L is for Life in the car park

Tu me mets l’eau a la bouche — You are making my mouth water

Another day, another car park. This time we had our monthly rendezvous with a white van. Not just any white van, this one belongs to John the Butcher and we had come to collect our sausages. Having been a master butcher in the UK for 30 years, John moved to France, opened a shop and now supplies deprived Brits with their much-missed sausages — Cumberland, pork and leek, Lincoln, lamb and mint — you name it, he supplies it. You can also get other delicacies such as Cornish pasties, spare ribs, gammon steaks and pork crackling joints…

As a succession of Brits drew up to collect their goodies, many having driven quite a distance in the pouring rain to get there, we inevitably saw someone we knew. “Amazing what we’ll do for a sausage,” she said. Very true.

Driving there, I was reminded of what is a very French aspect of life (those of a sensitive disposition should stop reading now): gentlemen relieving themselves at the side of the road. Whatever the weather, they’re at it. They sometimes position themselves behind a car door, but more often than not perform in full view of anyone driving by. So I don’t know why I was surprised when, the other day, an old chap in a beret let flow by the bonnet of my car in the supermarket car park. I happened to be sitting in the car at the time. To be fair to the old boy, I doubt he saw me there, judging by the trouble he later had finding his car door and then the exit to the car park.