A weekend market.........

Yesterday being Sunday we joined in what seems to be the favourite pastime in France, attending one of the many markets held around the country. This one was in a town called Inzinac-Lochrist and the market was advertised as 'troc en puces' (literally translated as barter and fleas) so presumably this is a flea market! There were a lot of tables in narrow rows with a wide range of items from used clothing (lots of), toys, books and all sorts of general household junk as well as more specialised things like old postcards, photographs, stamps and a little old linen. I found a bag of fabric scraps and narrow lace for the princely sum of 1 Euro, nice for bear's clothing. After wandering through this maze of stuff in the very last row I found an amazing old chair marked 6 Euros. The sweet little man who was selling all sorts of old furniture invited me to sit on and try it out. As I am a larger size lady I declined politely. However, the chair was just perfect for our old bears and I managed to get the chair for 5 Euros. I picked up the chair moving an old wooden clog which was sitting on the seat but was informed that this was part of the deal! So grasping my chair and one old clog I duly departed from the hall very satisfied with my purchases. The clog is indeed ancient, seems to have a little woodworm and most probably housed smelly feet at some stage. The bears just love their chair, here are the two boys sitting together on their wonderful new chair. The cane seat is perfect it is a little fragile on the back but just what they need. So I must now clean the bears, make Gladstone a jacket to hide his missing arm and wash the red outfit which Sebastian is wearing. One rude person said that he looked as if he was wearing a leotard!


It was a glorious sunny day, much needed as it has been quite cold again. So we sat on the river bank and had a picnic lunch. The river was deep and fast running and most probably freezing cold. I am finding it strange to see so much water in this country as it is certainly not something commonly found in the Western Cape. The house is a typical French style house. This village seemed to be full of fairly new buildings, not many of the usual old stone buildings typical of this part of the country.




Today I walked to the recycle bins with my usual bag of stuff. I stopped to speak to the donkeys giving them the tops of the wonderful fresh carrots, celery and lettuce leaves that I found at the street market this morning.


My final picture is of a red rhododendron growing at the side of the road. It is the most amazing bright red so I could not resist adding it to my quote of pics. It is quite amazing how everything is bursting into bloom.

Bears are coming along fine, just waiting for the ribbon that Megan posted last week. Our post is delivered each day in a bright yellow La Poste van which is very distinctive. I had to visit the Post Office last week to make a photocopy, prepared my French as carefully as possible but could not get the machine to work. Thought it needed paper but the kind postal clerk (there is only one person working there) pointed out that I needed to feed it some money, was my face red!

Bear pics tomorrow hopefully................

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Audra Foveo