A bit of our neighbourhood, Thursday, 12 November

The Fishmongers

Today was a mixed day but we thought we would show you a few images from our neighbourhood. As we head down the stairs from our street into the shopping area we pass a rather interesting sight. On the right is a crowded area with all sorts of weird and wonderful things in it. It has been here ever since we started staying in the flat. Some of it is very clever and some of it is just plain junk that has accumulated in piles. On the left, is an example. Is it art? Is it Junk? We leave that to you to decide.

As we move into the shopping area, we pass all sorts of shops and street displays. One section has cheap clothing and in the same little street is a fine fish stand, a great cheese shop and a bakery as well as our favourite green grocer. Everybody greets everybody with a cheerful "bonjour." When you are checking out at a grocery store, it is considered correct behaviour to greet the person doing the checking out with either "bonjour Monsieur" or "bonjour Madame." It is interesting that in a city in which the inhabitants are supposed to be quite rude that there is a code of politeness that is clearly understood by all. Of course there are larger stores such as Woolworths or Coles. The most common one is Monoprix but even that is very French. The display of vegetables is lovely and there is a very wide range of charcuterie while the bakery section has both bread and pastry - all very lovely.



For the last few days we have been investigating the purchase of an iron. The one in the flat has exposed wires and has been deteriorating for several years. Anyway, Virginia announced "I am not using that; I don't need to have my hair electrically frizzled!" A lot of people obviously use the flat and not all are as considerate as one might hope. For example, when we arrived the place smelled very strongly of smoke even though the person who had been here before us, we understand, was a non-smoker and had left the windows open. This has been the case every time we have returned to the flat. We suppose this is just in the nature of a private arrangement like this so we are not complaining but provide this as a bit of a background view.

We called our "landlady" in Sydney about the iron and she told us to get a new one at the hardware store just around the corner. So, today we went there. This is the same hardware store where we had been invited in to taste the wonderful dates a few days ago. We looked over the stock of irons and Virginia made tut-tut noises and shook her head a lot. Finally, although the price was clearly marked on the box she looked down her nose and asked how much he wanted for the iron. The look on her face suggested that whatever he was going to ask, it was going to be too much. He, however, was equally adept at the game saying (in French, of course), for you Madame I will make it a special price. He knocked off about ten percent and both were happy. Sadly, however, he appeared to be out of dates! That was our excitement for the day. Virginia went off to school and I worked on the Summer School.

In most streets you will find a shop called Le Tabac which is a bit like the outback shops in Australia where one shop does it all. Mostly it sells papers, magazines, sweets, stamps, tobacco, phone cards and occasionally even has a bar attached to it.

Today seemed like summer. The temperature got to a balmy 14 degrees and one of the shopkeepers said to Virgina C'est l'ete! (it is summer) and although rain is forecast for the next couple of days the temperature is expected to remain in the low to mid teens. Rather nice when we hear that Adelaide is having a hemongous heat wave with a week in the high thirties.