We put a down payment on click-clack flooring that won't be delivered for three weeks, then pushed on to Fontanes to collect Kim, Denis, and little Daisy and go to Montauban to the Troc, a national chain of antique-junk consignment stores. We're in the market for a couch, a couple armoires, who knows what else. I made some ignorant remark about how ugly Montauban is, so Kim took us for a stroll around the beautiful old part of town, far from the sprawling shopping malls.
Nobody else seemed to notice the amazing garden laid out in terraces above where we parked.
In addition to all the ordinary stuff you would find in any French brocante, but at much higher prices, Troc had a lot of furniture and related crud apparently made in Africa, including this small army of figurines.
Then it was back to Fontanes through the "fruit basket of France", the back roads lined with manicured groves of apples, plums, peaches. Rolling country, very long views, lots of the land under diverse and intensive cultivation, at rest now in mid-winter. Even the huge golden cows were lying down in pasture, Blondes d'Aquitaine, glowing in the dull late afternoon light.
