Céret 2018: 16 September

What a weekend! It was one of the major festival weekends held in Ceret during the year. It revolves around 6km and 20km runs on Sunday morning, but is coupled with a 6km fun run on Sat afternoon when fluorescent, coloured flour is thrown at the participants all the way around the course. Hence, seriously multi-coloured people are wandering around town from 4pm onwards, enjoying the live bands, sitting down at the cafes and generally enjoying the vibe of the town. There is also a 1km fun run for kids. This is on top of the usual bustling Sat morning market, a gathering of women in one of the squares displaying their lace-making skills, traditional sardanes dancing and music, and a fun-fair on another of the squares in the centre of town. The town really just had a ball.

One of the very well made-up pregnant wo-man runners.

There were around 1,300 competing in the runs, though I say competing in a generous way. Certainly there were many serious runners, notably the dozen or so Kenyans who set the pace and are elite athletes on the world scene. They are magnificent to watch - which we did while having a coffee at our now favourite cafe, Le Comptoir. Alas, I am quite happy that my competition days are over. I'm very content to watch others thrash themselves on the course. However, a large proportion of the participants in the 6km run were in it for the fun, often dressed up in all manner of attire, including Jesus adorned with a cardboard cross on his back, Mrs Flintstone, very pregnant women (men), fish .... you name it. Everyone was so cheerful. One of our English friends did the 6km run, while about 6 others did the 9km walk (most for the first time). The lunch-time outdoor meal, with a seafood paella as the main course, plenty of alcohol on tap, and a number of the bands combining to make very boisterous and catchy music, ended up with the inevitable dancing on the square, conga-lines and much laughter. Although John and I didn't go for the sit-down meal, we ended up amongst the music, dancing and gaiety with a bunch of friends.

The outdoor lunch post-race.

Following on from this, we wandered down to the local stadium with a few friends and watched the second half of the rugby match between the Ceret team and one from further north. There was an immense amount of local pride at stake, and the standard exhibitions of fisticuffs were on show, but in the end the Ceret team won convincingly and the locals in the stand were very happy.

We'd been to a potluck evening with many friends on Sunday night, and this we repeated at another friend's place on Monday night. It's certainly a way to get a good meal with minimal effort, i.e. contributing one dish yourself and having at least a dozen on offer during the evening. Some friends were departing Ceret for the year but most are here for another week or so.

On Monday we spent the morning preparing for our lunch guests. Two French couples, whom we have got to know well over the years, arrived just after midday. We had a wonderful meal and afternoon together. Vero brought a lovely home-made quiche that she had cooked using chanterelles harvested from around their property in the hills. We cooked Piments del Padron for an entree, a Cambodian salad for the main and pavlova for dessert. It was a lot of fun, with French spoken pretty much exclusively for four hours.

Tuesday we were back to our run/walk routine before breakfast. We met up with friends at the pizza restaurant below us for dinner, as some were leaving the next day. Time is running short for a final long hike or so before we leave, so on Wednesday morning we set off to hike up to the top of Pic de Garces, at a height of nearly 700m behind Ceret. We have done this track once before and knew it was pretty steep, but we were feeling fairly fit. The 3-hour round trip saw us arrive back for a coffee in Ceret around lunch-time, after catching some wonderful views from the peak.