Saturday

We drove inland first thing this morning about half an hour to the village of Maureillas-las-Islas. We met Liz, who was from Brough in Yorkshire on our level 2 then on our counselling diploma course. We had not seen her for 12 years since our reunion in Geneva the year after we qualified and had never met her husband, Nick at all. They had moved out to France permanently 7 years ago. However we had kept in touch with cards and notes at Christmas and the understanding was that if we ever came to the south of France, we would be very welcome to call and see them. We had contacted Liz by e-mail and she had said to come and stay with them for a couple of nights so this is why we are here.

Liz had asked us to be there by 9.30am so we arrived, parked up and set off with them to pick up a friend, Annette, and drive to the market at Ceret. I thought we would have a chance to look around the market but the idea of the morning was to meet up at the coffee shop with all their friends, mostly ex pats, but also some French friends and catch up with all the local gossip. This was a fluid group of people that grew across the square as more people joined in. I sat next to a very proper gentleman called Jurgen who was originally from North Germany but had lived a lot in Spain and retired to France. He spoke very good English as well as a few other languages. It was interesting to be included with this diverse group of friends and listen to the chatter going on all around.
We went back home to roast chicken, potatoes and roast veg from the market. We found out that when she came to France, Liz decided that she wanted to be called Lizzie and this is what she has become. She had developed her artistic talents since coming to France and there were several very good pictures up on the walls. We also discovered that Nick is a bad swear word in french and when Nick came here some people refused to call him by his name as it was so rude. After lunch, Lizzie had a choir practise and we were left in Nick’s capable hands for a couple of hours. Considering we had only met him a few hours ago, we got on well, he suggested we went out to the lakes nearby with the dogs. They have two dogs, Gypsy who is a short haired collie age 5 and Mango, a golden poodle of 6 months. Ellie was fine with Gypsy but growled at Mango and kept telling him to behave.

One thing I remember about Liz was that she had lots of dogs, in particular one of them was a Chihuahua called Rambo with, as i understand it, had a matching temperament. She confirmed that when they came out finally to live in France 7 years ago, they brought 4 dogs with them. All of them eventually died but have been replaced with the present two. Later, we walked into the village to the local bar, restaurant called le tap ( cork) and had a meal. It was very quiet with only a few people out even though it was Saturday evening and we saw how everyone closes their doors and shutters once dusk has come.
Sunday
We went to River Church with Lizzie this morning which is a protestant church in Perpignan that meets in a small modern catholic church. The service was in english but soneone was interpreting into french and the songs were on a screen in both french and english. After church we chatted to a few people then went back home, where Nick cooked us lunch on the barbeque. The afternoon was taken up with snoozing and a visit from the police. A next door neighbours crisis had been hotting up all week. The elderly couple next door had been through various health problems recently and were not really managing well. However a neighbour across from them had reported to the police that they had gone out in the car and she thought they had been drinking. All a storm in a teacup but Nick and Lizzie got involved with contacting family and smoothing things out.
We had got to know Nick a bit over the course of the weekend and renewed our friendship with Lizzie, which was really good.