Marché des Puces

Once a year, on the Monday of the Esgargot Festival, there is a Marché des Puces (Flea Market) on the streets of Digoin. The main streets are closed to traffic and give way to sellers from throughout the region and beyond. It is a blend of yard sale and antiques market, with treasures and junk all awaiting bargain hunters.

Peta and Bryan are in search of very specific items for Digoin. Light fixtures, cupboards, furnishings that might work with the farm/cottage décor of Bel Air. I have only one mission – to find a nice serving platter. This will be one of our contributions to the furnishings at Bel Air. Tim has to spend the day working on his students from Vermont College, so I am charged with the task of hunting for an appropriate platter – something that a Greek salad might be served on in a day or so.

Annie, Richard, Johanna and Matt are not as interested in des Puces, and instead head to the grocery for ingredients for our dinner. Between Richard and Tim there is a slight food competition emerging and Richard is definitely upping the ante this evening with the promise of a lamb tagine.

The stalls line the canal, as well as the streets of the town. There are boxes of old records, postcards, books and glasses. There are wonderful sideboards and corner tables topped in marble, and an odd cupboard of tiny drawers perfect for a workshop. I look at it longingly, thinking of how perfectly it would go in my studio, filled with pens, nibs and paints.

Bryan finds a pair of hip waders, almost in his size. “For cleaning up the pond”, he announces triumphantly. The vendor asks 2 euros for the pair, and not even Bryan can barter that price.

Platters, as it turns out, are not in abundant supply. There are fancy wall plates and a few sets of jugs and platters, but I have a hard time finding one that is both the right size and style. I finally find one, but at 12 euros (originally 15), it seems a bit dear. So we walk on, mulling it over, still looking. We see another of the right size, thinner and less substantial, plain white, but close. The owner of that stall is not around, and the friends who are stationed there cannot tell us the price, so we keep on walking.

Annie, Johanna, Richard and Matt come to meet us, stationing themselves with coffee at tables outside one of the cafes. I head back to buy the platter, now fully prepared to pay the 12 euros, sure that it has already sold. But I am in luck. The platter is mine, and for good measure, Peta and I go back to purchase the plain white one as well.

We drive back to Bel Air with a car full of platters, hip waders, light fixtures, even a bathroom sink, amidst the groceries for the tagine.

In the evening we are rewarded for our Marché des Puces labours with Richard’s Lamb and Apricot Tagine — one of the most succulent lamb tangines I have ever eaten.

Author: Amanda West Lewis

Amanda West Lewis combines careers as a writer, theatre creator, calligrapher, and teaching artist. She is the author of nine books for youth and young readers, including "Focus Click Wind," a novel about youth activism in 1968, and "These Are Not the Words," a semi-autobiographical novel about the jazz era and growing up in New York City. Her novels have been nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, the Silver Birch Award, the Red Cedar Award and the Violet Downey IODE Award. Her recent collection book "A Planet is a Poem" has received a EUREKA! 2024 Excellence in Children’s Non-Fiction Award, is a California Reading Association HONOR BOOK, a NCTE Notable Poetry Book and a Cybils Award nominee 2024. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In her theatre career, Amanda has acted, directed, produced, and written for theatre, as well as founded The Ottawa Children’s Theatre, a school dedicated to theatre education for young people. A freelance calligrapher for over 20 years, her calligraphic artwork has been exhibited in numerous shows and she has written books on calligraphy and the development of writing. Born in New York City, Amanda moved with her mother to Toronto, Canada as a teenager. She now lives with her husband, writer Tim Wynne-Jones, in the woods near Perth, Ontario, where they raised their three children. View all posts by Amanda West Lewis