Yippee. It’s the weekend so we can allow ourselves to down tools
for two days. We started the day with a run a little later than usual at 9am,
late breakfast then a very gentle and pleasant wander around the market before
chilling out watching the crowds from our local café. The major find of the day
features chocolate – ‘that’s a surprise” I can hear you saying. Instead of
buying our usual tartelette pomme at
a little stall, we indulged by trying the Catalan pies. Bliss. I won't describe the sweet pastry
filled with cherries in a bed of chocolate sauce, and all topped with crusty meringue, as that wouldn't be fair.
They are definitely going to be a regular feature of our Saturday morning
agenda from now on!
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| New entry hall, storeroom door behind, new doorway to bedroom |
Cruisy lunch and we are now about to head off on the scooter
to the builders' outlets nearby, and then a little further to the building
supply shops in the town of Le Boulou. The poor old scooter is only getting
weekend excursions at the moment, and is probably a bit put out by it, buy
hopefully we will get time to go further afield and more often, but I’m afraid
to predict when. I’ll just have to eat my words again.
Family news – we have heard that Alastair has been accepted
for an internship with IDEO in San Francisco. He is absolutely over the moon because
it is a top (if not The Top) design company in the world. He is now putting off
going back to Sweden to finish his Master’s degree until Aug 2013. After a 6
month stint in IDEO’s San Francisco office he might to offered a similar
position in a different branch somewhere else in the world, or will look for a
final 6 month internship, possibly in Asia. Our nephew Nick has recently been
accepted for a degree doing social work in France, with all course fees paid.
He has done very well to gain one of the relatively few scholarships available.
Bella and Nick have just headed off to Bali for a week’s R&R (delayed
honeymoon) and then move into their new apartment (first own home) virtually as
soon as they return to Melbourne.
Our expedition out to the building supply shops was somewhat
fraught – back and forth between various outlets comparing what was available
and prices. We have done this so often! Thankfully the list of things we have
yet to buy has shrunk dramatically and there are only about a dozen things left. We
eventually arrived home at 7.00pm with the eclectic mix of a handsaw, bicycle
pump and frypan!
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| Local brass/woodwind orchestra |
The sound of music at 8.00pm drew us back outside. Just
around the corner at our local café a full wind and brass orchestra had set up
on a stage and was playing a variety of music. Rows of chairs had been set out
on the road in front and were filled with a happy audience. The café was also
packed but we managed to find a table and had a coffee while listening for an
hour. We are constantly amazed at the amount of entertainment that is on in Céret
– there is so much advertised that it is easy to just gloss over it. This
concert played until 11am.
It is really enjoyable how laid-back everything is – the music
was playing, people chatting quietly at some of the tables, other moving from
table to table, people out strolling through the whole thing, some having a
dance at the side of the road, a group of guys at the café watching (and
cheering) a soccer match being televised outside on a big screen. Everything
just meshed easily and without a fuss.
