Up a little blearily this morning. John
finished off the painting in the bathroom and it looks pretty good. We will put in new bathroom floor tiles when we come back next year – we
already have them stashed away in our storeroom but what we have done is fine
as a temporary measure.
We had our appointment with a second real
estate agent at 11am – he had also appraised our place last week. Even better
good news. He put the current price of our apartment quite a lot higher than
the Century21 agent yesterday. However, we think he possibly gave it a good
nudge because he then took us to view a 3 bedroom apartment (with pool and
terrace) a few streets away in Rue de la Republique. It was very generously priced but had been on the
market for a year. We wanted to view it to get an idea of what a larger
apartment in the centre of old quarter may cost, and clearly very few come with
a pool. It was interesting to have a look over it, and we could make a massive
difference to it through renovation work, but it’s too big and too expensive to
be a realistic option. We quizzed the agent today on the potential of adding
another bedroom and terrace to our own apartment, and he confirmed what the
Century 21 agent said. It would not add enough value to the place in comparison
to the likely cost of doing the work.
I did some cleaning today but we don’t
really have that much to do before we go. I had a nana nap this afternoon to
make up for last night’s late night. We have just opened up the shutters – the
temperature inside and out is more or less equal at 32 degrees. It’s quite
pleasant sitting in the shade at Bar Pablo where the light breeze makes the temperature
a lot more palatable. Our Aussie mates have just emailed to say there son is
going to be paying a flying visit to Céret this afternoon and will be at Bar
Pablo at about 6pm and asked if we would like to go and meet him.
We had an extremely pleasant hour
chatting away with Grant (Ross and Liz’s son) and his girlfriend, along with
Sally and Eamonn, an English couple who have been living here full-time for
four years and will be looking after renting out Ross’ place. It was the first
time we had met Sally and Eamonn as well. Liz had already suggested to them
that they could perhaps also look after our place when it is being rented, e.g.
clean it between changes and even collect people from or drop them at
Perpignan. They are a very nice English couple, who have three children now
firmly installed in the local French schools. Grant and Amelia were a lovely
couple, just on a day trip here from Barcelona.
We stayed on at Bar Pablo in the hope of
catching Monsieur Vargas. We will be
storing our scooter in his garage but he is pretty hard to track down. He is
usually at Bar Pablo at some time of the day. Our builder M. Freitas turned up,
and we found out from him that we will always catch M. Vargas at Bar Pablo
between 11am and 12am, and that the evening is not a good time to track him
down – he is well and truly gone by then.
M. Freitas gave us a big kiss, bought us a drink and said he looked
forward to seeing us again next year. It gave us a nice warm fuzzy feeling J.
John got a real buzz out of being able to
understand just about everything the real estate agent was saying today. His
fluency has taken a big leap forward in the last 2-3 weeks and we have put it
down to the fact that we have been out of the apartment a lot more since our
work has been winding down, having apero with French people, and chatting more
with the waiters at the bar, people in the street, in the shops and so on. It
has made a huge difference. I can also understand a lot more of what people are
saying than when we arrived in Céret. I was even making conversation at the
hairdresser’s today.
