Autumn, Saskia With Us

Autumn here has been stunning. Day after day it has been blue skies, warm and windless. In fact the the temperatures have been climbing over the last few weeks and we seem to be back in late 20s instead of the early to mid 20s. Yesterday going into Perpignan it was 30 degrees.

Autumn berries from a walk last week

We have had a fairly quiet time since we returned from Spain. John has been working, though is not nearly as pressured as he was, and I've been working on my French again. Two of our English friends returned for stays of 5 days and 2 weeks respectively earlier in the week and we had organised a dinner party for all three couples. We provided the nibbles and a pavlova for dessert and the others provided the main and cheese courses. A great time was had by all. We didn't get to bed until 1am, something of a record for us in more recent years! 

A bit of a slow start on Friday but we managed to get ourselves into Perpignan by late morning. The plan was to get the new number plates put on the car, now we have our new registration papers (finally), and also get an oil and filter change done at the same time. No luck with the latter (none of the correct air filters in stock) but we got the number plates done. We had to admit that, in this case, the French system was very efficient. It took precisely 10 minutes to get the new plates set up, stamped out and riveted onto the car in replacement for the superseded ones. Quite astonishing really. Pity we have to go back another time to get the oil change done, but hopefully we can sort that next week.

Next stop was Decathlon to try and find some new running shoes for me. I scrutinised my shoes yesterday and discovered the outside heels completely collapse on impact (I had thought they were feeling a bit odd) so we went through the vast range of shoes in stock. No luck - the one that seemed best wasn't available in my size, but John managed to order it online from the same shop while we were still in the store.

A quick dash into the centre of Perpignan saw us arrive at the main bus station 5 minutes before our niece Saskia was due to arrive from Perpignan. In the end the bus was half an hour late. It had been held up at the border while police questioned some young man apparently. It was good to see Saskia. She has been staying with her brother Nick and his wife and young son in Lille for a while (with her boyfriend) and had just spent a few days in Barcelona. 

Saturday we started with the market, as you do. Bought the normal things - fresh veges, olives, small quiches and around to Pablo for a coffee, this time adding on a wine as we met friends and ended up chatting for some time.

Sunday was a walk up above Collioure on the coast. Collioure is well-endowed with forts, some half dozen of them in or around it, and we walked up into the hills above to get close to a couple of the larger ones. A pleasant walk, not helped as always by the inadequate and ambiguous signage and trail marking. It's really hard to fathom how it can be so poorly done - it isn't that tricky to make sure signs are clear and visible at each possible junction. Anyway, a good walk on another hot day.

Monday meant a fearsomely early start - 5am - in order to get our niece to Perpignan Airport for an early flight to Paris. So early that we came back home and went back to bed!