ain as a surprise (bit of poetic licence there)! We headed down to Tossa de Mar, about three hours drive from Toulouse. I suppose it's being a Brit' and not being used to crossing borders but I'm always surprised at the lack of controls when crossing from one country to another. At the France/Spain border security is a little less formal than getting back into the UK. There we were honest law abiding British Citizens, passports at the ready and no one gives us a second look. Not sure Mr Griffin would be happy with that arrangement!We'd picked the hotel from the TripAdvisor website and being located 300 metres from the beach and an easy walk to all the local restaurants and bars the Hotel Reymar proved to be great choice. Having the pool to ourselves for most of the afternoon and the obvious low level of business in the numerous restaurants made us think that perhaps the credit crunch was having an effect on most of Europe. It's a long time since we've been on a Spanish beach holiday and apart from the lack of tourists the other big change was that along with Spanish, French, English and German the menus were now printed in Russian. There were several Russian families staying at the hotel and the only Bentley Continental we saw, apart from our own, had Russian number plates. Must be the prices they get for their gas.
The three days relaxing by the Med soon passed and it was time to head North and get back to work. Jane & Derek, Barbara's sister and brother in law, were due to arrive on Wednesday to spend a few days with us and there were a number of items on the snagging list that had to be sorted so it was out with the plaster and paint. The main job was to repair and paint the plasterboard around the stove chimney and despite Barbara having thought she'd retired from plastering it was out with the scraper and on with the plaster and a vow never to touch the bl**dy stuff again. So with the remaining skirting boards fitted and painted, terrace tiles grouted in 28ºc, beams and windows given another coat of varnish and white walls touched up with magnolia emulsion in error (glad it wasn't me) we were ready for Jane & Derek to arrive. Thursday is market day in Villefranche and with Derek wanting to return our hospitality and cook a meal we spent the morning sourcing ingredients for a delicious 'casserole d' Lancashire' along with some sardines & mackerel for a barbecue. They were also invited to a neighbour's barbecue and were pleased that they'd had a substantial lunch as although we arrived for 'nibbles' at 8:00 we didn't start eating until about 11:00. We had a great night and Jane & Derek certainly witnessed French hospitality at it's best.
