Shopping for Wheels Tuesday 26th August

The Castries Fruit and Vegetable market (and wine and pizza!)


The best sort of fuel pumps!

Wow, it’s hot. Nearly as hot as it was back in July when we arrived, and we heard from Michelle when she nipped in today that her canoe business is still going strong despite the fact that most of the holiday makers are supposed to have left. Either there are a lot of Doctors letters being issued or else the locals have woken up to the fact that they have a really nice opportunity to explore their own area rather than pay petrol expenses and head off somewhere else.

“Staycation” was the buzz word being bandied about in the States when we were there and more and more people were investigating their own locality, so I guess that a lot of people are doing it here as well.

We stayed home this morning and worked on our computers but then rewarded ourselves with a quick trip to the municipal tip. You see how little it takes to make us happy! The trailer was fully laden with the remnants of the overgrown oleander bush that blocked the centre of the courtyard, along with some dried drooping boughs that were a little too close to the top of the old barbeque for our liking. We are getting along so well with the gas barbeque that I doubt we would bother to fire up the old wood one, but I would hate to give the pompiers a reason for tearing down the road and dousing us with water.

We are starting to look for our own car, and we called into the local garage to enquire if he had anything much for sale. Jean has the wise theory that it is always best to buy close to home in case you have to phone the guy up on a cold winter’s morning and tell him to come round and start the wretched thing if it has gone on the fritz. They told us about one possibility that we will take a look at tomorrow, and then we nipped down to Castries to have a look at the offerings at the second hand car mart. There is a rather nifty Peugeot which has rather taken our fancy, and the salesman took a great shine to us. Although he spoke extremely fast, from what I could make out, he had been living very happily in Montreal until his family had dragged him back to France. He raved about things like ice fishing, tobogganing and skiing and insisted that the sun shone endlessly throughout the winter months. I mentioned that my brother and his family lived in Toronto, but he swept that aside with the single word “English”.

We’ll go back and have another look at the car once we have a comparison, and meantime, tomorrow we are off to Montpellier to go to the bank. I feel as though I should nip in and see the guys in the internet café but they might be so disappointed when they realise that their milk cow is no longer producing, that it’s probably best to stay away.

This time I want to go and investigate the big book shop at Polygone which I understand has a very good English section, and the Montpellier library also has one, so that might be worth investigating. At least our local library is open again, but their computer system was down when we called in today, so you could look but you couldn’t take anything out. Now there’s frustration for you! I did have a nice chat with the charming young librarian who speaks such good English, and discovered that his mother was American which explained his rather interesting accent.

If the weather is as good as this tomorrow, I can see us getting off the tram at Corum and walking through the park to Place de la Comédie. I wonder if that little restaurant in Antigone is making Croque Monsieur?

As promised, we went back to the vegetable market with the wine pumps at the back and I hope you enjoy the photos. Come and see it some time and bring your own bottles!