3) Market day in Limogne en Quercy

Limogne Sunday market

Sunday in France is a time when all things modern close and they revert back to life as it used (ought) to be.  The ENORMOUS supermarché was closed (it didn’t even mention Dimanche on the opening hours), the main petrol station was closed and the roads were deserted of cars.  The church bells were ringing for all they were worth and we assumed, like apparently everyone else, this was a call to get out of bed and head off to the market (the only people we saw actually coming out of a church had been to a christening).

Basket case at Limogne market

Inspired by all the fresh produce and the magic of French markets, we decided to support the local economy by buying what we needed for a coq au vin.  Shallots, which you can search hours for in England, were found on a stall run by an old man with an impossible accent selling just (the most wonderful looking) shallots and enormous strings of garlic.  Having made our purchase, we moved onto another stall manned by an Olivier Martinez lookalike who could clearly sell honey to bees.  He seemed to take rather a shine to Georgi (actually I think he recognised a sucker) and kept offering her little morsals, along with what were presumably little witticisms (he obviously thought something was funny).  Georgi's humour, however, vanished rather quickly when she realised she'd just bitten into some rather hot crystallised ginger.  M'sieur, needless to say thought this was hilariuos, and who was I to argue on such a wonderful sunny day so near to Christmas.

Festive dress code for market day in Advent

[I've just realised why my spell checker has gone mad.  It seems to think because we are in France we should be writing in French.  As a result, it thinks practically every word is spelt incorrectly, but is struggling to guess what each word was meant to be as an alternative.  As my spelling is atrowshous I am now désolé 

(at least I could check that one) and until I can work out a cunning way round this little glitch you will have to forgive the errors.]