One day in July we saw a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the Spanish border. A fire had started after someone had thrown a cigarette butt out of a car window in Le Perthus.

One day in July we saw a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the Spanish border. A fire had started after someone had thrown a cigarette butt out of a car window in Le Perthus.

The day arrived and a group of well-coiffured ladies in their sixties and seventies climbed out of their hire cars. Each had a suitcase large and heavy enough to contain a dead body. After hubby and I had lugged these monstrosities upstairs we welcomed their owners with nibbles and wine and I thought I would take the opportunity to explain a little about Mas Pallagourdi and the area.

The day arrived and a group of well-coiffured ladies in their sixties and seventies climbed out of their hire cars. Each had a suitcase large and heavy enough to contain a dead body. After hubby and I had lugged these monstrosities upstairs we welcomed their owners with nibbles and wine and I thought I would take the opportunity to explain a little about Mas Pallagourdi and the area.

The day arrived and a group of well-coiffured ladies in their sixties and seventies climbed out of their hire cars. Each had a suitcase large and heavy enough to contain a dead body. After hubby and I had lugged these monstrosities upstairs we welcomed their owners with nibbles and wine and I thought I would take the opportunity to explain a little about Mas Pallagourdi and the area.

The next day we ventured forth to check our new trap and found it had been disturbed but not detonated. I was in the process of trying to disarm it when it went off with a huge bang and puff of smoke. For a few seconds we both thought we had been blown up. Hubby had actually been propelled across the lawn.

When we’d first taken over the house the previous owner had explained to us that there was a ‘source’ in the mountain above us, that this was shared with our neighbours and that it was useful for watering the garden. Of course, we were pleased to hear this, especially considering the somewhat naive and idealistic, eco-friendly haze that we walked around in at that time.

As I’ve described in previous blogs, hubby and I arrived in Ceret with hazy, idealistic visions of what we intended to achieve with our large, rambling house and its seven acres of land. In those early days, the ideas flew thick and fast: a straw bale building, a yurt, solar generation of electricity, a windmill, recycling of the grey water. As well as restoring the house and cutting down the thickets of brambles, there was a lot on hubby’s list.