Only in France!

Brico marche has become my favourite shop. It's a lot like B&Q only more interesting and on a different scale. Brico Depot is big and in the bigger towns but Brico marche is local and has some great deals, plus Netto is next door and sometimes it's cheaper than Lidl, in France and England!  Imagine my surprise, delight and maybe even horror when I saw the (little) big top of the circus camped on the lawn in front of these mini supermarkets. I was horrified by the pictures of the clowns, large and small (a child clown may be a more horrifying nightmare than a normal clown!) and delighted by the camels, a Freisian stallion and a small bull maybe a French Dexter type and probably not even male (I couldn't see evidence of gender!)

Imagine our shock then, when we saw lions, yes real, big lions in a cage outside our favourite shops! They were well fed and looked mostly content, but it was still a flimsy looking cage up close! After the third visit, we were quit blase and went up close to the cage for these photos. I think we're getting quite used to living here!

During one of our frequent visits to Brico marche, I noticed this lovely bookcase and realised that I could adapt it to fit Moomin's room. She didn't want a full sized wardrobe as she wanted most of her wall to be a floor to ceiling bookcase. The antique wardrobe that was in her room was huge and was dismantled to be used for something else. They aren't worth a great deal more than the value of timber.

We put it together and left out the middle shelf to give her hanging room. Then I bought some tongue and groove cladding and boxed it all in.

We had a good old laugh when we realised that I'd gone a bit wonky with fitting the back panels, but it didn't matter. This was a unit made by me, Moomin and the son (he sawed up the panels when my back gave out). This was all done while BF fitted the new shower in our little shower room. I think we made more noise and managed a bit more swearing than him, but got there in the end.

I also managed to make a banana and walnut loaf

and a leek and walnut pastry tart (like a quiche, but not).

We have a tonne of walnuts to finish sorting and I've started writing a tentative beginning to a book, of sorts. I don't know if it will be a recipe book, a book about living in France or just a book about nuts! I have plenty of walnut recipes to work through, that's for sure and plenty of nuts to back me up. Wait til I start on the chestnuts!!!