AUDE FLYER 04/2005

Letter from a new Limouxine

26^th April 2005…could this be it..heat, blue sky, that seemingly never ending time when windows are left open, salad is always appealling, and guests from Britain think life is always like this. Can we finally close the sock drawer??

This week we ventured into Spain. We spent 4 days there. I believe the term for this is a …holiday. Being both self–employed the holiday thing rarely happens. We sometimes allot a patch of time which then gradually gets taken up with other projects. It happened again. We were going to explore Morocco for 2 weeks, then it was Spain for a week, then finally… around Girona for 3 and a half days, but it was a really nice break, quand même.

Something I have realised since we have been living here is fact actually I don’t feel the urge to escape all the time. Escape perhaps for a little time from the endless lists of things to do, but not the wanting to flee from where we live and what we are doing. In the ‘old’ life I seemed to spend a lot of time glancing at rubbish Sunday supplement features titled ‘Chernobyl, could this be the next second home hot spot?’ when I should have been ironing the bed linen for the next Polaroid. The computer was far too often on Ryanair checking where we could go next, and I had a silly tendency to look at what the weather was doing in the South of France in the paper rather than actually reading the news. So…. despite the worries that we all take with us….something must be very right..

So Spain it was, it was very nearly a different bit of France. Mark, who has travelled widely in the past suddenly started acting like my grandma…”how far had you envisaged going? You know they won’t speak French, there’s lots of interesting bits around Montpellier”….I wondered if he was going to ask if we could take some baguette and duck fat with us, like people who can not leave Britain without PG Tips and cornflakes.

Then there was the question of the dog. Two lots of friends had said Spain was a definite no no with dog. No hotels would take them, and restaurants, unlike here where it is not uncommon to see a small hairy friend sitting to table, would not be pleased.

We thought we might reach Olot by the first night. I rang the hotel, I booked a room for three and then I said would it be possible to bring a small “Burro” “Que??” she said…there was a small panic while Mark gesticulated to say, you have said either…

1/ can we bring a small donkey

2/ can we bring a small idiot.

I corrected myself by imitating a small clean friendly dog down the phone. “Aa perro” she said, si, no problema.

After the usual immense fuss about which CD’s Ezra could take, and that we could bear to listen to for the 2,000^th time, the discovery that the CD walkman did in fact work, and that therefore he could bore just himself silly, we set off brushing away a slight tear at the sight of the cat washing himself in a patch of sunlight outside our house… “Did you remember to turn off the boiler”…err not sure”….seveal repeated trips back to check the gas, that the mouse had some food and that we had a map of Spain, not Corsica. Eventually turned right at Axat and into the never before explored Pyrenees. We passed the time by telling Ezra how many minutes it would be before we got there, remarking upon what a lot of trees there were, and how high the mountains were, and what one actually does if one breaks down on the top of a mountain at 5,000 m..

We arrived at Olot at about 5.00 and located the hostel. Basic, friendly and with bedroom walls decorated in an interesting effect as if someone had finished painting something in old Nescafe and then had dried the brush by shaking it violently in all directions. We had a walk around the pretty Ramblas in the centre of the town, and realised we couldn’t speak more than 2 words of Catalan…..Its probably worth going away from time to time just to feel pleased that you can actually speak quite a lot of French, compared to previously unattempted language.

Due to the fact that there was a lot of depressing dark cloud hanging about the next day we thought we would go towards the coast. Next stop Figueras and we did what everyone else was doing…the Dali museum, surreal of course, but not as surreal as trying to follow the directions to it. Mark thinks Dali must have been a completely insufferable man. Totally egotistic? Obnoxious? I don’t know much about him but it looks like he really enjoyed life. His drawings are superb and we actually enjoyed looking at them more than the larger pieces of work. Keening for a glimpse of the sea we headed to Cadaquès on the coast. An incredibly long and winding road leads to the town already partially clogged with huge camper vans, God knows what it would be like in August. While travelling I often wonder why camper vans are called things like ‘challenger’, ‘marauder’, and ‘lone eagle’ when they should be called ‘fat white metal snail’, huge fridge, or ‘the bringer of frustration’.

Cadaquès was beautiful. White, red roofed buildings tumbling towards the sea, fishing boats, calm blue sea. We parked and began the business of finding a hotel. The rough guide had remarked that it could be difficult to find a room, let alone with a dog. Third attempt….yes, no problem, dog, no problem. Not really our normal choice of hotel, we tend to go for things which are cheap, atmospheric and have beds like the foothills of the Pyrenees, it was a pleasant change. Squeakily new rooms, fluffy white towels, shoe cleaning equipment…..and reasonably priced. We strolled on the beach, threw stones into the sea, and lazily passed an eye over the restaurant menus knowing that we would be going for the one that let us in with the dog. Nice relaxing meal, hot baths, good nights sleep. The following day was delightful; we walked to Port Lligat where Dali had lived in a house constructed from several fishing cottages. It looked fascinating but the first available viewing time was 5.00 in the afternoon…coffees, picnics, bit of sunbathing, the day passed in the way one always hope holidays will.

We packed and were ready to leave at 8.30 the next morning, an old man in the hotel said he would go and wake the proprietor so we could pay. Drove in the wrong direction, but a happy accident as we reached the most easterly point of Spain, Cap Creus, wonderful and wild with rather mad looking restaurant perched on a hill with sensational views…we will return.

Homeward bound. Followed the twisting coastal road into France, past Perpignan and eventually arrived at Quillan, the sun had come out, shining onto an astonishing variety of shades of green, quite a change from the somewhat harsher rugged landscape of the coast of Spain. How lucky we all are to live in such a beautiful varied landscape as this! As we approached Limoux I realised with surprise that I was looking forward to coming home. Returning home to Britain I always found depressing. The towering in trays was still waiting for us in Limoux, the same contorted bureaucracy problems to try and figure out,…but it all felt..o.k.

A few days on, life is back to normal. The swallows have arrived, the rose on the wall is in bud and I’m about to write a letter to the Mairie regarding….dog poo. They had…it must be said….very stylish dog poo bins in Cadaquès and NO dog poo on the ground. Have tracked down the producer of these things and will present the information to the Mairie. I know it’s only a small daily annoyance but when you see as much of it as I saw this morning…..

Salut, Kate