The weather has changed. It's cooler, with perhaps a high of 16-20 degrees during the day. We're wearing trousers and sweatshirts for the first time, and it feels strange, but it's pleasant. The colder temperatures are very welcome but unfortunately the rain hasn't amounted to much. Drought conditions still exist.
We are still alternating lunches between baguette and cheese, and salad, and making simple meals for dinner. We don't go out to local restaurants very much at all, other than for a special occasion. On Saturday we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at the only restaurant open in the square below us. We'd been there once last year and I'd enjoyed a fabulous vegetarian salad (we'd taken a photo), and John's fish dish was very tasty too.
I planned to have the same this time around. When it appeared it didn't look nearly as good as last year's version. But what was abhorrent was that the sliced pineapple was very discoloured, the grapes half brown and the kiwifruit so see-through and soft it was like jelly. I nibbled a bit of pineapple but it was revolting. We called the waitress and she was very unpleasant. She began shouting and asking how much of the dish was unacceptable and stormed off. The owner (who is possibly the chef) wandered out a little while later. I used my best French to say the fruit tasted awful and the dish was not acceptable. John came straight out and said the fruit was rotten. The guy tried to explain it away by saying he had sliced the fruit yesterday and because the weather is warm the fruit doesn't keep long. It clearly hadn't been refrigerated then? He took the plate away and brought it back with markedly different fruit. One of the new grapes still had mould on one side, so he hadn't done much checking. We were really miffed. He could have offered a free coffee or something, but he wasn't interested, maybe because we weren't French, weren't regulars and weren't locals. We certainly won't be going back there, and will tell our friends about our treatment. It put an unpleasant shadow over the day.
On Sunday we chose a different route for our walk, one we haven't taken since last year. It goes past a waterfall not far from town. It was an enjoyable track, through rural land.
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| Lovely stone steps set into a stone wall beside the waterfall track |
To make up for yesterday's lunch debacle we treated ourselves to a pastry for lunch. Jean-Louis, who has the bakery under the town arch, makes the most delectable Jesuite in town. We haven't bought one this year, so today was it. It is quite ridiculous really - croissant type pastry, filled with cream and chocolate, far too big to fit on a lunch plate and all for a ridiculous 1.70Euro.
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| A Jolly Jesuit |
We have been enjoying a very quiet week. I'm deeply immersed in a 1500 piece jigsaw. We are both doing a lot of reading and John has started an Italian language course.
Saturday morning dawned quite cold and threatening rain, but the market was still busy. We met up with Aussie friends for a morning coffee. They are heading north tomorrow for a two-week road trip through Germany and Switzerland. We bought some bread and fresh goats cheese and then finished off the preparations we had begun yesterday for lunch today. We had invited good friends for Saturday lunch. They rented our apartment here in Ceret for three months in 2018 while having a house built in a town closer to the coast. They are a retired couple (French/Luxembourgeoise) and who now spend half of each year in St Martin in the Caribbean and the summer here in France.
We kicked off with bubbles at 12:30pm, and, after a four course meal and non-stop chatting, wrapped up at 6:30pm! We cooked duck for the main course and made a pavlova for dessert. It was a lengthy and most enjoyable lunch and afternoon. We won't have a chance to meet up again until October next year, (we've already pencilled in a date) though they are now very interested in visiting NZ (and Japan). They've invited us to stay in St Martin, and also use an apartment they own in Vienna.
Le Comptoir was packed with patrons on Sunday morning. We're not sure if Sunday was a special day or not, like last Wednesday was All Saints Day and therefore a holiday. Whatever the reason, it was lovely sitting at a table at Le Comptoir, enjoying the soft sunlight and listening to all the French chatter around us.
