance this morning – about the same price as our car of 10 times the value in Nelson.  We stopped for a coffee at Bar Pablo before lunch, and heard some Antipodean voices near us. It turned out to a two Aussie couples who have also recently bought in Céret, a couple of hundred metres from us. Nice to have a few recognisable accents.

After lunch was painting, assembling and fixtures. Karen worked all afternoon on the shutters, completing them inside and out. I replaced the door lock with a new one, replaced one of the convector heaters, installed the shelf below the TV, and followed that with the TV wall mount. We really are making progress, and our room is feeling like a proper room now. Getting things off the floor and onto real tables rather than cartons is making a big difference.

Given we’ve had three sub-standard IKEA items, we thought we’d assemble the table to make sure it is OK before we write a letter to IKEA to get the duds replaced. All went well. Their design and packaging is very clever, even if their quality control seems to be a bit weak. We were surprised how large the table was, even though we knew the exact dimensions. It is a three-stage extending table, and even the unextended size is quite generous. We might have been better with the next size down, but it isn’t available in the birch finish we are sticking with, so no go.

Shifting around some of the IKEA boxes made us wonder how on earth we had got them up the stairs on Thursday. They were wickedly heavy and tough to move even a few metres. We could not believe we had got dozens of them up 4 flights of stairs. We must have been really hyped up, or mad, or both.

Sunday 13th - First scooter trip to V & L

We managed to get in three Skype sessions this morning to three different countries. We started in New Zealand with Sandy & Lynette, moved on to France and Suzy, and finished with Sally and New Zealand. Skype is so good. Our connection here seems adequate for Skype with two-way video, which is so good when it works.

We then rushed off on the scooter to Valerie and Lorcan’s for lunch. We had the odd issue with directions and took a long way there passing some interesting little towns. I was dreaming a bit and had taken a turn for Céret instead of Laroque at one point! We have let ourselves get a bit too tired – Thursday and Friday were pretty tough days. Lunch was lovely. We sat and had a good yarn about all sorts of things, comparing notes. We seem to have got off lightly so far with deliveries and tradesmen.

When we got back home mid-afternoon we intended to put our feet up, but thought it would be nice to move to our sofa-bed instead of the blow-up plus mattress. So we had a bit of fun assembling the big IKEA sofa-bed. It went together easily (we have found everything has gone together easily, though have had a backtrack or two with parts in upside-down or bad side out). Unfortunately another piece of poor IKEA quality control as the sofa cover has a large slightly oily stain. No doubt we will get a replacement easily, but it is annoying as it is pretty obvious.

The room is starting to get a bit crowded, but that’s hard to avoid given its size. However it looks like it will all fit in OK, and the overall effect is more or less what we had imagined. It is perhaps more cosy, and less stark than expected.

The sofa-bed is large – an easy three-seater, and a queen slat bed when extended. On undoing the blow-up mattress we found that 5 weeks of sleeping on it, the last week or so in hot temperatures, had allowed the start of some mildew on the top of the blow-up. Just as well we have swapped now and not in a fortnight’s time. So off to sleep on our new bed…

Saturday 12th - Beginnings of a home

Slept well and breakfast in bed. This is possibly our last sleep on the blow-up mattress for a while. We will use it again in a few weeks’ time when Suzy and Tim are here unless we have managed to buy a proper bed by then. We are really looking forward to spending the next few days ‘dressing’ the room (as they say in the home renovation programmes). We seem to have untold boxes to be dealt with but it will be loads of fun. Heading off to the market soon, our first time back in three weeks!

Assembling IKEA

At Bar Pablo after the market, a man waved to me pointing at my silver fern T-shirt then to his fern-logoed cap. I went and had a chat to him to find he is a New Zealander with an American IT consultant wife and a house at Maureillas, next town northeast towards Perpignan. They are here on and off much of the year, when he is not doing palette-knife painting classes on cruise ships and she is off consulting.

Now evening, or in fact well into night-time. Dinner at 9:30pm after a serious session enjoying ourselves putting up our new IKEA purchases and setting up the room. A few hiccups along the way, but we are so pleased with the results. We had bought one bookcase in a deeper version than intended, but with a bit of lateral thinking it has worked out really well. The other bookcase is possibly one too many for the living room, so we may move it to the bedroom later. Today’s efforts have been the assembly and filling of one shelving unit, 2 bookcases, covers on 2 tub chairs, the desk, and all the other purchases cleaned and packed in their proper places. It’s all very tidy, and weirdly we seem to have far more room than before we clogged the apartment up with IKEA boxes on Thursday. For the first time since we arrived 5½ weeks ago it feels like a real home.

The beginnings of a living room

Friday 11th - Picking up the scooter

Neither of us slept very well. Too much excitement I guess. Up again at 6.50am to set off early with the van back to Perpignan. We had to get it back by 8am. Unfortunately we got a little confused on the outskirts of town (mostly due to trying to find a gas station to fill up the fuel tank) and only found our way there by 8:30pm. No problem at all for the hire firm.  Feeling severely stressed/tired so stepped next door again for a much needed coffee and 10min chillout.

Ten minute walk back to the bus station and while there returned to the Europcar hire counter to argue over $ they had direct debited from our bank account. They had charged us an extra day. The guy in Paris said we could have it for 3 days, with the 3 hours left from our pickup time to close of business in Perpignan on the last day not a problem. However, the receptionist in the Perpignan office didn’t agree. Still no luck so feeling a bit bummed about that.

Out onto the street to catch a bus to the scooter place and fluked a bus straight away. The closest drop-off point was at the Auchan store so we browsed through there, before walking to the scooter place which didn’t open until 10am. No joy, the scooter hadn’t been serviced yet. Could we come back at 3pm? Ugh – we are pretty sick of being out in this huge commercial/industrial park place on the southern outskirts of Perpignan where it is so hard to walk between each of the huge stores (no footpaths and huge roundabouts to cross over) and they are all a good distance apart. Nothing to be done for it so we backtracked to Decathlon further down the road and spent a very slow two hours looking through all their sporting goods. We picked up some wet weather gear for the scooter, some swim goggles and cap, some tennis balls, exercise mats and a few other odds and sods.

Walked back again. The bakery place close to the scooter place was closed from 1pm – 4pm so no show of lunch. Had a few emergency bars with us but that was it. Organised our helmets and a good bike lock (thrown into the purchase price of the scooter) and then tried to pay the balance. Our card was refused by the bank. Darn! 3pm on Friday. Tried to ring our bank friend but he was out of the office. Ended up paying on our other cards but still don’t know why it was turned down because our balance is clearly fine. A further wait for the bike and eventually away in a puff and wheeze at 4:00pm. The scooter was not idling very well but there was no time to get it fully serviced and we have to take it back anyway to get a rear light changed that hadn’t been done. Will get the timing looked at then.

Found our way to Conforama to have a look at a stereo unit J is considering for our music, but the shop assistant who looks after the stereo gear was not there and no other assistant could let us plug in the unit to see what its sound was like! There is a clear division of jobs here in France. If you work in TVs, then you don’t help in the next aisle which is stereos, same as in the hardware stores where hardware won’t help with electrical. A different way of doing things. Will have to come back another time.

So, at 5pm, we headed off for Céret. Only trouble was we were leaving from a slightly different part of town and proceeded to get immensely lost while looking for a gas station, as we were running very low on gas. Went through about three small villages (all new to us), saw a signpost for an Intermarché (which is a supermarket mostly also selling fuel), couldn’t find it so asked some locals and, much to our relief tanked up plus bought some bread and cheese for dinner. Running seriously low on ergs ourselves by this time but managed to get back on course to Céret, parked the bike immediately outside our apartment, locked it to the scaffolding outside (very handy) and sagged down on our bed at 6:30pm. Put together some bread and cheese for dinner and now about to crawl into bed for some much needed rest.  A hot (27-28°), long and frustrating day.

The last few days have been quite an adventure, but we are very much looking forward to doing very little for a few days. Unfortunately, as you can guess, J is champing at the bit to rip open the cartons and start putting all the furniture together. I have to do some touch-up painting before some of them can go in place, so I hope to get that done asap. We are scootering out to see our friends Valerie and Lorcan for lunch on Sunday at Laroque-des-Albères . They were our home exchange hosts in 2009, and house scrutineers for us last year. They are great fun and we are looking forward to having a relaxing time with them.

Thursday 10th - Van to Ikea Montpellier and back

What a day! It began at 11pm last night for J when his work colleague in NZ rang with some queries. J spent the next two hours doing some urgent work. Back to sleep for a few hours and then up at 5.50am in time to catch the 6.35am bus to Perpignan. Drizzling a little but the weather forecast was good. It was just a 10min walk to the car hire place but there was a very convenient and welcome boulangerie right next to it so we had 10min rest to enjoy an espresso before the company opened its doors.

A VERY large van awaited us. We didn’t want to have the same problem we had when we hired the van for the trip from Paris to Perpignan, planning to visit IKEA on the way, only to find the vehicle wasn’t long enough to fit the frame of the sofabed. We wanted to make sure we had no problems this time, and this place offered vans with 7-9m³ storage space. A very helpful manager and, after climbing the lofty heights into the cab, plugged in the GPS and set off in the direction of Montpellier. It is roughly 130km there, and the time taken depends on whether you opt for toll roads or not. We took local roads as far as Narbonne (halfway) and then the toll road the rest of the way. On deck at IKEA, with our supermarket trolleys (plural!) at the ready by 11am. We thought about three hours would see it wrapped up. We were wrong. Whipped through the first huge part of the store which is given over to displaying all the items on offer. We had made most of our buying decisions before today but still had a few things to sort out. Decisions made and through to the general household furnishings area where you can pick up lots of smaller items, especially for the kitchen, here. Two full trolleys already. Paid for these and at the same time ordered the bigger items which need to be assembled together in the warehouse and picked up at a ‘retrieval’ point.

Threw (carefully) everything we had collected so far into the van and straight back for the second round. Began with the IKEA specialty in their café of meatballs and mash (for the grand sum of $10 total) and quickly off to the large warehouse manned with two ‘cargo’ trolleys. Up and down the aisles collecting larger flatpack items, such as shelving units, living room table, dining chairs, 2 tub chairs etc. Chocka trolleys and zoomed these back to the van. Next back to the retrieval point and collected two large trolleys laden with the really big flatpacks (sofabed mechanism, shelf unit, mirror) and back to the van. What a load – we spent the next hour packing it all in carefully into the van and finally hit the road south just after 4pm.

Putting the last few things in at Leroy Merlin

We decided we had to take the toll road back all the way to have any hope of picking up our other heavy items, so paid the hefty sum of E11 for the comparatively quick 1.5hr trip back to Perpignan, halted abruptly by untimely traffic jams on the motorway only 5km from our first destination. Wasted 50 minutes getting the last 5km but finally back to Maisons du Monde to check out two bedside cabinets we had seen in their catalogue. They didn’t have any in stock so we will have to wait a month until they are. Next stop was Castorama, which we have frequented at least half a dozen times in the last month. Here we purchased some lovely floor tiles for the bathroom and some shelving units for the storeroom, along with another 12 litre pail of wall paint. Final dash to Leroy Merlin where we picked up two wall heaters (one for half price because of a very small ding on its underside J). Wheeled these out the door at 8:01pm, with the store closing up behind us. Phew, we had made our rounds, but only just.

Couldn't wait to get a couple of chairs half-assembled!

All that remained now was to get home and get everything up into the apartment. Ugh! Arrived home soon after 8:30pm but it wasn’t until 10:00pm that, after 13-14 loads up the two storied double flights of stairs, we finally had everything inside the apartment. Using our large backpacks to get the 30kg boxes of tiles up the stairs wasn’t toooo bad, but struggling between us to carry the large and heavy flatpacks up, partly in darkness, was a real mission. Collapsed on the bed in a tangle of messy sweaty limbs for a 10 min breather at the end of all that. I threw a can of something (some sort of vege mix) into the microwave and made up some couscous for dinner while J caught up on work emails. Showers and into bed at 11.30pm. It had been an extremely fun day in many ways but we could have done without the time pressure. One particularly good thing today was an email from plumber No. 2 with a quote of a shade over one third of the other one (not quite comparable but near enough).

Wednesday 9th

Back to work again. We had finally managed to find some paint that pretty much matched the colour on the outside face of shutters. I set to and painted up both double shutters, trying to eke out the paint because of its horrendous cost – about NZ$48 per half litre. Had to give in – we will have to buy another can to paint the shutters in the bedroom when we get around to it. J spent time with the guy upstairs sorting out the connection for our satellite dish on the roof.

Work on the roof above us

Had our 2^nd electrician around to do a quote – yet again an incredibly nice guy. We have been seriously impressed (and perhaps surprised) at how friendly just about everyone we have met has been.

Spent a good chunk of the afternoon confirming what we want to buy from IKEA tomorrow when we pick up our hire van and head to Montpellier. We had to work out a ‘plan of attack’ to be able to get back to Perpignan in time to zoom around three other shops where we had large or heavy items to pick up while we had wheels to transport them back to Céret.

Tuesday 8th - Planter boxes

Today is the 2^nd of the 4 holidays this month, this one being Victory Day, so we thought we should have a day off too. Having a coffee at Café de France, we managed to catch Suzy & Tim on Skype. They have just arrived in France for the best part of a month. We also ordered a bike for Karen and a van for our trip to Montpellier IKEA on Thursday. It looks like we can get it for 24 hours instead of just 8am to 6pm, which will make the day a whole lot more manageable, as we also need to pick up some materials from Castorama and Leroy Merlin on the way back.

Fete de la Victoire

After lunch was the much-awaited planting of the window boxes! Another run, a bit of computer work and some French study rounded out the day. We’re enjoying the more summery temperatures, with it staying up around 20° into the evenings now. We now feel very ‘French’ with our planter boxes hanging off our balcony rails.

Monday 7th

Writing this to the accompaniment of the church organ. It’s the first time we’ve heard it since we’ve been here. Maybe it has been involved in the €1.5 million of renovations in the church that have been going on since before we arrived, and probably will be for many months yet. It really is rather lovely to hear.

With the reasonably imminent (we hope) arrival of various appliances, kitchen and shower we spent today trying to finish off various small jobs in the living room, especially cleaning the fireplace. We need to look for some sort of polish to really bring up its lustre. It is solid stone on the shelf, front façade and hearth.

In the afternoon J happily agreed with me to walk down  to the Zone Artisanale to get some plants for our newly purchased window boxes. We came away with a selection of flowering petunias and a couple of packets of seeds including the geraniums that everyone seems to have, we suppose because they are hardy.  Seedling prices are pretty fearsome here so we had to opt for packets of seeds instead, but hopefully they will soon be sprouting. J was very mannish and hefted a 40 litre bag of potting mix all the way home. 

Sunday 6th

Breakfast in bed, then a lazy morning and a coffee at Bar Pablo in the sun. Temperatures are slowly warming up, though not yet to shorts and T-shirt levels. After lunch we had a good housekeeping session. With so little spare space it’s hard to keep it tidy, and twice as important.

We intend to head to IKEA in Montpellier this week so spent a fair part of the afternoon going through what we need to pick up. It’s so far away that we don’t want to have to go back, so we need to get a good list sorted before we get there.

Not a great brand name for an air freshener

We have been exceptionally brave and gone on another run (J’s 3^rd, my 4^th). We headed off down a small side road heading out of town and ended up doing a lovely half hour circuit, past cultivated gardens, trees, spacious houses and expansive views. It was a lovely up and down route, much of it shaded which will come in handy later on in summer.

Had a nice surprise visit from Valerie and Lorcan, our exchange hosts and friends from 2009. They had arrived in Laroque-des-Alberes for the summer just a few days ago and with their friends Joe and Mary were attending a concert in the church. Lovely to see them again, our first proper visitors in our new home here. They have invited us out to their place in the weekend – it will be the first proper venture on our little scooter!

Saturday 5th - We own a scooter!

Woohoo! We are now scooter owners! We’ve been in to Perpignan for what feels like the 100^th time on the €1 bus, this time being a little more generous and letting ourselves catch the later 9:15 bus rather than the 7:50. The aim was to buy the scooter we’d seen last weekend, but first check out AG Motors next door in case there was something better. There sure was. He had three Piaggio X9 scooters, a top model of the mid-2000s. One was a 250 and a bit pricey, another was cheaper than the Peugeot next door, and the third must just have come in as it was scruffy. Perfect for what we wanted.  A bit untidy and sun-bleached to keep the price down, but a quality scooter underneath. Compared to the next-door model, it was a lot cheaper, more powerful, more features, better brakes, less efficient, more comfy, with a backrest for Karen. In short a better match for us to day-trip on. Perhaps we’ll even do the odd multi-day trip later on. So after a test ride and bit of haggling (helmets and lock thrown in) we will be the owners of a nice little scooter next Friday, fresh from a service and with 3 months’ warranty (which just about sees us through this year in Céret).

Our "new" Piaggio scooter!

We can’t wait to be mobile and to start visiting the little towns and valleys hereabouts, and the Cathar sites, and go to the beach, and be able to get to the big stores south of Perpignan more easily. It really will make a difference to our life here.

After the excitement of the scooter, we went back to Castorama to see if we could use their rental vans to get tiles, shelving, heaters and a bit more back to Céret, but it was going to be too pricey and we will see if we can fit in a flying visit on the day we hire a van for IKEA. Nevertheless we did manage to lug home a heater, a noticeboard and three window boxes and holders to plant up for our little balconies.

Friday 4th - Meeting Antoine Freitas

We have the living room looking pretty smart now. All this morning Karen scrubbed the second half of the floor, then ground it with steel wool and turps, following which I gave it two coats of wax polish. It looks very smart now, and with the whole floor done the room looks bigger and more complete. In the morning I spent quite a bit of time with Mr Antonetti upstairs, looking at how the satellite and TV cables can be rerouted through his son’s new rooms, as he is taking the chimney down that our (currently unused) satellite dish lives on. One slightly concerning moment was when I realised that the foot-thick stone wall dividing what will be two attic bedrooms above us is directly over the wall we need to remove and rebuild. From in our place there is no visible sign of a beam or anything, and there was a moment of anxiety as we imagined it all crashing down on us. However several hacked holes in the ceiling later I had located a big iron beam, which has made us happy again. Karen managed to finish off the skirting painting too.

About finished?

By 5pm we'd had enough of the fumes and being inside, so headed off on a run. As I got back in, M. Freitas, the builder who is redoing the roof overhead, came up his scaffold and in the windows to do a quote. Yet again, another very cheerful and helpful tradesman. The plan with moving our doors and cutting a new opening is to remove the entire wall and rebuild it in Placoplatre (plasterboard and steel studs). This will be cheaper and easier than trying to muck around with the existing hollow clay block wall.

We also learnt a little about the building from him. It sounds to be a bit over a hundred years old, and was built for a famous French general and his family. It is a very large building for a single family, considering there are at least five apartments in this part of it. M. Freitas is going to get us a copy of the “livre” or record of the building. 

Living room floor looking smart

Thursday 3rd

Awoke to another gorgeous blue sky.  It is so foreign waking up here. The first clue is a peal of church bells at 7:45. We then look out the window through part-open shutters, through the curlicues of the window railings and across the square. Over the other side there are the stone walls of the building opposite, with funny little windows. Our view is over its tiled roof to the tops of the huge plane trees and the sky above. There are doves cooing and often clip-clop steps across the square and French conversations. At 8:45 each morning, the baker just beyond the square opens his oven and depending on the drift of the breeze, the apartment fills with the smell of fresh-baked bread. It is all a delight.

A bit of an easier day today. We spent much of the morning tidying up the place a bit and doing the washing in the bath as usual. Onto the end of a painting brush again, this time Karen undercoating the doors. I managed a few minutes’ worth too before transferring to the fireplace, which has been a nice surprise. We thought some of it may be stone, but it turns out that all but the sides are of a fine black stone, including the hideously varnished hearth. The latter cleaned off easily with just a scraper, then some steel wool to polish it up.

Stunning views from one more story up

Another funeral today. The roofer and his gang had to completely desert the square - crane, truck, skip and all, so they missed part of the day’s work. While they were away for lunch (lunch is a big thing – you don’t just snatch a sandwich on the job) we went up to the roof to see what was going on. What a revelation! The attic room above starts at about 2.4m at the back and slopes away to 0.5m with some tiny quatrefoil window/vents, so the front edge is about thigh-height. At the moment it is completely open to the sky, and the views are superb. It will be such a waste with the roof going back on as it makes a perfect outdoor eyrie. Our place is lovely, but it does make us realise what it is missing.

Our main room is beginning to take shape with the windows almost done. I’ve hung our big Céret photo montage over the fireplace.