After yesterday's drama, we thought a very quiet day was in order. A short walk for groceries, a coffee, and then the afternoon was spent sitting down and organising our trip to Sicily. We'd booked the Ryanair flights and bus connections last Sunday, but had 10 night's accommodation to sort, plus booking the car. The prices are very cheap, with the hire-car costing just 74 Euro for 4 days which included a fee for different pick-up and drop-off points - it would have been a ridiculous 35E without that.
A few days ago also saw us doing some admin at the local tax office. A housing declaration had shown an incorrect date of birth for John. Not wanting to come to grief further down the track with problems we thought we should get it corrected while we are here in Ceret. Armed with our passports and appropriate documents we successfully negotiated the interview procedure at the local tax office. It only took an hour to change a 9 to a 7, so we got off lightly.
This morning, Wednesday, we finished off sprucing up the apartment in readiness for our local friendly real estate agent to come and view it. We are not intending to sell, for a year at least, but want to get a ballpark figure for it. Didier duly arrived at 11am and did his measurements and so on. We have an appointment to see him tomorrow afternoon to discuss his assessment.
As soon as Didier left we jumped in the car to head to Figures, 50 minutes to the south and over the Spanish border. John had discovered that 60+ year olds can get a discount pass for the Spanish rail network, but only direct from a Spanish railway station. Savings are between 25% and 40%, so we thought it was well worth the 6E each in case we want to take a Spanish train later this year, or perhaps early next. The very cheery Spanish woman on the ticket desk was most helpful and with a quick noting of passport details and handing over 12E, we were back out in the carpark in under 10 minutes!
Since we were in Figures, and it was 1pm, we figured we'd have lunch there. Google had revealed a restaurant very near the rail office with great reviews. Unfortunately, when we rolled up, a notice on the door declared it was closed for a holiday break. No matter, we drove the 20 minutes north again to La Jonquera and enjoyed lunch at the restaurant we ate at a month ago. The whole trip was based around hair appointments in La Jonquera at 3.30pm. We discovered our hairdresser last year, after our previous one a block further away didn't reopen after Covid. Carmen does a wonderful job, is lots of fun and chats away very fast in Spanish, French and Catalan. The total cost for both haircuts is 25E (NZ$44).
Just down the road was a large plant nursery. We've been looking for some new plants for our window plant holders, and also one new holder since one had clearly gone adrift somehow during last year and our last tenant must have replaced it with a silly undersized one. We found both a new holder and some new plants, so were well pleased with our day's efforts. A bag of planter mix at the supermarket in Ceret and we were all set to refill our planters.
Arriving home in a rush at 5pm, we immediately tried messaging with Alastair because it was 8am on 11th Oct in San Francisco, his birthday. He'd just walked in the door from a workout so it was lovely to have a catch-up before he went to work. Sophie was just laying the breakfast table with some French toast and other delights.
We spent the next wee while planting up our planter boxes and are very happy with the result. Hopefully the plants will last for a reasonable number of months (hopefully the whole year), and the pigeons find somewhere else to hang out. The bright flowers look really lovely when you look upwards from the square downstairs.
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| Our three planter boxes complete with new flowers |
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| Entree of lime-cured fish with coriander and Asian flavours |
