Vendredi, 9 a lundi, 12 septembre

Le weekend de la braderie

The “Braderie” started on 9^th. As far as we could make out, it’s a sort of glorified tidy jumble sale when the stores sell off things at even cheaper prices than they were in the sale that finished five weeks earlier. This year, because of security issues, the event wasn’t held in the Place d’Armes but around the town.

I nipped out to get some milk from the supermarket and it started immediately: rails of clothing out on the pavements, boxes of other stock, shoes, small items of furniture. I did a few slight detours but didn’t have time for much browsing as Wilf’s brother Mike and his wife Helen, were coming for a few days. 

Samedi, 10 septembre was spent looking round the market and town, followed by a meal at La Maison in the evening. That’s the name of the restaurant not what we call our dining room. It’s just round the corner and out of the way enough for it to be promising. The food was lovely but we waited a long time for the dessert, so Wilf and I will be trying it again sometime to check that. At least they were apologetic and gave us a discount.

Dimanche, 11 septembre we all went to Arras, famous to most Brits for being a town where tapestries were made for hiding behind in Shakespeare plays and whose name gave rise to a certain amount of sniggering to teenagers.  It’s a lovely town, the main attraction being two large arcaded squares, though unfortunately one is now home to a very large car park. The other,

Place des Héros, was the place to relax, enjoy a drink in the sun and admire the buildings. There was an art exhibition, with a DIY painting where everyone could add as much or as little paint at they wished. 

After a drink and a cake to refuel, we set off back, stopping at a war cemetery on the way. There was no planning: we just stopped at the first one we noticed. It contained 1103 graves, soldiers from Britain, India, Canada, beautifully maintained. A few miles further on, I remarked that I’d seen another three cemeteries. Wilf said there had been more, but I’d not seen the signs. All a sobering thought. We haven’t yet “done” the First or Second World War places but I suspect that even with a gentle introduction like this we will still be shocked.

Mike and Helen left on the Monday, leaving a couple of days for us to get ready for Judy, our next visitor, due on Thursday 15^th.