From Paris I headed down to Montmin to spend some time with Judy and Serge before going housesitting in the Pyrenees. I love Montmin (and of course I love Judy and Serge) and sometimes I wonder why I put up such a block about living there. My excuse is that I am done with winter on a regular basis. Thanks to Judy and Serge, I managed to finally buy a car - a 2008 Fiat Panda. It's little but I love it. She goes well for a little car. I thought I would have to push her up mountains but she does just fine and it's easy to find parking!
I put her through her paces by taking her on a long drive from the Alps to the Pyrenees to housesit for a couple of weeks. Pauline and I had arranged this when we were in Carcasonne. The house was located about 1 1/2 hours south of Toulouse, between the villages of Oust and Seix. Yes, the town is called Seix. Boy did we have fun with that one - from internet Seix to missing Seix when we left. If only I could live in Seix! The place we were housesitting was pretty special. We were there from the 15th of June until the 3rd of July. My room was in the barn that was being renovated. It was incredible! One end was floor to ceiling windows that looked out onto the Pyrenees. The property was on a steep hill so it felt like I was waking up in a tree house every morning. Again the weather wasn't great, it was usually cool and wet with a short dose of stinking hot but we made the most of our time there - exploring local villages, doing a few walks or just hanging at the house as it was such a beautiful location. I would definitely like to go back to the area to take more advantage of the wonderful hiking that is around.
My plan on leaving Seix was to visit Port Vendres again, to see if it still felt as special. I also had a little mission. When we were there in May, I met a lovely old man who lived down the street from where we were staying. One day we had a conversation (if you can call it that as he didn't speak English) but it came out that he collected currency from all over the world. He asked if I had any Canadian money with me but I couldn't help him. I knew I was going to see Christine when she arrived in Paris at the beginning of June, so I asked if she could bring me a $5 bill. She came through for me. When we got to Port Vendres, I was heading off to do some information gathering about staying there and maybe trying to teach English and I saw my friend coming towards me. He looked at me curiously and asked if we had met before. I replied by asking him if he was waiting for a gift from Canada. The look on his face was worth $5 million Canadian dollars. Honestly, if I got hit by a bus then and there I would have died happy. Who would think that such a small gesture would make someone so happy - and really, who was happier him or me?
Unfortunately we only stayed a couple of days as we had a flight to Berlin on the 14th of July and we wanted to try and get to Arles finally. So I left Isidore (finally found out his name) and off we went. We booked a studio through airbnb which was part way between Montpellier and Arles. The selling point was that we could use the family pool as by now the weather was getting really, really hot. Three months after leaving Eymet, I finally arrived in Arles. I really liked it. It is a little old and worn, not polished like Bourdeaux, but it had a good energy. We arrived at the end of the opening week of a big photographic festival. I was in my element. We had three days in the area so we explored Arles, the Camargue, and Aigues-Morte but man oh man it was hot. That pool was wonderful.
On the 9th of July we headed north to spend a couple of days with Jean-Luc's parents at the lake. We stopped in Avignon for lunch. The annual arts festival was going on and it was busy but it looked like a lot of fun. Next summer I would like to spend a week there - a few days before the festival to suss everything out and then take in a bunch of the events. We had a really nice couple days at the lake with Marc and Therese. I love it there and so enjoy being around Jean-Luc's parents. They are so good to me.
On the 11th we drove to Montmin to spend a few days with Judy and Serge and help out with the Fete National on the 13th. What a hoot!! I haven't danced so much in a long time. Drank a fair bit of wine too so it was a bit difficult getting up to go to Geneva to catch our Montmin is another place that I really love spending time. Is it the people that make these places so special? I think so.
So this brings me up to the 14th of July. It was off to Berlin to meet up with Donna, Karen and Jeff and that's a whole other blog!!!