Essential elements

I last blipped vines on 21 October! That must be the longest I've ever gone without doing so. Although the Costa Brava used to be planted almost as intensively with vines, they were hit by phylloxera in the 19th century and never replanted. Hence the acres of pine trees that make the area so attractive now.

The vines are incidental here, of course -- the star of the show is Alaric, wearing his hat. But on the left you can also see my favourite avenue of plane trees, last seen on 13 October. The sky is blue, but it's very cold, by our standards at any rate :)

It's Wednesday, so of course we had to go to the market in Lézignan. It was very quiet, but we bumped into a couple of friends and had a coffee with them. Sadly, lo Tira-tap is still closed on Wednesdays, so we lunched at one of our former haunts, the ever-popular Balade Gourmande. Just not the same!