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| Market day, Ceret |
Woke up to market day in Céret. There is about 1km of market stalls lining the main streets of the old town – fruit, veges, cheese, meat, clothes, shoes, you-name-it. It is the start of the cherry season so they are on offer at 5€ a kilo, and delicious, so we got some, also some local
brebis goat cheese and veges to make a salad for dinner. This is what France is about for us. We went into the agent’s to find our “intention” had been accepted, next step is a
compromis before a
notaire on Wednesday, and still 8-10 days back-out time after that. No agents open to check some more listings, so we headed off to see Valerie and Lorcan, our local exchange hosts from 2009 who have a place on 30mins away and who we knew would be in residence instead of at home in Dublin. They own 3 places here, so we thought a bit of local advice would be useful, and so it was. They gave us a huge welcome and it was certainly lovely to see them again. They were concerned “our” place has no outdoor space (as we are) but agreed that Céret is a superb location, and would make a great base for trips and further home exchanges. They will come and have a look at the apartment early next week, before we sign. We figure the place is so light and spacious, and the double windows open up wide, that we will cope OK without a terrace. The latter would totally blow our budget here.
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| Morning tea time! |
Spent the whole afternoon talking with Valerie and Lorcan so when we got back to Céret at 5pm opted for our first run of the trip. Just a quiet 25min jog around town really but it was great to clear our heads just a little. Very hard to think about anything except our pending house deal though so on our return sat ourselves down in a lovely little sitting room in our hotel and discussed it some more over a bottle of red. Not sure what our plans are for tomorrow yet but we have come up with some ideas for renovating the place we are interested in. Have Skyped with Alastair and he fully supports pursuing the option to buy. Hope we sleep better tonight!
