Goodbye France

We had time for one last coffee and a croissant, sitting in an almost empty square in the old town, before we caught the bus to the airport. I'm going to miss my morning black coffee. Why is it that coffee, and the croissants too, taste so much better on the continent?

While waiting for the bus, I took my only couple of photographs of the day and realised that I'd captured the subject of my portrait from the previous evening. He's from Brittany, with a huge energy and a wonderful laugh. He's no doubt one of Perpignan's characters and I deeply regretted not having the language to be able to understand him better. With so few people around, it felt like a highly serendipitous meeting, especially as I realised last night that when I'd asked for his name, he must have given me his surname (Duel). With E's help, I found out that he's called Christian. It's always been important to me to get that right.

There was cloud around this morning. Except for brief periods while on the train, we've had almost constant sunshine for the whole of our travels this last week. It felt like it was the right time to be coming home. For a rest!