Samedi, 14 mai
Le marché arrive chez nous
It sounded as
though a party had been going on until about 2.30 last night somewhere in the
square: much shouting, revving of mopeds and general good humour. This was
followed by more subdued sounds: purposeful voices, clanking of boards and the
sweet sound of scaffolding poles.
When we finally
decided it was time to get up and looked out, we saw that the market was now
easily within spitting distance, though we thought it best not to try. Wilf
reckons it’s further away vertically than horizontally. One day we’ll count our
steps and let you know.
With the
increase in the number of stalls comes a wider range of items on them: carpets,
scarves, horse meat, various types of traditional dress, belly-dancing wraps
with jingles on (needn’t have brought mine), exotic underwear; the choice is
amazing. There’s also the “jumble sale stall.” It appears to be exactly that:
clothes sold for 1 Euro upwards to synthetic leather jackets for un tenner. When we’re settled in, I’ll have a closer
look.
Dimanche, 15 mai
Mexicains, Basques et Majorettes
We found out
how seriously the French take their Sundays when we went over to the
hypermarket to buy a washing machine. It was very definitely closed, so we came
back home and were about to have lunch when we heard music outside, rushed
tentatively onto the balcony and looked over to see a group of people wearing
ponchos and sombreros heading down the road playing a very steady tune over and
over again.
and then a band
with majorettes.
All were
heading for the Place d’Armes, so we went along to see what was going on. There
was also a samba band, who met in two towns, one in France and the other in
Belgium. Unfortunately neither town was Valenciennes so “Join a samba band” stays
on my To Do list.
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