The bed works! Passed a very pleasant first night in our new
bed in our new bedroom. The bed is just right – not too firm or too soft. It
feels a little strange having two rooms to choose from after so long living in
a single room. Almost excessive in fact. The last part of our rearranging will
be to get the wardrobes in and the cooker connected, then we will be at the end
of the major changes.
After the pleasures of waking up in a real bed in a real bedroom,
we had a guitarist park himself below us and give a little Spanish guitar
recital. Very nice.
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| Collecting the wardrobe |
We thought there was no need to hang around for the
electrical quote, so decided to go into Perpignan to collect the wardrobes
which Castorama had rung us to say had arrived. Got away 10:30 and into
Castorama by 11. We thought a pair of wardrobes at 2m long and weighing 60+
kilogrammes each might be too much for the scoot, so we booked a Castorama
rental van for 1pm, and went off on the scooter to Decathlon in the meantime to
get a bit of running clothing for the hot weather. It’s now close to 30 degrees
every day with a low of mid-high teens overnight. We have the apartment wide
open overnight with a fan going, and close it up during the day when the
outside temperature gets warmer than inside. In the evenings it’s too lovely to
have it closed so we open it up again.
Our van booked for 1pm turned into a truck at 1:30pm, so we
loaded up and did the trip back to Céret. A torrid time lugging the very heavy
parcels up to the apartment (the last major items we have to collect) and back
to Castorama by 3pm. Being in Perpignan we took the opportunity to top up our
non-sugary muesli supplies from Auchan then back home. Very blustery on the
plains on the way back, a little unnerving on the scooter at times.
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| Hot Club de Torderes at Bar Pablo |
Tonight is a free music night through all France and there
were multiple bands set up around the streets. Unfortunately I had some work to
load up, so we had a salad dinner and after getting the work sorted, headed out
to see what was on. The first band was an Irish-style one with a flat lead singer
(he sang flat, he hadn’t been squashed), but the jazz band from the Saturday
market was at Bar Pablo, so we sat down for a pastis and rosé after what
had been a long and tiring day. After an hour or two, our Aussie friends Ross & Liz arrived and we ended a very pleasant day with them. They had bumped into a New
Zealander while they were off in Spain for a couple of days – Ian Jack who we
know quite well in Nelson.
What an enjoyable day. Perfect hot weather, an apartment
that is exceeding our dreams, in a town that is way exceeding them. Flamenco
guitar in the square, delicious fresh bread and fruit, free music at night with
new friends. The hard work is well worth it.
