Marché au Gras

15th - 16th November:

The association organised a trip to the Marché au Gras in Samatan, well know for the sale of ducks, geese and foie gras. Sorry if you're anti but it's all part of the landscape in France. 22 of us set off and our first stop was for a coffee overlooking Carcassone; then it was on to Toulouse and lunch in the "Galileo" which the owner opened up especially for us. Coffee , wine, 3 courses , all for 12€ a head; can't complain at that. from here the group split into 2 with some going to visit the city of Auch and the rest an armagnac distillery. Take an educated guess which we opted for! The visit was really interesting as they were distilling that day. It's just a shame it was too dark for a decent photo. Parted with a few €s before leaving for our accomodation.

Situated around a lake this small holiday village was a great deal. Evening meal followed by a dance until 10.30pm (well, the clientelle was a bit on the aged side!), self contained accomodation, breakfast and lunch the following day. Christian hit lucky as he got to sleep with 3 women. We should have gone to an overflow hotel down the road but as Kathy and Joséphine had 2 spare beds, we bunked in with them.

The market was something else. The doors opened to the sound of a whistle and then it was everyone for themselves. After about an hour the counters looked as if they'd been hit by a plague of locusts.

Shopping done we had a look around the weekly market and basked in the warm sunshine with an apéritif. The run home went without hold up or mishap which was just as well as we were invited to Linde's for an apéritif along with Jean and Françoise.