Saturday is market day

Pézénas Market - charcuterie stall

An early morning call for the girls
We have our younger daughter Kerrie and granddaughter Lauren with us at the moment, together with Lauren's friend, Issy (Isabelle) known currently as Dizzy to avoid confusion with the Berti of the same name. (see yesterday's entry) Dizzy somehow seems rather more appropriate as it happens. Much to my amazement, the early morning call worked and we managed to get them all out of the house by 08h15. Given their performance over the few days with us so far, this can be classed as a minor miracle.

The weather was lovely this morning so we took the girls to Pézénas market, a great place to while away a couple of hours. Pézénas itself is a lovely town, just ten minutes in the car and very popular with those of us who live here, and our visitors alike. This wonderful market has been in existence since the Middle Ages and attracts merchants from all over the region, selling a huge range of products. It's a refreshing change from the markets of the UK, which are now worked, seemingly, by an extended family of British Asians, mostly with Manchester or 'Bromwicham' accents and mostly selling leather jackets and clothes at prices too good to be true. My mother always told me that if something was too good to be true, it very likely wasn't - true that is.

Pézénas Market - The Sweetie Man

Strolling down the Cours Jean Jaurès, the main street in Pézénas, there are stalls which take one back 50 or 60 years to one's own early childhood. The girls couldn't believe that we used to get 8 of those sherbet flying saucer things for an OLD penny not to mention four black-jacks or fruit salad chews for the same price. Mind you, the girls had no concept whatsoever of what an old penny was worth and very little more of the value of a new one, as it doesn't really buy anything worthwhile nowadays.

It can take some time to get from one end to the other. The wide array of tempting things to buy (most of which you don't really need of course) is one reason. But Saturday morning in Pézénas is also a place to meet a lot of folk who you have managed, successfully, to avoid for the past week or two.

Seemingly not for everyone

Val has never been a great market fan but I love it - all of it; the buzz of the crowds, the vast range of produce and colours and, of course, the characters. I particularly like the clever people who demonstrate with such ease, those fantastic tools and potions that do everything from peel a grape to clean a pan which would have been long since thrown out, even in the austere days of post-war Britain. But I'm a real sucker for a good demo and, consequently, our kitchen drawer is overloaded with a variety of "magic" peelers, scrapers, choppers, slicers, cleaners, fixers and gadgets to do just about every thing and, at the moment of purchase, every one of them that I just couldn't do without. Some of them I have had for thirty or more years; few of them have I ever managed to use effectively and not one did I really ever need in the first place. Every now and again one of them sees the light of day, fails miserably and is put back to spend the next part of its life buried in utter redundancy.

For me, however, the real joy of market day is sitting at a pavement cafe with an overdose of caffeine, simply watching the world go by. And some days it does, together with his dog. I could sit there forever.