To Market, To Market*

*(no pigs were purchased)

I love this view of Gan - this amazing old tower/gateway thing.
It's near the centre-ville and I see it most times that I drive through the town.

Wednesday is Market Day!

Today, in addition to the produce purchases, I was tasked with seeing:

Marc, the knife-sharpener (oh no, I just realised I did not get a photo of his genial self)

These photos will blow the mind of any Australian, for whom the knife laws are very strict! - in Australia, no purchases by anyone under 18 years of age, certainly no carrying in public unless under lock and key. Here in France, these knives just lay around in open cases, one of them not even covered!

Marc is at our local market every second week. We have been waiting eagerly for today, to get a couple of the knives I'm using in the kitchen sharpened. I took them wrapped in a fabric shopping bag. He charges €5 per knife. I now have a chef's knife (sort of) and a smaller knife that are wonderful to work with. He handed them back to me wrapped cleverly in some newspaper taped with silver duct tape 🤣 - which I am now continuing to use as my knife safety holder.

Next I went to a little booth/trailer (which I also forgot to photograph!) where a lady does on-the-spot sewing repairs. One of the kids' sneakers had its velcro closure tearing off. She did a quick and fantastic job replacing the velcro, in the time it took me to go around and make my food purchases.

The French are big into repair/re-use/recycle, it's very impressive.

I saw this Very Good Boi sitting so neatly and quietly at one of the brasseries in the centre-ville.

It was maybe the second time since I've been here that we had rain - a storm had been predicted overnight but did not quite eventuate, but it did rain, and the morning was cool and still and grey when I got up.

All the mountains were obscured by mists. Beautiful.

And finally, soup weather!!!!

I made Pumpkin Soup for lunch (Wednesdays the kids are home from school so it's family lunch), served with bread fresh from the market (so good), and cheeses and ham to fill in the cracks. And then fresh fruit - I found some perfect little pink-cheeked pears at the Bio shop 😊

And then it was immediately time to start dinner! - Wednesday afternoons are our busy day and I have to be extremely organised. I thought something that I could cook ahead of time and then just warm through right on dinner time.

Spinach and Leek Quiche (with ninja zucchini because I thought it wasn't going to be big enough), with a salad because we didn't have salad at lunch time.

Oh Thursday, I took a little drive out to the village where Lish will be renting an AirBnB (about 10km up the road from here).

It's ADORABLE. I don't have any info on any of these photos, but just take a look at how cute it is!

This is actually the street (if you can even call it a street) where Lish's accommodation is!

The main (and nearly the only) street through town. In that white building with the black sign, is an English tea salon. I will enjoy visiting there when Lish arrives!

I am feeling the need to grab a book from this little street library, by way of a souvenir of my trip!

Église Ste. Catherine

Another in my series of whimsical door knobs!

The only bar in town! - and apparently just purchased by a group of five young guys. Facebook - Les Moutchassss

I was on school pickup duty. The kids are at two different schools so there's a bit of driving around the town to scoop everyone.

There's a big area just across the road from the primary school, where the old French dudes meet (every day, from what I've seen - whether it's the same guys or different, I haven't yet worked out) to play Boules. For the Italians reading this, it's probably very similary to Bocce.

I was enchanted to see that they have these ingenious things - a magnet on a strap, which enables them to pick their balls up without having to bend over!
They didn't seem to mind me photographing them,and we exchanged
a few genial pleasanteries.

Dinner was a succcess - RecipeTinEats: One Tray Moroccan Baked Chicken with Fennel & Chickpeas, with sides of young green beans from the garden, and roasted sweet potato.

My knitting group expanded further, with Leah starting her first square.

I don't think she has the tenacity that Chloé has. Let's see.
Chloé has now changed from red yarn to blue yarn, and only has a few more rows before she can take her third colour. I'm very impressed with how quickly she is picking it up!

Friday and Saturday were pretty nothing, just more of the same old, same old ... bumming around in this gorgeous corner of the French countryside, cooking up stuff, knitting other stuff, hanging out with French kids. Bliss.

🦔

Apparently hedghogs are a thing in this part of the world!!! I want to see a hedgehog so bad!!!

Friday night is pizza night! - this week I bought pizza dough from the boulangerie, and the pizzas did not puff up to ridiculously epic proportions :) (I did love the baguette dough ones last week though, and I'll get that dough again in preference)

Chloé gets to spend a half-hour longer with me after her siblings have gone to bed. We knit and we chat. I am really enjoying our time together. Here she is modelling my WIP - she picked out the colour scheme for me. She does not yet realise that the completed project will be my gift to her 💚💛

Leah has been begging for gnocchi, almost since I got here. On Saturday I had the runway to be able to make some!