Rosnay fair

Well, today dawned cloudy and damp, which after weeks of dry weather was a welcome sight for the grass which was just beginning to suffer in our field at the back of the house. It was probably an unwelcome sight for the organisers of the annual fair at Rosnay, a small village in the Brenne regional park.

The fair has taken place there since medieval times, and last year we discovered that 20,000 people had attended! This needed to be experienced for ourselves, so we duly took ourselves off this morning.

We were charged 2 euros to park the car (unheard of in France, but if the money goes to the commune then that's fair enough). The fair was like a big French market on steroids! There were all manner of stalls selling everything from mops and electric cigarettes(?) to CDs and shoes, together with the usual buvette stalls and andouillette with chips etc. Trouble was, it was raining a bit and the umbrellas made for a dangerous walk through the aisles of the market. We gave it a good shot, and were rewarded with sight of the horse-trading part of the market. There were some black Berrichon donkeys and all sizes of ponies and horses. We saw some magnificent Charolais bulls standing very quietly (at least I think they were Charolais). I would have taken some photos, but found the batteries in the camera to be flat. Typical!
However, you can get the general idea from some pictures I found trawling the internet:

 

 

 

 

It was certainly worth a visit - hmmm, I wonder whether John would let me buy a donkey for our field (probably not!)