I've got a friend (at last)...

Hi all,

Tao and yours truly

Our local mountain, Canigou

We have completed almost 3 weeks on one of Chris's favourite campsites in one of his favourite regions (The Pyrenees-Orientales). He is besotted with it all and it will be difficult to drag him away, particularly when he hears the weather reports from other places. Still, I'm not complaining too much as I've got a friend. Tao is a long-haired male, travelling with Nat - a nice Belgian woman - and, for once, I'm developing a healthy relationship with another feline. Appropriate distances are kept to, but we do manage to spend time on each others' territory without confrontation.

An interesting parking place

Chris did an 80km bike ride along the Tech valley, to Prats-de-Mollo, a few days ago. The first part was on a "voie verte" cycleway but then he had to do some climbing on the road up to his destination. Prats-de-Mollo has a fortified village, castle and a strange underground walkway. The return journey was fast, with the river several feet below him, just a small mistake away...

The same river runs close to the campsite and he and Nat walked there to create stone
sculptures. The river is running fast, with white water, at the moment but was much much wider and deeper a few weeks ago when there were storms - as in Cambrils. There are the carcasses of trees, carried by the water, everywhere but also, sadly, a lot of plastic caught in their limbs.

Ooh, I caught Chris talking about the Coronavirus and it sounds scary (if not for cats). Chris says that schools, restaurants, bars and places for events are closed in France. He went shopping this morning and, although the supermarket wasn't mad, the shelves were emptying rapidly. He kindly stocked up on my favourite crunchy food - "Brekkies" - and my pouches, even though it's unlikely that the shops will run out of these products.

Sadly Ruth, who we met in Cambrils and who was doing a mammoth bike ride to Japan, has had to stop her travels because of the Coronavirus. She had already cycled over 3000km, which was a fantastic achievement, but borders are closing and she didn't want to get trapped without the chance to get home.

Castelnou

Chris went into the mountains again, by car, to visit a medieval priory called Serrabone which had "fabulous" (his words) stone sculptures. He even got to sing in the priory, to test the acoustics he said, and fortunately nobody else was in there to hear him. On the same trip, the ancient village of Castelnou was also visited, high on a mountainside.

It looks like this will be my last post from our winter travels as we will head back to our refuge at The Ramshack. The time away has been fun but I think Chris is very thoughtful about the immediate future with so much uncertainty around. Quite frankly, I'll just get on with doing my own stuff and leave him to make the decisions for us both.

A bientot,

Banksy the caravan cat