Belves Market day

After a hearty breakfast (why do they call it that if it's not good for the heart?) we made our way to the local market of Belves. The ascent to the market square is short and steep. It's certainly a reasonable workout as the gradient becomes steeper towards the end and you emerge at the square with some relief.


The market was in full swing by 9am. I noticed it to be considerably smaller than I remembered, and we deduced that this was because the tourist season hadn't started yet. The other noticeable difference was the absence of cherries. There was however one vendor who was quite surprised with my order of 4kg. He happily dispensed this with an extra 500g libre.

We tried a new coffee shop this morning. Wonderful. The added bonus were the jokes inside the bon-bon wrappers. They have the same author as Australian joke lollies, with that really corny sense of humour. For example (and I translate…) 

Q- "who is the least ugly celebrity?" A- Angelina Jolie.   

Q  "What did the police say to the two bonbons walking down the street?"  A- "Your papers please!" 

and so on. Mary really enjoyed her hot chocolate which was rich and seemed to contain real chocolate.

Barry wrestles with a bon bon 

Today is the day of Marc-Andre and Catherines visit. They were driving from Geneva and at 10am we were informed that they were just leaving. 5pm was their ETA. This gave us time to do the important things like have lunch, rest, and prepare a meal for the visitors at Darren and Farley's house, where Meryl and Barry had moved, having been displaced from their own house by the masses of visitors!

Mary and Rani headed off to the Roque de St Christophe while I did some blogging and reading. I also discovered that Geelong had been routed by the Sydney Swans led by Gary Ablett. I was happy for Gazza.

Our visitors failed to appear by 5, and by 8 Meryl had "given up" whatever that means, but suddenly they were here.. exhausted.

Marc Andre and Barry. 

Dinner with the visitors in Darren and Farley's garden

We ferried their luggage up to the upper house and enjoyed a lovely meal in the garden, catching up on news all around. Laughter and clinks of wine glasses filtered up from a house a few doors down where Aussie Nellie was entertaining her own visitors. After dinner we wandered up to seek the source of some music. It was Fete de Music day in France where every town has a music festival. Not Belves. Some very amateur teenagers were  performing cover versions in front of an audience of around 17 people. (Yep.. I can be that specific) We listened to some Nirvana and continued our circuit of the town before heading to our respective beds.

I stayed up late catching up on the blog… it always take she longer than I think.

I've been starting to really enjoy being a little more than a tourist in France. It's my third visit to Belves and that gives a strange sense of a little ownership.