Comings and Goings; Eating and Drinking

 August 2022:

 Quite like old times; the house echoed to the sound of visitors  arriving and leaving, coming in and going out. There was family, family of friends and friends of friends. July's visitors were gone by the 5th which gave me a few days before I put up JJ's son, his wife and two of his grandchildren for an overnight.. A couple of days after they left, Hervé and Claudine, who is Lisa's other godmother, arrived for a couple of nights to mark the 1st anniversary of the civil naming ceremony. The day they left, Christophe and Valérie arrived. There were also even more meals and apéros than usual. Hardly a day went by without eating with friends.

 There were 4 birthdays this month. Mine which was celebrated with the family by a bit of sightseeing in Figueres and lunch at 9 Suprem, followed later by a head spinning mojito at Michel's and a bottle of cava when Martine called round with a present chez moi.  The card above from the neighbours just about sums it up . . .  "you know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake!"

 

 Jean, ever the cheeky one, saw the above and decided that the black cat was me and the rag - taggle band running behind are my knights in not so shining armour! Continuing the theme, the other black cat card was sent from his weekend away with Françoise

Jeanne celebrated hers at El Trull de Fransesc at Boadella over the border. Luckily, lunchtimes are long over there as due to traffic problems we were an hour late. Nice setting but the food was on the pricy side and it was full of French and other tourists. I knew there was a reason why Christian and I were never tempted to eat there; just as I knew there was a reason that I usually avoid outings with anglophones en masse. You'll just have to draw your own conclusions about that.

Nicole, my neighbour, celebrated hers on Gérard and Anna's rooftop terrace while Françoise had to wait for her birthday lunch until we went to the Visa exhibition in Perpignan at the beginning of September.

 

There were BBQs chez Michel, Dali and Izzy's.

 

Brunch (few takers for my bucks fizz), supper with 12 of us squeezed around the table and an apéro while Christophe and Valérie were staying with me, chez JJ. Apéros chez Jean and Françoise, again for Christophe and Valérie and chez Nancy to finish the contents of her fridge before she went back to the States.

Once the family were away, I did a bit of entertaining myself; for the Norman friends who come to the village every year for a week, for JJ's family and Jacques and Yaneth's friends, for Eric, Anita, Philippe and Michel and a lending a listening ear lunch for Nicole for which no photos are available.

And that wasn't all; there were other meals at friends (chez Jacques), restaurants in Empuriabrava, Céret and Figueres after a refreshing beer next to the market and apéros at the café, the details of which wouldn't add anything of note.

It wasn't all food though; there was some culture, too. Dali organised a group of us to go to her friend Dod's vernissage in Alenya. We were a multicultural lot, Colombian, French, Catalan, American, Algerian and British who started the evening with an apéritif chez Dali but by the time we got to a bite to eat at the end, Michel and C° had fallen by the wayside. Food and art; not a bad combination.

A trip to Argelès with Jean and Françoise brought coffee in a beach café , a walk along the prom and an outdoor photo exhibition. 

 Music figured, too. The café laid on several musical evenings. The best being one that included some songs sung by Samir in Kabil.

On the domestic front: Thérèse was unexpectedly absent just when I needed help with this month's guests , the plumber came to fix a problem in the bathroom, Michel wrote a stinking letter to my internet provider because of continued problems with a poor connection and an "all clear" dermotology check up. 

Watched Kenneth Branagh's sexualised version of "Death on the Nile". Agatha would be turning in her grave.

There was a sad moment too with Maggie's funeral which was well attended and included the "Sanctus" from the Misa Luba, a piece we shared a liking for. The sunset was taken from her garden.

 I can't finish this month round up without a word about the weather. It was relentlessly hot with at one point a heatwave alert. There were a few meagre drops of rain on a couple of occasions and on the 13th excitement rose as the skies opened. The excitement and the rain was short lived. So, no relief in sight this month.