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Monday 20 June 2011

sardines at the café

The most incredibly busy day yesterday - Sunday usually my day off.   Had to get up at 5:30 am to start getting ready for the annual vide grenier in my village.    


Taking out all the rubbish from my garage took quite a while and to my amazement the village was already crawling with people - parking their cars, vans and trucks and unloading boxes and baskets and sofas, and chairs.    Interestingly enough baskets, lamps, fire guards, wood chest of drawers and tables are not à la mode anymore - but DVD's, '60s furniture and objets, toys and childrens clothes sell well.

 The organizers were putting up the tent for the buvette and overhearing their conversation one asked the other for a "sardine".   Well at 7am in the morning I thought it a bit odd and well a new one on me eating sardines with café   - anyway at he end of the day we had (yes another)  bottle of sparkling local wine and again the subject of these sardines came up.   

Turns out that this is a folklorique way of saying tent picks - there are three terms.  
"Piquets" which are metal stalks with a crochet loop at the end for firm ground.
"Sardines" - flat metal bars for hard soil or ground
"Marquereaux" -  large sardines or very large flat metal bars for very hard soil


Sardine obviously comes from the way these little fish are packed together so tightly but marquereaux ? well I'm open to discussion.   Have a good week everyone.







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