Saturday in Saint Aignan is market day.  We were very excited to get out there early to see what all was offered.  The picture above is our house (not where the car is parked but on the corner) and the market is on the square on the side of the house.

David heard people arriving and setting up around 5:30 a.m.  I, of course, slept right through it. When we went out to shop, we couldn't believe how many carts with awnings, trailers, and box trucks were set up.  Probably the biggest cart was the fish cart.  You all know that David and I eat NO fish or seafood of any kind so we were able to walk right past that!  David said some of the items looked like creatures from the black lagoon and looked like they could eat us rather than the other way around.  There were 4 or 5 places selling beautiful vegetables and fruit, 3 or 4 butchers (David called them meat wagons!), a couple of bakery carts and, surprisingly, only one wine vendor. 

We bought a bottle of Gamay wine for me, some vegetables -- lettuce, mushrooms, avocado, and a few pastries.  But we didn't buy a baguette there because we wanted one from our favorite patisserie.  We did buy two coconut macaroons that were very sweet, dense, and what you would expect a macaroon to taste like.

Rachel told me there was also a clothing market set up on Saturday on another square by the small Super U.  We didn't know what to expect but there were some cool clothes available there!  David bought a warm sweater that zips up the front.  One vendor had pretty upscale women's clothing.  There were a couple of very cute skirts but I definitely don't need skirts on this vacation.  And the clothing was pretty expensive.  

Saint Aignan came alive for market day.  People came out of the woodwork with their shopping bags and carts for hauling their purchases.  The volume of traffic had also increased dramatically and it made it difficult to cross the streets.  I must add, however, that drivers in France stop at the cross walks much more than the drivers do in the United States.

After shopping we came  home and I started a load of wash.  I had not slept very well the night before so we took a nap!  You have to nap on vacation, right?  We never nap very long though because the church bells chime on the hour and half hour so we know how long we've been napping.

Saturday night we wanted to have cocktail hour and luckily we had no problem buying gin and tonic water so David could make his excellent cocktails.  Delicious!  After a few of David's drinks we think we understand what they are saying on French television, but, frankly, the next day we don't remember anything that happened on TV.    

After cocktails I made dinner with what we purchased at the market.  I made a delicious salad with red lettuce, the mushrooms and avocado and wonderful gorgonzola cheese.  I think most of you know that David is addicted to Ranch dressing.  Before we left, I was lamenting to Kema that he wouldn't have Ranch dressing for two months and would probably go through withdrawal.  She gave me the idea to take some Ranch dressing mix packets with me which I thought was a great idea.  So last night I mixed up one of the packets and we had Ranch dressing in France!  At the market we bought two little cheese pizzas and I heated them up to have with our salads.  For dessert we had strawberries and whipped cream.  The entire meal was very, very good.

 We saw that the Jimmy Fallon show was on TV so we watched two episodes of that before turning in.