A church house gin house

Persistent rain has set in and it doesn't make me feel particularly inclined to venture outside into the big old world. Nevertheless, I thought it would be pleasant to take a stroll around the Saturday morning market. So I did.

There's a very happy atmosphere around the market stalls with people greeting each other and gossiping and stallholders enthusiastically talking to customers as they ply their wares. In most cases you can tell that these people have grown or produced the items they are selling themselves, and they are proud of them too. The stalls present an overwhelming smorgasbord of gastronomic delights. The dazzlingly colourful arrays of locally produced fruit and vegetables - including varieties I have never seen before - are a million miles from the sterile displays in Waitrose and Sainsbury's. The produce looks and smells real. For example, the apples are pock-marked and come in all shapes and sizes, and the root vegetables are covered in real mud, and you sense they were probably yanked from the ground only hours earlier. Locally produced honey in jars of varying sizes, chickens with feet and head intact, skinned rabbits, pigeons, walnuts, wines, cakes bulging with fruit, swollen duck livers, deadly-looking mushrooms, piles of cheeses and fragrant strawberries. I wanted to take some photographs but felt strangely intrusive - this was a real market with real people working and buying - and I did not want to reveal myself as a snap-happy tourist.

It was raining quite heavily so I came back to the house, put a pot of coffee on and got on with my writing task.

Later in the evening I went round to L'Enfance de Lard as I had a booking for washing-up duties, the restaurant being full. Fortified with G&T's I set about my work, the smell of fois gras and goosefat filling the small kitchen. Time passed quickly - washing up to a soundtrack of Tina Turner's 'Nutbush City Limits' never seems like such a chore.

A glass of champagne to round off the evening and home soon after midnight.