Mirepoix market yesterday

   Now that tourism season has died down, we've added a Monday visit to Mirepoix market back into our weekly routine. July and August, it's crammed and--unless you get there by 8:30 a.m. (and leave by 9:30 a.m.) it's no fun at all.
   But this week's was. Sun blazing, everyone enjoying café crème under the arcades, and cheerful orange things everywhere--pumpkins, carrots, Indian bedspreads...

   Another uplifting piece of news is that, thanks to public protest, Mirepoix will not be getting another supermarket anytime soon.

A Packed Day in Paris: Part 1

   Because the Vanves flea market only happens at the weekend and because Sunday was already planned, today was the only day we could go. So, a little after 9 a.m., we were on the road, forgetting that we had to go through the cursed Montparnasse metro station with its endless walkways. A little after 10 a.m., the place was already throbbing with buyers. We could only spend limited time there but did manage to buy a bunch of hand-coloured (or looked like it) antique postcards, and an art book.

   I'm convinced that the French are crazier about dogs than us English are. Anyway, I did rather like these two small chiens waiting patiently in their owner's van.

   Something else that caught my eye was the painting of the ballerina on the bar stool. Now there has to be a story behind that. Not that I would have bought it...but I was tempted by the miniature theatre below, or at left or at right...I'm still not that proficient at blogging and photos do tend to end up where they like.

Paris--Day 3: Sunday Morning Flea Market

The only marché des puces we've been to in Paris is the humungous one at Clignancourt. To be honest, we didn't like it very much. Size isn't everything. 

   I'd read about another, less tourist-y market, in the southwest of the city so, after coffee and tartines, off we set on the Metro, a 45 minute trip to Porte de Vanves which promised 350 dealers. Enormous. Reeeeally, reeeeeally, REEEEEEEEEEEALLY big. It started off unpromisingly (for bargain hunters) with 40 euro café au lait bowls but, as we made our way along under the plane trees, prices dropped. 

   Everything was for sale. Paris had tipped its grandmothers' attics on to the pavement. Paintings galore, stuffed animal heads, china, lots and lots of silver and silverplate. "Oh, those knives are two hundred and eighty euros? Sorry, I thought they were twenty-eight." He would have dropped the price to 250 but a little out of our range. 

   Still we did leave with a decent haul: three books (art, food and fiction), a sparkly parrot-shaped brooch (thanks, Peter) and an enormous lace curtain which will find a home somewhere in our new house. We bought it from a woman as she was packing up her stock. Ten euros, she said. A little less, I asked? Eight euros, she snapped. Done. It needs a good wash and a few stitches but is otherwise quite impressive. The lower section is a creamy-coffee colour, the top part is white. With the aid of a tea bath or sunshine, it'll end up being one shade or the other. 

   The sun blazed down. Everyone (apart from the lace lady) seemed in a holiday mood, the stalls went on and on till they reached a bridge that spanned the periphérique (the ring road that, for Parisians, defines the limits of Paris). A man played jazz classics on a piano that was just that bit out of tune enough to sound poignant. We had the time of our lives. 

   We sat outside for a very late lunch--a south-west salad for Peter with confited gésiers (duck gizzards) while the street cleaners in their neon-green vests hosed and swept and made everything clean and tidy, and then went home on the metro.

More finds at the Pamiers flea market

We drove to Pamiers this morning through a mist so thick and wet that most cars had their headlights and windscreen wipers on. When we got there, we saw that many of the stallholders had covered their wares with plastic sheets. It was too chilly to eat our pains aux raisins outside so we squeezed into a café on the main square and drank our crèmes elbow to elbow with everyone else. Eventually the sun burned through and the thermometer shot up but not to the high teens (Celsius) that it's been for the past couple of days. 

As usual, what was for sale ran the gamut from these 1930s soda syphons to spanners and children's clothes.

Our buys today included a saw for pruning roses and hedges, a DVD (although we still need a player) a classic tweed overcoat which I was sold by a very persistent vendeuse, a small folk art house to hang on the wall or, as you can see, stand on the stairs, and a china mold for foie gras. The woman who I bought both these from--for a total of three euros--did add that the mold could hold other foods besides foie gras.

Breaking buying resolutions at the Pamiers flea market.

Because the shelf over the sink is jammed with them from one end to the other. Because the kitchen cupboards and the sideboard are crammed with tottering piles of mismatched crockery. Because I really should know when to stop. I've placed an embargo on buying any more quaint old tins or one-of-a-kind plates or saucers. However attractive they are.

    But...we are on the lookout for plenty of other stuff. A carved something-or-other for the post at the bottom of the staircase (an oversized hazelnut or walnut would be ideal). Vintage bedside tables. Something to stand in the bathroom to hold bottles and jars. And, as they say in the advertising business, "much, much more."

   All of which was a reasonable excuse to head off to Pamiers on a glorious Sunday morning when the frost lay on the fields and the Pyrenees looked sculpted out of solid ice. 

    Once, some months ago, we found that the usual flea market had been pre-empted by a troupe of majorettes. But not today. By ten o'clock, when we arrived, the main square was already packed with buyers, sellers, dogs and an inquisitive ferret on a leash. Good karma flowed. You just knew this was going to be a successful rooting through the cast-offs of others. 

    Our first find was an old wooden shuttle (that's the thing that looks like a miniature canoe), a remnant of the textile industry that used to flourish in this region. The woman who sold it to us said some people use them to hold pens and pencils. In a moment of lunacy, I'd envisaged it holding a row of tea-lights until Peter pointed out that, being made of wood, the shuttle might go up in flames. 

    In a box under the same stall, I came on a rolling pin. Not sure if you can make out the words inscribed on it but they translate as "reserved for domestic quarrels." What I initially thought were red wine stains may be blood. I couldn't resist two small plates with a stencilled pattern of oranges. Only a euro each. 

    Major finds often hide in the cartons under each stall. Seeing me dithering over a pile of saucers, their owner smartly picked out the ones I'd been looking at--one with blue flowers, six with red daisies--and offered them to me for a euro the lot. This was after she'd sold me a tin of buttons for the same price. 

    In yet another box, this time filled with books, I came on Middleton's All the Year Round Gardening Guide (another one euro purchase). Reading through it later, I've discovered it was written during the war as an aid to digging for victory.

    Meanwhile Peter picked up a rather splendid vase, a souvenir of Mirepoix, a steal at 1.20 euros. And that was it. Apart from two pairs of gloves and a kilo of walnuts.