Friday, September 25, 2009

Old-time Brittany

Christine lives at Gommenec'h. Yesterday morning, François drove me to a splendid little village, not far away from here, named St-Jacques. Alongside the church, in the middle of the village, there's a typically Breton stone calvary.

There's also an ancient holy well.

Following a local custom, François and I threw coins over our shoulders, into the well, while making wishes. Later, my son took me to a grocery shop, run by an old lady named Madeleine, in the nearby village of Le Faouët (not to be confused with a town of that name, elsewhere in Brittany).

We had a beer there, in a setting that looks as if it has emerged from the 19th century.

It's the kind of universal village store in which you can buy bread, fruit and vegetables, newspapers, cigarettes, etc.

In fact, it reminds me of country stores that still existed in Australia when I was a kid… with, of course, one big difference. In my native land, it would have been out of the question to sit down at a table and drink a beer.

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