The weather is perfect here at the moment. Warm and sunny, but not too hot during the daytime and mild at night. Yesterday we were able to sit outside in shorts and t-shirts until well after dark.

Yesterday, while walking around the local village, we had seen big posters advertising a “Vide Grenier” for today. Not having a clue what this meant, Google Translate, which is a great resource for anyone who is not a brilliant linguist, told us this meant “Empty Attic”. Initially this had us a little confused, but it soon dawned on us that it must mean a car boot sale.

This morning when I went to reception to get our bread, which is delivered fresh daily, the receptionist confirmed that today was indeed Fontvieille’s car boot sale. Sarah was quite excited, because she loves markets and even I though there might be some local produce for sale.

Sarah’s Lady Flu is on the mend and so after breakfast we set out to the village. I mentioned yesterday that there seemed to be a real problem with potential forest fires and since then I have learnt more. These forests have three danger levels, Orange, Yellow and Black. There is a multilingual telephone number to call to find out if it is safe to go walking and if level “Black” is declared, large parts of the forest are closed to everyone.

The Pine Forest

When we arrived in the village we found the car boot sale spread over a small square in the centre and a much larger central car park, which had been closed for the day. It was almost immediately obvious that it was not going to be my sort of market. It consisted entirely of people selling their junk from home, including plenty of sellers with large rails of second hand clothes. I know this is what a car boot sale is supposed to be, I’ve sold things at such a sale in the past, but we had both been hoping that perhaps there would be some local crafts or produce, but we were disappointed.

Vide Grenier

What I hadn’t anticipated was that Sarah soon got bored. Perhaps she was a bit under the weather, but she soon tired of the tables of old china and obscure tools.

Plenty of empty attics here.

As we found last weekend in Mausanne-les-Alpilles, Sunday is an important day out for the French. The village was very busy, and I don’t think just for the sale. I was somewhat amused to see that at 11am plenty of people were sitting outside local cafes on their first alcoholic drink of the day.

Fontvieille’s lovely Marianne – the symbol of the French Revolution and erected in 1889, the centenary.

We made our way back to Basil and the rest of the day was spent lazily, which was the intention of these last two weeks.

Sarah has been to try out the swimming pool, which is apparently very pleasant, while I have babysat the dogs, who scurry under Basil to ensure they are the first to catch site of Sarah on her return.

I have also had a series of phone calls with my brother in Brussels, trying to sort out how he and his family can meet up with us on the weekend before we return to Britain. The current idea is to meet up in Luxembourg, which would add another country to our growing list on this trip, but the plan needs to be firmed up.

My birding lens has made an appearance late in the day as an unidentified bird continuously darted from branch to branch in the pine trees adjacent to Basil. I have got a decent shot but I cannot clearly identify it from my bird book. My Collins Bird Guide was state of the art when I got it 35 years ago, but the photographs are not good by modern standards, coming as they do from the age of film. I wouldn’t be happy if I had taken 90 percent of them with my current camera and lens! I will need to get myself a new bird book when I get home, to accompany me through retirement!

The bird in question. Not a little brown jobby so should have been easy to identify.