Samedi, July 24

Today the weather remains cool. This is a godsend as the air conditioning unit in my bedroom is not working. A repairman came yesterday, diagnosed the problem, and hopefully the problem will be fixed in a few days.

I got up early and went to the Farmer’s Market in Pezenas. It is an excellent market – everything you could possibly want and lots that you probably don’t want. I had to restrain myself since this week I am here on my own. I did buy some marinated fresh anchovies and octopus which I’ll have for dinner (I’ve been dreaming of them since MaryAnn and I went last week and bought some but never got a chance to eat them due to our Collouire adventure).

Suzette and Roger (my neighbors) had invited me for “appertifs” at noon. We had a nice visit. A friend came to join Roger later at the Feria today. Roger had obviously already been to the event this morning and purchased some “jambon” from Corsica – I saw the stand that was selling it last night. We sampled it and I thought it was very good but Roger said he thought it was just average and it was very expensive. Suzette, Roger, and Roger’s friend spoke in French and I was pretty lost in the conversation. At one point after they had been talked enthusiastically about something for about 5 minutes and Suzette asked me what I had understood. Unfortunately the only thing I had gotten was “huit heure” which means 8:00 am or pm.

Another interesting piece of information I learned from the conversation was that for 20 years Suzette had a shop (wines, tastings, not sure what else) in the “Naturiste” center in Cap D’Agde. This is the largest nudist colony in the world. She said that she was clothed there but the customers weren’t. She said it was great in 1980 but got bad later – too much sex. I learn something interesting about people every day.