Every Friday, our town hosts a marché in the village square. Depending on the season, one can find anything from fresh vegetables and fruits, rotisserie chicken, cheese, fish and sausages to sewing machines, crafting notions, flowers and clothes. It's really quite small compared to some I've seen (a couple of years ago, while visiting relatives in northern France, I went to a marché that covered an entire small town!), but it's nice to get out and have a look when the weather is nice and it makes a great change from the same old offerings at our small grocery store.
Today*, for the first time in I don't know how long, I got up off my lazy butt and actually went. After a pit stop at the post office, I walked across the street to the area blocked off to traffic and started checking out the wares. The first couple of vendors were selling clothes (of questionable quality, if you ask me), meat on rotisserie, including chicken, rabbit, duck and turkey, and a cheese vendor who also had a few butchered products, notably for me, skinned, whole rabbit. I still haven't gotten used to seeing naked rabbits stretched out for all to see in the butcher's glass counter, but that's a post for another time.
After that I came to my prefered vegetable vendor (of which there are at least four). I like this vendor because they leave plastic bags out on the piles of vegetables and fruit so you can choose your own and then hand them over to the vendors to be weighed. Most vendors don't like you to touch their wares and help one person at a time, which is time consuming, and I've got to touch the tomatoes before I buy them. That's just the way it is.
my purchases
Then it was past the seedlings of herbs, veggies and lettuce for those with their own gardens, another chicken rotisserie vendor (this is the one I've bought from in the past), the candy vendor (get thee behind me!), the seafood stand, a couple more veggie stands, a sausage stand, a goat cheese stand and I arrive to the crafty vendor.
The crafty vendor sells a little bit of everything - thread, scissors, beads, notions, oversized cross stitch kits and just about exclusively 100% acrylic yarn. I checked the yarn just in case there was anything interesting, but I've actually got enough yarn right now to keep me going for a little while, so I just bought a spool of brown thread for finishing my knitted purse for €1 and then finished up with my favorite vendor: Scary Spice the fruit vendor.
Scary Spice looks just like who you imagine, circa 1996, with fabulous hair and cool eyeglasses, and calls everyone ma cherie and instead of goodbye says "see you next time!" and asks customers she hasn't seen in a while "where have you been? I missed you!" I recognize a good salesperson when I see one but I love her just the same.
She had some gorgeous fruit yesterday, although ridiculously expensive, but considering the only fruit available this week in my crap grocery store is apples**, it was worth the price to me! I bought three nice big peaches and a couple of pears, for more than all the vegetables I bought put together.
A quick stop to the boulangerie for our daily baguette on the way home brings market time to a close for me. This whole routine is something I definitely want to get back in the habit of doing because there is not much more satisfying than strolling home with a basket full of fresh fruit and veggies and a fresh stick of bread on top.
* I started this post last night but I was so tired all day that by the time I started to write it was all I could do to stay upright, so I gave it up to finish today. Seriously, I was so weak it was like someone dropped a piece of kryptonite in my pocket. Freaky.
**Don't get me wrong, I love apples, but I don't want to eat them exclusively every day for weeks on end!
Also: I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of the marché, but I already feel like "that crazy foreigner" in our little town and the addition of taking pictures of "normal daily activities" would probably send me over the edge.
Also also: I finshed my knitted purse! Check it out!
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