Seasonal buzz

S had another appointment in Narbonne today (last one!) so I rode shotgun once more and shopped in the covered market. It's the last shopping day before French Christmas (the evening of the 24th). Sad to reflect that normally I would love the festive buzz and the sheer pleasure of being among happy French people deciding what to have for the year's most important family feast. The crowds, the queues with no distancing ... after every successful purchase I went outside onto the canal bank to breeeeaathe, before venturing in again.

S caught up with me in the wine shop just across the road from Les Halles, where we took advice on a couple of local bottles for a festive lunch on Chirstmas day. On the way home we stopped for more supplies; S braved Grand Frais while I queued up outside Picard. It took me right back to the hard Spanish lockdown in March, with the security guy letting people in au compte-gouttes. Once inside, it was very efficient though.

We had the duck, pear and preserved lemon tajine I'd bought in the market for lunch; delicious, and so copious we only ate half of it. In the early evening we went to catch up with V and G; despite living within 200 metres of each other we have not encountered each other since lockdown started and were wondering how they were doing.

G is in Paris visiting her mum, and I think V was very happy to have some company. He is a rather special character who can be quite annoying at times, but he told us some great stories, of which the standout was one about a vehicle he and a friend had constructed from multiple scrapped cars when they were seventeen. Their conversation with a couple of gendarmes when they were on their way to a nightclub in it was ... interesting. It was a single-seater vehicle so V was sitting on the roof with a fog light connected directly to a battery to illuminate the route. When asked for the car papers they explained that they had made the car themselves but had all the registration documents for the scrapped cars at home, and yes they were underage and had no licences. It all ended happily ever after ... as in, the gendarmes told them to forget the nightclub and go home.