Dijon mustard and chocolate

Whilst it is heaven to holiday in a country with no bossy notices everywhere it is also a bit annoying not knowing when the rubbish is emptied and where we should put our bin.  Mr Smith opens the neighbours' bin occasionally to see of it's been emptied.  They must think we are a couple of starving tramps looking for some scraps for dinner.  The sole source of information is the visitors' book and we decipher even the most obscure handwriting to find out where things are and that there didn't used to be a loo seat - there is now.

I was right about the festival only it wasn't beetroot; it was blackcurrants.  I am dead cheesed off to find we missed last week's patisserie festival in the next door village.  There has been a sad lack of little cakes so far on my holiday as the patisseries seem to be closed for their hols- exhausted after their festival(?)  We will try Chagny today where we saw some eye wateringly beautiful little must haves on our last trip there.

In Dijon market we procured a rabbit and a tablecloth.  We went to a chocolatier and spent ages selecting one of those and one of those and one that looks like a little shell etc.  Unfortuntely when we got home and ate them we found them woefully disappointing - a bit stale tasting and nothing like we had imagined. However, there was a fabulous mustard shop where they pump the amount you require into a pot of your choosing.  They actually sell exactly the same mustard in all the supermarkets at half the price! Dijon is big on owls - I had tea in owl street from a cup with an owl on it.  So now I can add the french for owl (chouette) to my list of useless vocabulary but still not know the words for seive or colander which are notably absent in our gite.  We improvise.  I used a vegetable basket but most of the pasta fell through it into the sink. Mr Smith can cook our rabbit stew tonight when he will discover there is no oven.

Dijon mustards