I have always hated to be routine and fall into a pattern but Sundays definitely have become both of those.

St. Aubin’s farmers market is Sunday morning and closes at 12:30 pm so I have to go earlier in the morning since I go to Church at 12:00 pm. I love the market as it is very lively and has such a selection of stands. As I have said before, there is cooked food, household goods, fruits and vegetables, pastries and music. There is a stand that sells shoes. I buy cheese, fruit, vegetables and olives there. The fruit is much cheaper at the farmers market so I try to buy enough for the week.

I stopped at a bakery on the way back from the farmers market and bought a Chocolatine (chocolate croissant in southern France) as I did not get to eat one on my birthday. It was a good choice as it was incredibly flakey and had two bars of chocolate.

Next on Sunday to do list is church. I go to the 12:00 English mass. One of the new things for me in this experience is that the hymns and other music is done by a QR code. You scan the code and then the website opens and you can choose the mass and see the hymns. I can understand this as the church is so large it would be hard to have hymnals for all the parishioners. Also, with this being France, having English versions of the hymnal does not make sense.

This week there were new pews in the church. The old ones were not particularly comfortable and seemed rather old. Not sure what prompted the new pews but they were much better. The amusing part of the new pews is that the kneelers are attached and need to be pulled down to use. The old ones had the kneelers fixed in the down and kneeling position. When we were waiting for the service to start, the cantor talked to two of the regular parishioners (and I think leaders) and explained that when you lowered the kneelers and were not careful, they would land on the floor with a loud noise. The two parishioners went around and lowered most of the kneelers. For those who were later to the service and opened the kneelers there were loud bangs. At the end of the service, the priest mentioned the kneelers and the noise. He did say that after we had lowered them a couple of times, we would get used to them and the bangs would not happen.

Walking home from St. Aubin’s and church, I saw an open air craft market set up. I do not know if it was new or whether I just had not seen it as it was not on my way back from church in the last apartment I lived in. These open air markets are really nice and have some interesting goods. This had a number ceramic stands with very nice bowls and cups. They also have some cheesy things.

I had lunch. One of my first thoughts as I looked at the plate, I thought it was much better than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I do not know what brought that to mind as it was one of my standard lunches but I like them. Maybe it was the glass of wine with lunch – I thought it was okay as it was Sunday!

The next standard activity was my longer run. I have not hit the “long” run yet since I have been here but am working up to it. I did a six mile run along a pathway next to the River. I ran the opposite direction that I used to when I ran the Canal du Midi. The path is paved for 2 miles and then switches to a dirt path. There is a large wall along the river for the 2 miles of paved path but after that the path runs right along the bank of the river. There were signs showing a circular route for bikes, walking and running showing the different routes. It looks like I can do a 10 mile run by using the path by the river and then the circular dirt path. I only ran 6 miles so did not to the whole route. I am glad I found this route as doing a 10 mile run from the apartment along the two canals would not be as pretty as this route. I will probably alternate the runs as I did love running on the canal.

The bicycle picture shows where two of the paths connect.

The final activity of the day was dinner. I cook at home on Sunday nights.

It was a good, fun and busy day!