In the pink

This certainly beats working! It was a glorious day; we got up at 9:30 and had a light breakfast, then headed off around Begur to do a bit of shopping and say hello to a couple of people, including our Spanish teacher. Then off to Palafrugell for a second attempt to buy a Spanish SIM card from Movistar. They still didn't have any, despite having told us yesterday that they would. "This afternoon," they claimed. As we were leaving, resigned to a third visit in two days, S asked if there were any other Movistar shops in the area. "Oh yes," they replied brightly, "there's one 200 metres down the road." It didn't seem to have occurred to them to provide this information unprompted. The second shop had us kitted out in a few minutes.

At the market we bought some jamón, and after reviewing a few fruit stalls, I bought 2 kilos of cherries for 2 euros a kilo -- less than half what everyone else was selling them for. I did taste one -- it was fine, but clearly the cherries wouldn't last out the day, and the stallholder was desperate to get rid of them. Cue our first ice cream of the day.

Then we went off to Cap Roig -- again! -- for a stroll round the gardens. Surprisingly they are so well managed that they aren't really more spectacular at this time of year than in winter, although there were a lot of very vulgar red and yellow flowers. I liked these fragile pink tulbalgia, a type of amaryllis from Africa.

After that, a beachside bar in Calella beckoned. Beer, a dish of mussels, pan con tomate, and then another ice cream. By now it was nearly four o'clock and we needed to get back home, with a stop in La Jonquera to buy a 5-litre can of olive oil and a few other items, and in Narbonne to visit a friend in hospital. Phew --it was a brief holiday, but we'll stay longer next time.

Part of the evening was spent pitting the cherries since there was no time to lose -- they were so ripe I'd expected to throw away about 25% of them, but in fact they were in surprisingly good condition and we only binned a handful. Cherry compote now simmering on the stove --lovely!