21st June

Message from Sandy confirms the baggage is still lost so she is going off to buy a change of clothes and a new bag before catching the train from Barcelona to Lleida (Lerida) to meet us.  I went over to Kees and Weip’s place to water their pots as promised and then we decided to drive to Barbastro again because the views were just spectacular yesterday and we need to take some more pictures.  This time we stopped at every opportunity to have a proper look and cross the footbridges where available.   We arrived in Barbastro at about midday and found it all shut down.  Eventually found the Tourist Office where it was explained to us that today is a local festival day, but all the festivities had taken place last night, typical.  Not to worry, our favourite restaurant is open so we plan to enjoy another 3 course meal and bottle of wine for 14 Euro ea, what better way to kill some time.  The funny thing was, we were feeling pretty clever because we had with us the notes Eric had translated yesterday from the menu. Today we would look and sound quite confident making our selections.   Approaching the door we saw our waiter replacing the daily menu on the noticeboard and thought they must have a new one each day. Foiled again! But it turned out to be just a new copy of the same so we did in fact get it right.   Although a siesta sounds like a top idea we now drive on to Lleida, which is only 40 mins from here, to meet Sandy at the railway station.  She is an amazingly resilient traveller!  We all agree we will laugh about this one day – but today is not the day.  She is sick, tired, sunburnt and has lost her luggage.  When we get home to Casa Arriba about an hour later we share a glass of wine on the balcony and things start to feel a little better.  We had dinner out there as well, it is warmer this evening but also cloud cover and some lightening flashes so perhaps tomorrow will be indoors with a good book.  We haven’t had one of those yet.