Where has the week gone? You might well ask. You haven't seen it from your end because we've virtually not had any internet so haven't been able to post anything. We have access to our neighbour's internet (with his full permission) but he was away on holiday last week and the system needed rebooting. Instead John has made use of his data connection via his phone to send off work stuff, but all other communication has been pretty much stymied.
However, our neighbour is now back in residence, his system is up and running, and consequently so are we. Lots of emails and blog to catch up on.
Our week has been pretty low-key really. John has been working pretty full-on, and I've been doing the same working on my own laptop writing my book. We have a bit of a routine going now. We run/weights one morning and alternate the next by going to the pool for lengths (and aqua-jogging but just for me). An espresso at Bar Pablo, pick up a baguette, wonderful bread and cheese lunch and then get stuck into work. It's been hot all week so we have to have the windows closed up and the fan on full blast. We typically don't have dinner until about 8 pm now, so are definitely working more to a French daily pattern. After dinner we often stroll out to the main street to check out the music we can usually hear from our apartment. More often than not there is some sort of band playing.
I guess the major news of the week relates to real estate. We've done a fair reconnoitre of what is on offer in Céret with a view to upsizing to a place that has at least two bedrooms and a decent outdoor terrace. We think if we had this it would tick virtually all our boxes and keep us happy for a number of years. However, there is extremely little on the market for renovation, i.e. so we could buy it relatively cheaply and add value to it by putting in the hard yards ourselves. We really would relish another project to get stuck into.
On Monday we viewed a potential goer. It was four storey plus terrace apartment in a quiet street very near the centre of town. A great location, in good condition with no structural work required, most of the work could be done ourselves, and awesome views from the topside terrace. It is currently split into two apartments, and we could do up the one on the second level and sell it off, leaving the remainder, including a garage and little outdoor garden for ourselves. The downsides were the high purchase price, lack of windows and restricted views from all levels except the terrace, definite lack of street appeal, cost of renovation, need to sell the second apartment to finance the work etc etc. If we were looking to buy a much bigger place and spend more time here each year then we would have looked at it more seriously. However, we figure the place is too big for what we are after at the moment and it would mean we would have to stop all other work and spend all our time on renovating all of next year.
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We brought the agent back to our apartment and asked her for a current valuation, and also one with the terrace and second bedroom installed upstairs. She gave us a realistic figure for the place and was adamant we would get back the money we would have to spend doing the work. That threw the cat amongst the pigeons. We had already written this off as an option. Back to Square One. We have decided (once and for all, at least for now) that we will stick with this apartment. Its location can't be beaten right the middle of the medieval quarter and the agent agrees the church square is certainly a premium location. We love how central we are. We are really part of the village life.
Ok, we then spent most of Monday night rethinking about upstairs and how we could cut the quoted price. We ran into a major stumbling block - we have realised rather belatedly there is not enough head height for the planned stairway through our storage room to access the terrace. This is definite and unfixable, and something our builder missed noting too. The only way to get access to the terrace would now be by using the public stairs in the lobby and going through/redesigning the second bedroom. We can't see how we could spend all this money and not have private access to the bedroom and terrace. Darn.
Onto Plan C, we drop the idea of a second bedroom altogether and just build the terrace, but go halves with our next door neighbour. This will mean we can afford it and we will get the terrace which is the prime 'extra' we are after. Our neighbour who owns the apartment above us is only in residence about 3-4 weeks/year. He is ex-Céret, has a young family and was living in Korea but has just moved to Stuttgart. The family is living here for two weeks at the moment because it is holiday time. We have met them and they are lovely. We're hoping to ask for his hard-earned contribution towards the terrace before he returns to Stuttgart at the end of the week. It would add a lot of value to his apartment, and ours, for the expenditure of a relatively small amount. It would also give an outdoor space for his little kids to play. We shall see! We are running out of alternatives.
Because we've spend most of the last few weeks working on our laptops we haven't been out exploring at all. We remedied this a little by scooting into Perpignan on Friday afternoon. The wind was a little too vigorous for our liking but it certainly blew away the cobwebs. Two major successes. We ordered a new longer and slightly deeper laminated beech benchtop for our kitchen and we made a final decision on which new induction cooktop to go for. There are very good sales on at the moment, e.g. half-price for the cooktop. The super-cheap kitchen that we installed last year has worked out well but we always intended to buy a full-length benchtop and we are very keen to have decent cooking - the current heavy iron elements are too slow, too non-adjustable and altogether awful. We will take the benchtop to our local menuiserie (handyman store) who will be able to round off one corner for us and cut the holes for the sink and cooktop. Once we get the new bench and cooktop in place we'll put some tiles up on the wall behind and hey presto, the kitchen will be finished. The only other outstanding job is to have the tiles put down on the floor in the bathroom, but we are getting someone in to do this because it will be a very fiddly job, with lots of tiles needing to be cut. It will be great to finally be all shipshape.
