40/27 - To market to mark it!

Saturday July 24th

You’ve got to love a man who takes the folded map of France and turns it into an accordion and sings La Vie en Rose over breakfast!!! You’ve got to love him or hit him in the head with a cricket bat! But it’s hard not to smile at Beloved when he‘s in form.
We decide to hit the market today in Uzes since we are off to Barcelona in the morning. Unfortunately the market hit back. People are parked on the pavement, on roundabouts, anywhere they can find. There’s a lamborghini parked on a traffic island, a lotus on the centre nature strip….and BMWs and Mercs fighting to squeeze into a space made for a Fiat!
Everyone who isn’t watching the tour de france is in Uzes for the market.
Not that it’s not a good market, but I mean …is it really worth the traffic hassle? Tony drops us off and has to park more than a kilometre out of town and walk back. In the traffic it takes him 40 minutes.
The produce market fills the square….the general market fills the street. We can barely move. In the square a Django Reinhardt tribute and are playing gypsy jazz to commemorate his centenary. It’s a warm and lovely sound….but doesn’t quite sound the same with the use of all your fingers. We have escargots in the fridge and Tony has been trying to find the funny little clamp spring holders that used to be available in every shop in France ( except the pharmacies) 30 years ago. No luck, but at least he finds two pronged tiny picker outerers…..that’s a technical term. We both love escargots but they are virtually impossible if you don’t have the right hardware. But they’ll have to wait till we get back from Barcelona as A&E are not Snail lovers ( unless they’re the pastry kind of danish!)
At the farmhouse we batten down for the time trial - in which Andy Schleck’s chances go out the window for this year and Contador adds to Spain’s reasons to celebrate…Wimbledon, The world cup and now Le Tour. Tomorrow’s ride through Paris will be just a formality.
We all take a nap now that the excitement for the tour is finally over….then I make a VERY swish dinner and top it off with a framboise tart.

Ann and Eric have to pack and the Provence part of their trip is over all too soon. They’ve been terrific company and I’ll especially miss Eric’s kitchen cleaning skills…. A man who loves to wash up even when you have a dishwasher is a rare breed indeed! Tony and Eric talk Jazz….with Tony the professor as always. It astonishes me how much he knows….a perfect candidate for Mastermind! I struggle off to bed. The Sugars are punishing me for forgetting I’m a diabetic this week…but it has been lovely to surrender to temptation.