Our time in Ceret this year has come to an end. As with every previous year, we are leaving with the feeling that we could happily have stayed longer.
Over the last week a number of locals who we pass in the street or out on our walks have started saying bonjour more cheerfully than before. Perhaps it is that we are still here when the weather cools down, and are not seen as simply summer visitors. On the Ventous walk a very reserved Catalan stopped and pointed out an enormous egg-shaped bee's nest high in a tree. Apparently it is full of the large hornets (frelons) we see occasionally.
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| Frelon nest! |
The weather continues to be gorgeous. It's definitely getting colder - mornings are 5 degrees or less, but the skies have been clear almost every day, and there's been almost no wind. We've probably missed only a couple of daily walks over the last several months. By contrast the weather in Krakow and Prague where are heading looks to be frozen by comparison. Four of the first five days we will have in Krakow are predicted to have snow - we just can't wait! It will surely be amazing for a pair of summer-Christmas New Zealanders to be looking round Christmas markets in the snow and serious cold. We've made sure we have plenty of woolly and down layers with us.
It's funny how even after 6 years here we find new things that we've walked past a hundred times, and we've now found yet another different bread to love. At Radio Ceret, so-named because the baker's wife has a very loud voice and is always ready with the town gossip, they have perhaps a dozen different baguettes, from normal and wholemeal to seed-covered and plaited. Baguettes are in fact a recent bread, supposedly dating from a 1920 law that prevented bakers from starting work before 4am, and thus breads needed to be thinner to allow them to rise and be baked in less time. Anyway, one of her baguette styles turns out to be be deliciously crusty with great flavour.
Tuesday saw us drive out little car to the nearby town of Le Boulou, where we stowed it safely away in the garage we have used for the last three years to store it for the months we are away. The garage owner is very happy for us to continue doing so, and we now have our own key so it will much easier to pick up and drop back the car each year. The rental is a very reasonable 25E /month, compared to the 60E/mth some of our friends are paying for garaging in Ceret. We jumped on the local bus back to Ceret and later made the short walk to Carrefour to buy some hard cheeses to pack in our bags bound for NZ.
We completed our round of goodbyes with our friends, mainly over cups of coffee, and finally finished our packing and cleaning the apartment at 7pm the night before we left. We thought we'd started early enough in the week to get everything done without a rush, but obviously not.
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