Dad says:

We took quite a long time to get out of the house today…seems to be a bit of a pattern for us. 3pm we left Borde-Neuve and drove to St. Paul, bought some wine from the local cellar, then headed to the coast. Every small town sells its own wine. The little back roads are amazingly picturesque with tiny towns perched on the hillside surrounded by vineyards. I think I got a little carsick from the windy roads even though I was driving.
We stopped in Perpignan at the train station to see if we could track down Andrew`s car seat which we left on the train on our way here. Hopefully we`ll get it back. When we were in the city, we came across the first stoplights of our trip. Amazing how you get used to the round-abouts.
We arrived at the beach around 5 :30pm, so not exactly at the sun`s apex in the sky, but still very nice. We checked out a night market in Le Barcarès, a beach just north of Perpignan. We actually ran into Alain and his family there.

Our home here is terrific. Very secluded, but extremely comfortable, roomy, cozy and peaceful. We have met a few of the neighbours (some more than others) and have enjoyed interacting in french. The people next door have descent english, so we flip back and forth and fill in each other`s gaps in the language. The bread van arrives with a honk every day, so we can go out and buy our fresh baguette for the day.
Our 12 year old neighbour Roman arrives at our door every morning with either a cat or a dog in his hands, or today he arrives with a notebook with french words and sayings with which to teach Jacqui. I think he’s pretty pumped about having new people here…especially a boy to play with.
There are 7 families here : Roman has twin sisters, an 8 year old lives right next to us, and there is a 5 year old around the back. Andrew hasn’t interacted with them too much, except for Roman who is very outgoing. Andrew is now saying Bonjour and merci.
We have found that the french people have been very friendly to us so far. But I must say I’m not a fan of the french keyboard on our computer…I’m wearing out the backspace button !! Off to check out some castles today.