Winter in Cahors

Just opened the house up for the New Year. It has been freezing on and off for the last month, but no pipes have burst and all seems to be well.

Didn't feel up to walking to the market yet, but visited the corner shop for iron rations - eggs, cheese, butter, fruit and vegetables. Bread from the bakery on the way home.

Milk is unfortunately of the everlasting kind: you can only get fresh milk at the larger supermarkets, oddly enough. The French hardly use milk except in cooking and (warm) in their breakfast coffee. The politically correct local bakery doesn't make the crusty white-bread baguettes that foreigners associate with France. Their white bread is grey (sourdough); you can buy wholemeal baguettes too. For old-style baguettes, visit the supermarket or the chain-store bakery la Panetière (derided by the locals as sellers of factory bread).

So peaceful here.