Ponies, peacocks and piglets

Duckling huddling in a crate

Bank holiday Monday and off we went to Louhans. It is been a while since we’ve been there for the market selling small animals and we couldn’t have chosen a better day if we had planned it.

It was beautiful and sunny, the first nice day in a while and the place was heaving. Thousands had come for what turned out to be one of the really big markets of the year.

Point of lay chickens, just rearing to go

Every Monday there is a market in the town, but late spring is the time to get your livestock for the coming year and so people had come from far and wide to buy their chickens and ducks for the season. There were a lot of chirping and quacking boxes that passed us as we entered the market area.

Need a cockerel to wake you up in the morning?

The fun fair was in town as well and the atmosphere was electric. We had to squeeze through the crowds to get past a rather terrifying, gravity defying, twirling ride, that was eliciting screams from the teenagers brave enough to get on it and I was worried I might lose Cees – in the crowd not on to the ride you must understand. We decided our meeting point would be by the lamas if we got separated, but fortunately we made it round the market without losing sight of each other.

What a beautiful chappy

The selection of animals was amazing as always, you can buy anything from day old chicks up to laying birds, cockerels, guineafowl, peacocks, ducks, quail and geese and then there were the rabbits, sheep, piglets, lamas and ponies - we were spoilt for choice.

I was very tempted by a peacock, who was a snip at 150 Euros (!) but Cees wasn’t so keen so we left empty handed.

Maybe one day - for now we’ll stick to just having a cat.