Couldn't face doing battle with the latest wave of tourists so just went to the bar where we spent a couple of hours whiling away the time chatting to people and we didn't even have to pay for either the coffee or the wine. In the afternoon we both went to a meeting at the Mairie in our respective roles to talk about a guide to footpaths in the area written in Catalan(don't ask - I'm still not sure why we were there!
Today we all piled into Christophe's people carrier and headed over the border. Stopped off at the waterfall before heading to the lake where we had a couple of glasses of cava while they all swam then lunch followed by another swim for the family and a siesta for us! Must have been the wine.
This morning we were early at the lake and saw the sun come up. As I walk around listening to the Michel Thomas tapes, I can't help but think about Eddie and how pleased he would be to hear that as the course advances the female student starts to leave her male colleague behind. All her mistakes had been driving him mad ... it's the silly little things that bring home the sadness.
The three day village fiesta is upon us again but this year we didn't wear ourselves out eating, drinking and dancing until the early hours. Instead we contented ourselves with the meal on the Saturday evening and a coffee in the bar afterwards. There were 30 of us from the Association and the meal which as last year, was pork and peppers. The organisers stick pretty much to same formula apart from this year changing the band who played. Pity really as by common agreement, they weren't thought to be so good. Sunday as usual, there was Sardane before lunch and the "llavant de taula" after lunch and more Sardane in the evening before another dance. A couple of glasses in the bar with Patrick and Nicole seemed like the better option so we gave the dance a miss which is a shame as by all accounts they more than made up for the disappointing night before. Ah well, you can't win em all and we did have to think about getting up for 7am.
As well as the usual stuff going on in the week we had several meals with friends; firstly on Sunday (18th)there was a return invitation to Michel's where we were entertained along with Alain, Juste and Joséphine.
A day when things didn't go according to plan. Firstly Thérèse rang at the last minute to say that she couldn't come to help as family had arrived which meant that I had to scoot around doing some cleaning as well as preparing dinner for six of us. Then Michel telephoned to say that he and Alain were going to be late, then Juste and Joséphine phoned to say that their son from Paris had turned up unexpectedly so they wouldn't be coming, then to cap it all, the skies opened and put pay to eating on the terrace. Still, there was so much food left over that Michel and Alain were able to leave with a doggie bag and I didn't have to think about cooking for the rest of the weekend.
Did the usual Thursday stuff during the day but in the evening we took Jany and Patrick to the lakeside restaurant by way of a thank you for her doing my hair the other week.
It was good to have a busy day after yesterday's news which for obvious reason had a two fold impact on me. As we had to be on board the military transport to go up to the other village by 8.15am, there was no walk around the lake. The weather was fine and being at nearly 1000m, there was a freshness in the air. All went off according to plan and apart from the Young People's Mayor reading an address, the ceremony was much like any of the others. There was of course the same thing down in the village but with a tenor to sign the Marseillais, the sardane and an 'apéritif républican' in the square. Lunch was in a military bivouac set up by the group who'd provided the vehicles and Christian took his turn to serve up lunch. It was exceedingly hot and he was very tired at the end of it all. In the evening, after spending the rest of the afternoon with Alain who did some fine tuning on the ipods, we met Diana and her friend Ian for a quick drink. Neither of us had the energy to go down to the recreation ground to see the fireworks but we had a good view of them from le nid(nest)and they were really superb. Worthy of any big town.