Happy first day of spring for today, 20 March. It’s arrived on the tail of fierce winds and with plenty of rain in my part of France.Tomorrow is National Bread Day in the US but in France, as Bread Man who delivers pastries and loaves of all sorts to our village each week says, every day is Bread Day!
This week he has been telling everyone of his plans for Easter cakes, little nids de pacques (Easter nest cakes) and other tempting treats. The bread has been delivered late every day as he takes orders from customers unable to resist his delicious descriptions. We don’t mind though, we’re all grateful he arrives eventually and never lets us down.
In my little street which has just a few houses, Bread Man mostly drops bread into bags hung from gate posts or windows, as people are at work. As I work from home, in my little pigsty office, I always collect the bread from him at the gate and attempt to teach him English so he can help his daughter with her homework.
“What do you call this in English” he asked as he handed over my baguette. Hmmm we’ve been here before with croissant.
“We call it a baguette” I said. He raised an eyebrow at me as if I were pulling his leg. “Or we say French stick. Or French bread. Sometimes we slice it open, butter it, put French fries in it and call it a chip butty.”
“Cheep buddy?”
I do try to correct his pronunciation but with the wild wind blowing and the rain pouring, I let that one go in the fairly safe assumption that the possibility of him asking for a “cheep buddy” any time soon were slim to zero…
Wishing you and yours a bon weekend from a soggy little village where it really is Bread Day every day.
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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream – ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online, and My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life
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Weekly virtual Visit to France: Chateau de Chenonceau
Dream tour: Unique visit to the real south of France
The biggest Cathedral in France – Amiens
How to make the poshest chocolate macarons ever – recipe by the Picasso of Pastry – Pierre Hermé of Paris
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