Ups and downs

I was expecting to give you a view of the market through torrential rain and storms today, but we were all relieved to be out in almost perfect sunshine, so I am showing my new lime and coconut fairy cakes instead!

Unusually for me I arrived early at the market and so was ready to set up before my friendly veg man had turned up. Not wanting to block his parking space, I piled up all my stuff; table, parasol, cool box etc, and waited for him to arrive, fending off potential usurpers of his pitch and eventually apologising to his habitual early-bird clients for his late arrival, blaming it on possible flooding from the torrential rain storms of the previous night. Having given up on his arrival I set up my stall, and went to join the other traders for our early morning coffee and croissant in the cafe, that is where I learned the real reason for the friendly veg man's no-show. It seems that my friendly veg man has been a little more than 'friendly' with a certain lady for some time and that the night before his wife had confronted him about his mistress. After the inevitable row, he left to spend the night with his mistress and so of course there was no-one to get up at 5am to pick and prepare the vegetables for the market! I don't know what made me think that life in the country was all simplicity and innocence, It seems more complicated than 'desperate housewives' at times! Of course as you can imagine there were plenty of barbed comments relating to the relative sizes of cucumbers and the voracity of the live lobsters on the fish stall today!

Because of the uncertain weather we were quiet on the market today which left us all feeling a little strange, what with the absence of our friendly veg man, the wine and foie gras couple having decided that business isn't good enough to spend the time traveling to our market, and the sausage seller still on a three week spell on the Paris market circuit, where they make more money than in three months here; our little family felt quite diminished. The tourist season hasn't yet started properly and our little spa town has little to offer out of season visitors, so customers are hard to come by at the moment, hence my delight at being approached by the manager of the town's most chic hotel. She passed by a few weeks ago and was tempted by my lavender cakes. Having tried them, she came back for more and asked if I would be interested in supplying her hotel and it's associated health spa with cakes for their bar and cafe, of course I jumped at the chance and was even more pleased to be told that the hotel would be starting a series of early evening music and 'aperitif' evenings, and would like to add English tea and cakes to their repertoire. It seems that my infiltration of French tastes has started at last. Now, can I sell them some pretty pink cupcake coat hooks too do you think?

New additions

In the world of commerce they say that one must constantly update and innovate. I have grasped the bull by the horns and invested in some supplementary products for my 'typically English' look on my market stall. This week I launched the 'design and decoration' department in my very small way! When the box arrived with my 'nouveautes' I was jumping up and down with excitement at my treasures; patchwork union jack bunting, embroidered pink chiffon fairycake coat hooks, ceramic sugar pots in the shape of cupcakes, all pretty and very english! But, how to display them? My usual cake table lies flat and would not show off my objects to advantage , so I considered clamping display stands to the table and even hand painting boxes to match my pastel coloured union jack table! This all seemed very complicated and time was running out when my good friends the 'optimistic baker' and his wife arrived to ask if I would be interested in a display table that folds flat, but opens as a stepped display unit - serendipity is really one of my favorite words!

So I was all set this week for my new look stall. I call my friend the 'optimistic baker' because he has been in so many sticky situations and always comes out smiling and convinced that he will one day conquer the world. My very first day on the market was a spring day, and I had my little picnic table, some cakes and very little else, of course it started to rain and I was ready to pack up and go home when the 'optimistic baker' offered to shelter me and my cakes under his parasol, so began a friendship that has really helped me and my business to get going. The 'optimistic baker' is a fantastic market salesman with the gift of the gab and a smile for even the most miserable customers. He gained kudos by having the 'petite anglaise' on his stall and I gained sales by being allied with the best selling baker on the market. The 'optimistic baker' and his wife worked seven days a week, running a village bakery and also selling on five different markets during the week, living on about three hours sleep a day and adrenalin, the pair were a formidable force, undercutting the prices of other bakeries, and still managing to produce really great bread. The drawback ( or maybe not) of being with the 'optimistic baker' was that I became privy to all the personal history of their relationship and business. One of the first thing he told me, almost with a sort of perverse pride, was that his wife had cheated on him and that he was sexually very inexperienced. I was a little thrown by this, and wondered if it was some kind of chat-up line, but no, it seems that he told everyone the story, and his wife too was very open about the affair. The more disturbing moment came when he started telling me about their 'swinging' evenings and wondered if my husband and I might be interested! Wife swapping not being quite my style I declined, but the flood gates were opened and stories of visits to clubs and strange dinner parties began to come out. It seems that this was the 'optimistic baker' s way of accepting infidelity in his marriage without actually having to cuckold his wife who he loves dearly, I'm not sure that I understand the attraction of a swingers club, but it is certainly a way of brightening up a rainy morning on the market to hear of low lit corners with copulating strangers draped over the furniture! More on life and love on the market to come, in the meantime I leave you with a typical spring sunshine picture - blue skies and mock orange blossom, a perfect combination.