15 Août

15 Août (August) is Assumption day, and it’s a public holiday in France. It fell on a Thursday this year, so effectively it’s the start of a long weekend. Some will even start by taking the Wednesday off.

Our guests were taking a long weekend themselves, and wanted to leave early to start their journey south. They had about a 7–8 hour journey ahead of them, so by 8.30am they had eaten breakfast, packed up their car and were on their way.

This left us with some unexpected time on our hands, so we headed out to a vide grenier in Les Riceys.

It’s a fabulous venue, behind the hôtel de ville (Mayors office) in the shade of some large spreading trees. There was a good mixture of stalls, and a very interesting stall selling old French coffee pots. Now although I didn’t want a coffee pot, I did buy one without a lid, for just 2€, as I thought it would make a pretty flower vase. I also got some plants, and a little enamel pot holder for the wall. I’d like Brian to fix a nice piece of not-too-thick oak to it, so I can use it as a shelf in the kitchen. The other enamel utensil holder may get used in the pool room for cloths; I shall see. My green storage jar was 5€, an absolute bargain.

The little pharmacy bottles were a Brian purchase. He wants to clean them up for displaying somewhere.

It was a beautiful start to our day.