Saturday.  Market day!  We walked through the market and bought little potatoes for roasting and chausson au pomme for breakfast.  We also picked up some bananas.  We didn't want to eat too much breakfast because we had invited Nathalie and Yves out for lunch when Nathalie closed her shop around 1:00 p.m. 

We walked up to the outdoor clothing market and on the way we remembered the La Fete du Timbre was going on.  As we understand it, 100 cities in France were issuing new stamps on Saturday and Saint Aignan was one of them.  Saint Aignan was celebrating traditional dance.  It was a great exposition and it was very crowded.  We saw the Mayor there and he is very young!  With the help of a kind French woman who spoke a little English, David was able to buy the stamps as souvenirs and they were hand cancelled with the Saint Aignan obligatoire with Saturday's date.  Very pretty!

We continued up the street and at one of the outdoor stands I bought what I think is a cute skirt.  I think it will  be really cute with tights and boots

The cheese shop was our next stop and we picked out three kinds of cheese to take to Douglas and Claire's on Monday night.  Hope they are good!!!  Oh, wait, there isn't any bad French cheese!

After Nathalie closed her shop, she and Yves knocked on our door and we headed out for lunch.  They decided they wanted to go to the Chinese restaurant so we went to Delices d'Asie.  Yes, we have now eaten at that restaurant four times.  But they have a wonderful variety and delicious dishes so we love eating there. 

We sat at our usual table and we were waited on by Julie.  We have learned that she is the fiancee of the chef.  They opened the restaurant together and it has only been open for five months.  She speaks very good English and she explained the specials to us.  She now recognizes David as the "man with the dictionary," because he always carries his French/English dictionary with him.  He has two favorite dishes there but Julie likes him to try something new every visit.  She just takes a look at what vegetables are available and the Chef prepares a vegetarian dish for him.  He always ends up with a great dish.  This time she served rice with it and he thought it was delicious!  I had crispy chicken with rice and Nathalie and Yves both had mussels and rice with vegetables.  Everything was excellent.  Delices d'Asie now has a wine list and Yves chose a red wine from Valencay and we all liked it!  For dessert Julie brought us coconut ice cream with a kind of fried dough -- almost a donut -- rolled in sugar.  And she also brought us fresh strawberries that she bought in the market that morning.  Both were delicious!   

The best part, tho, was definitely the company and the conversation.  Yves invited us to join them on Sunday for a 10k (6.2 mile) randonnee (hike) starting at 8:00 a.m.  Apparently different hiking clubs organize hikes on Sunday and they offer a 10k, 15k or 20k route.  Halfway through the hike there is a table set up with food and drink.  Yves said there is an amazing amount of food available.  We said we would like to hike with them so we agreed to meet them on Sunday at 8:00 a.m.  We thought it sounded like fun and it involves food so . . . .

After our three hour lunch we walked home and just hung around the house.  We planned to have cocktail hour but decided against it since we were getting up early Sunday morning to hike.  Instead we read and watched TV and I wrote in my blog trying to get caught up.  David had cheese and crackers and I had a few cookies and we called that dinner.  Headed to bed around 10:30.