Paradise Leaks!

Well, days have passed eventfully, with many visits from helpful Bob to fix the leaky sink (failed grout in the wall tile and bad washer in the faucet connection) and help me fire up the century old feul chaffage (oil heater). Lots of idle chatter as we examined and eventually repaired the sink whose mysterious leaking of huge quantities of water onto the kitchen floor had grown boring to say the least. We ate lunch, he left after another hour of story telling and chomping on the fine bread from the new boulangerie in town and great spooning of the beef and cabbage soup Kelly had cooked in the morning. (4 cups Chicken stock, 1 lb stew beef, 4 medium carrots and 1 large cabbage, cook til beef falls apart with a fork, couldn't be easier)
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On Monday it was The Donkey Faire in Lignieres, a HUGE annual event featuring the Black Donkey of the Berry as the main attraction. This is a buying, selling and extensive gawking festival. Many vendors of leather goods (mostly for donkeys but there were huge neck BELLS for husbands and boyfriends), food vendors, the town Cave was open pouring copious amounts of the local red and white. Only one thing blemished this sparkling, slightly drunken occassion...the damned weather! Dark, brooding storm clouds, buckets of cold rain and wind blasting us and the donkeys this way and that, people hiding in groups under any cover trying to stay dry (failing) and warm (failing). What a terrible thing to have happen on this glorious old event. Here are some pictures for you...and a movie too!>
Two old friends, another...

Donkeys under the clouds,

Brocante (Flea Market!) Day in you-know-where!

Brocante Day in Paradise found us up at 7 or so, coffee, minor cleanup of the small kitchen and then Bvroooom! Off to Chezel-Benoit for #1. Now Chezal has a population that includes various persons afflicted by mental conditions. I've been to three brocantes there and every time the hopital (mental) therein releases a few patients to roam the stalls and gawk with the rest of us. Some just stare in abject silence, some run between tables making utterances that bear little resemblance to speech, others mix well with the crowd and could be taken for you or ME on a slightly bad day...we don't always respond as a more normally sensed human might...a touch alone creates a loud giggle or shout or excessive hand movements (like Italians after Sunday mass). We ambled thru the stalls looking for something magical and needed, nothing, just cold wind and storm clouds above made it a rather miserable experience...along with the few well mannered nut cases
roaming with us. We saw it all and left unsatisfied for the next experience at Nozier near St. Amand Montrond. Only a short distance away it was down the hill from the town proper in what appeared to be a huge campground next to a beautifully dense tract of hardwood forest. Many stalls, lots of junk lying about and the smell of burning merguez sausage wafting by. I queried a vendor pointing to a lovely Henry 2 mirror they had leaning against his car bumper, "Combien S'il vous plait" (how much please), "Une cent euro", came back...wants 100 Euros for it, not bad, man knows his stuff, good...but too expensive for our cheap blood. 25, a buy, 35, sure, 50, maybe, above that...eh, they'll be another someplace, sometime. Well back to the car after another futile brocante session and to home where work (always!) awaits.