Marché

 We tend to avoid the marché during tourist season when walking between the stalls reminds us of being one of a zillion salmon swimming up stream. With the virus we have even more motivation to stay away. We are within a block of the marché that runs 9-12 more or less.

This morning Marco came to start painting at 8 so I was up and dressed. I grabbed my rainbow basket and all my empty egg cartons to return to the egg lady.

 

She was grateful for the cartons and that I had exact change as she packed my eggs in one of my returned cartons.

My next stop was the brownie lady. She and her husband were still setting up. I wanted one of her savory fig and cheese tarts for breakfast. Although she would have served me immediately, I said I would go have a cup of tea at "the boys" rather than have her break her normal setup. As I sipped my Yorkshire tea and ate my tiny cake, I watched the merchants set up, marveling at the amount of work the merchants go through to set up and take down each market day.

A shirtless man, with a body worthy of showing off, was flirting with a pretty young woman setting up her woman's clothes stall. From her body language, I could see she was polite, might be interested but not then. She had too much to do. He got the hint and left.

I chatted with an Irish friend, who had bad news about a mutual acquaintance who was planning to come next week.

Pierre, a local with whom I've had thousands of conversation, stopped to tell me that one of his friends had died. I was only on nodding relations with the man who had been suffering from dementia. As usual we went deeper into conversation. Pierre was always good for giving my French and thought processes a good workout and today was no different.

 The brownie lady had my purchases wrapped and waiting. Another customer asked if I were English. I said no Swiss, but she didn't understand. On the 14th repetition she did. Her accent was Italian.

I was home before 9 missing the crowds but not the pleasure of the marché.