Tag Archives: market

Summer at the market. More sexy French food.

You can tell summer’s here. The aisles in the markets are full of summer visitors and lots of them are children, eating pastries in their push chairs or tagging along at the side wearing that out of school for the next two months face.

At Clermont l’Hérault, the Wednesday market features in one of Mick Alec Idlelife’s stories. He’s currently working on reformatting a collection of stories with unusual endings for ebook publishing.  There’ll be more news about him soon.

In the meantime, here’s what we saw (pun intended) today at the market.

It looks like an ordinary saw. It’s amazing the notes he can saw from it and the sounds carry so far . . .

We filled our bags with fresh fruit and vegetables. All the seats on the pavement café behind the stall were taken.

summer fruits
Irresistible!

Himself went next door and helped himself at the sausage man’s stall. The sausage man knows us now. When he sees himself coming, he gets out a big bag. The aromas, the colours and the sounds of a French market are always a delight.

And would you believe it? We found a new bar, or at least a recently refurbished one. Neither of us had noticed it before, but today, large and welcoming, a fifties style retro diner with a terrace overlooking the market canopies. So, of course, it had to be done, didn’t it? Up the stairs to a view over the market. The ideal spot for people watching.

summer hats and shades
summer hats and shades

A writer always watches people. Look at these two. Are they together? Or did two people wearing hats like that just happen to stop at this stall at the same time? What is she looking at? What is he looking at? I know ‘cos I was there.

Holidaymakers?

Certainly.

French?

I think not.

This picture is crying out for a caption. Why don’t you send me some ideas? Just for the fun of it. I’ll look forward to that.

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Cheers!

Edit: 13th July – I was contacted by Natalia Paruz – ‘The Saw Lady’- you should visit her site. Her music is beautiful. And watch the video clip of the musical saw festival. You will be amazed.

Market singers

oranges and singers
singers at the French market

Our local French market offers good prices on staple foods. One euro per kilo of juicy oranges. Don’t mention the suck word, though. We’ll start thinking about sexy food again.

So, we turn up to buy our fresh greens and crusty bread as usual and there’s music on the air. What could be nicer on a sunny April morning? Standing outside the town hall there’s a man with an old-fashioned, hand operated barrel organ. His tunes are jolly, toe-tapping melodies. Locals are joining in. Somebody has handed out plastic folders with the words and everybody seems to know the songs. Here’s a snatch.

http://youtu.be/wNwz9ZGdy7s

wood pigeon
wood pigeon – was he listening or waiting for it to stop?

The bird on the wire was not mightily impressed. Maybe he’d been stood up. Maybe his lady love had wandered off to inspect what some other guy was offering. Or maybe he was just waiting for the music to stop so he could begin his calling again.

We listened to the singers for a while, then took our purchases home and had another coffee. We bought some small spring onions. Would you like to see?

Such a shame we couldn’t find any big ones.

French market spring onions
we couldn’t find any large ones?

As I said already – the joys of living in France!