A very long, very windy road brought us to our destination on this intermittently sunny Labour Day Monday, Pierrefitte-es-Bois. A quiet, secluded little village, it’s so remote that even Wikipedia doesn’t have much to say about it, see for yourself:
It’s here that they hold the ‘goat fair’ something that we had been looking forward to. We were also slightly apprehensive, having spent the previous day at a geese fair that lacked any actual geese (bird flu had put a complete dampener on that). As you will see in the photographs, the village is picturesque and it’s a very popular day.
I found out, after taking this photograph, that the owner of the stall wouldn’t let my partner take a shot of one of his rounds of cheese. Ha! I got the entire stall without him noticing!
Seriously, how many mayors does one country need?
It was approaching dinner time when I saw this there was, sadly, a distinct lack of mashed potatoes in the vicinity.
Though they did appear to sell everything and anything at this fair, I believe these tractors were mainly for display purposes.
Look at the red and the green tractor, someone really loves those two, look at the shine on them, they’ve been well-looked after. I didn’t let my kids get anywhere near them.
Surprisingly these were the most popular venues at the fair: bars serving alcohol. There were three of them, all packed to the gills with drinkers ‘It’s not even 11 o’clock’ I said to my partner ‘What do you expect? This is France’ she countered.
Having recently tidied up my garden and evicted around a 100-or-so snails I now realise the folly of that move: I should have brought them here and cooked them, they were queuing up for them!
Yes, if trying to eat the rubbery little critters on their own is not appetising for you don’t worry – there are a variety of ways to eat these freaky-looking things.
A mobile Wacky Warehouse, the slogan should read: ‘Hell: Now with wheels’
This is basically a dressed up pound shop. Kids pay 5 Euros to hook loads of ducks, they can then choose from a wide variety of tat; plastic guns, plastic swords, plastic gun-swords, plastic slinkies. Each of these gems costs upwards of 35 Cents for the stallholder to purchase.
Note poor sad fishy in the middle, he knows his days are numbered.
The Gendarmes, eyeing up the shooting range, and contemplating showing the locals how good they are. I must admit, I felt slightly nervous taking this photograph; those guys are armed to the teeth.
YES! We actually have goats at the goat fair! Take that no-geese geese fair!
Yes, alright so there are only 12 of them, but IT STILL COUNTS!
More tractors, I believe you could actually buy these ones. Not in our price-range though, we were, after all, still getting our breath back from being quoted 60 Euros for one memory foam pillow at the memory foam stall (I told you they sold everything).
I love this steeple, in case you are wondering ‘Why’s he taken the same photo twice, but from slightly different angles?’.
‘Why are you taking a picture of the signs?’ my partner asked me as we headed back home. ‘It gives people a sense of location, and also adds a bit of local flavour to the photographs’ I replied, somewhat unconvinced myself.
I hope you enjoyed these photographs.
