I knew I shouldn't have talked about stormy weather yesterday - I jinxed it and today it's been awful! What a day! But it proves my meteorological point - sunning it in twenty-seven plus the other day, now it's impossible even to go outside, with sideways rain and a felt temperature of about minus twenty.
Pool cover holding on tight
Saturday is market day in our town. Thuir is a pretty little medieval village, like hundreds of other villages scattered all over France, but it's also big enough to be lively and bustling all year round. It's expanding quite rapidly, the population growing every year.
Thuir market on a sunnier day
Thuir's proximity to the much larger town of Perpignan would partly account for its expansion - but Thuir holds its own as a lovely village and attracts visitors and new inhabitants by its own merits. It can boast of several fashion and interior/gift shops, butchers and bakers, at least seven restaurants and three or four bars, and two years ago we even got a "night club"! Numéro 7, open until 2 a.m. Anyone who knows the opening hours in the French countryside will appreciate that this is a sensation!
Lemon tree in Thuir backyard
Thuir is still not flooded with foreigners - (read Northern Europeans: British, Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans). It's too unknown for that - in fact the whole area has yet to experience the Northern European invasion that for instance Bretagne, Normandy, Provence and the Côte d'Azur has seen. But it's coming, and let's face it - several British families have moved here permanently. I've already made friends with some of them. (Unconfirmed statistics say that half a million Brits live permanently in France.)
There are - as far as I know - three Norwegian families who own houses in Thuir, and the fact that I'm not certain about this tells me something about our mutual wish to remain strangers. Once a couple of years back we were all at the same restaurant at the same time, not acknowledging each other. We probably all heard Norwegian spoken at nearby tables, and the waiter - who certainly knows us all - informed us: "There are many of your compatriots here tonight." We were all so obviously protective of our private spheres, our body language signalling: "I wannabe French! I discovered Thuir first! I know the waiter best!"
Sole meunière at the above mentioned restaurant - the Bodega Can Marty
One evening last summer my husband, daughter Sophie and I walked into the Bar Numéro 7 to watch one of the semi-finals of the European Soccer Cup - and Sophie spotted a Norwegian celebrity at the bar. A Norwegian celebrity in small Thuir! This was truly a sensation, an inconceivable event! Even the owners of the bar (who are also the owners of Can Marty) got excited when we told them later. I felt sorry for the poor celebrity, who tried to hide under his baseball cap when he heard our language. Apart from us and him and his girlfriend, there were about ten French people in the bar. Nowhere to hide! He was probably terrified that we would bear down on him and insist on autographs. Never had he expected to run into other Norwegians in Thuir!
This is easily our catch at Thuir's market on a lovely warm Saturday, but alas - not today. All we managed this morning was to rush in through the hurricane gusts to get a few things, not that there were many stalls there today either. The stall owners get cold too.
Overly optimistic to think I'd be planting out flowers today
Grotesquely expensive locally produced cheese - but oh-so-delicious
I stayed at home all afternoon to wait for a technician from the telephone company Orange to come and fix our landline and internet connection - he was supposed to be here between one and six p.m. I've called them all week and did a happy-dance yesterday when they finally agreed to send help. Did he arrive? No. Did they answer the phone when I rang? No. Did I suddenly remember Kramer waiting for the cable guy in "Seinfeld"? Yes. Then I started to laugh hysterically. As a consolation I'm now listening to the lovely Elizabeth McGovern of Downton Abbey fame, singing beautifully with her band Sadie and the Hotheads. Worth a listen, for sure!
My kinda town too :-)
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