Month: March 2012

The car is in the garage

The car is in the garage today. I took it to a garage to have the front wheels changed on Monday, and the mechanic spotted a problem with the front left suspension triangle. I decided to take it to the Fiat concession and they are changing the piece today. It hadn’t been to the garage since last July. We hope we can drive many more happy miles before we have to change it.

Last week’s market: Guingamp

We did our usual visit to the Guingamp Market last Wednesday. The sun was shining and it was quite warm by the time we left. There were no major incident apart the lady replacing the usual market manager. She pretended we weren’t supposed to be there. But I was quite convinced of the contrary and when I mentioned the freedom of the press, she suddenly walked away to do her business.

Later, I overheard a gentlemen speaking Breton next to me. When he had finished his conversation, we started chatting. He was friendly and quit knowledgeable. He seemed to have a lot of respect for the Welsh missionaries who came to Brittany in the 19th century and translated the Bible into Breton. It turned out he seems to be quite a militant for the Breton language and culture. He used to paint over signs back in the days when everything was monolingual. He also did it in Wales once (and if I understood well, he got arrested for that). When I told him my wife was Welsh and I was learning Breton, he seemed even happier to speak. One interesting fact is that he knew the former Pastor of the Guingamp church who used to be involved in the Breton Cultural centre for years.

Apart from this conversation it was fairly quiet. We packed up at the usual time and went back home for lunch.

Well, it’s the tonsils playing up again.

I’ve had a painful throat since thursday. It’s kept me awake at nights and I am now feeling rather tired. But I waited until this morning to go to see the doctor. It is tonsilitis again. Third time this year. I haven’t had anything that required me to go to the doctor for many years. But now, for the third time in three month, I have to go and be put on medication. That’s life I suppose. If it comes back regularly, we may have to consider removing the Tonsils, but the Doctor warned me it is very painful for an adult.

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The myth of the French peasant

The last Breton class ended with a discussion on food shopping. We had been talking about supermarkets, and someone said he never shopped in a supermarket, then another one said his wife only goes to the supermarket for those things you don’t find on the market such as toilet paper or detergent.

If you listen to French people, you’d think that the majority of  French people do their shopping at the local butcher’s or on the local farmers’ market. There are still lot of independent butchers, bakers… in France, but the reality is somewhat different. According to Francoscopie, only 3.4% of the working population is working in agriculture; That’s about 875000 people (in 2007). In 1946, they were 7.5 millions.

In the French mind, French farmers still live on a small farm, following ancestral practices. The reality is somewhat different.

Only 21% of French farms have a surface of 20 hectares or less, this represents only 2% of the cultivated land. French farming is one of the most efficient and industrialised in the world, not far behind the USA in terms of productivity.

So, where do French people do their shopping? The answer is simple: like anyone in the western world, they go the the local supermarkets. But on special occasions, they will go the the local butcher or baker, or attend the farmers market.

 

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