Market Day

Saturday sees one of the best markets in the area take place in St Girons, a 25 minute drive down the valley from here. It always has a tremendous selection of local fruit and veg, tons of local cheeses, saucisson, honey, bread....... a veritable Cornucopia where we are spoilt for choice. We duly filled our basket with quality produce and, once shopped out there, made our way to Intermarché down the road at Saint Lizier to stock up on other essential dry goods. This is one of the few shops that remain open between 12.00 and 14.00 hrs - and how blissfully quiet it is at lunchtime - an ideal time to shop! They have an excellent fresh fish section there and we bought all kinds of bits and pieces with a view to making a bouillabaisse this evening, although things don't always go according to plan. A trip to Bricomarché next door followed where we bought a 'poèle à pétrôle' heater mainly for heating the attic when we have visitors in the colder months ahead.

The big discovery of the day however has been the wholefood/environmentally friendly shop that we discovered in St Girons. It has been a concern since we moved in that the cleaning products that we use are not doing the 'good bacteria' on the hill much good. We are not hooked up to a mains system here and ALL of our waste is taken by pipes away from the house and is jettisoned off down the hillside where it is washed away by rain or absorbed into the hillside. So today, we were able to secure supplies of very reasonably priced environmentally friendly toilet cleaner, washing up liquid and washing tablets which will ease our conscience somewhat. We were also able to stock up on dried goods like pulses, rice and muesli. I think we will be frequent visitors to that shop!

This afternoon, with the return of some good weather (been 18 degrees, sunny with clear blue skies today!), Andy decided it was an opportune moment to take a look at the chimney stack to try and find out where rainwater was managing to seep in and trickle down the chimney breast in the attic, threatening to damage our newly installed insulation and plasterboard. So he got his harness on, roped up, secured himself to a tree, self-belayed and got onto the roof to take a look. The good (I think) news is that there are very few spots where water can get in, but mastic was applied wherever there appeared to be even the faintest possibility so hopefully we shouldn't have any more 'dripping' occurrences in the attic and future visitors can sleep comfortably!