Montsoreau market this morning in the rain. My students asked me if we were going to cancel. “Cancel?” I don’t even carry an umbrella. I think I was a farmer in my past life, or the principal in the “before” ad for Noah’s Wife Wear. I gave them an extra 15 minutes with their coffee, and then we made our way over the single lane bridge to the village. We found every vegetable ever invented for Fall in the French countryside—-cauliflower, parsnips, as many onions as you can think of, pumpkins in the shape of fat raindrops, tomatoes of every shape, and horseradish root.
I will wait til we get to know each other before I buy the horseradish; it always makes me cry. Which of course happened anyway when I saw the pink mushrooms. I was unprepared for them. It was windy and the rain was coming down, and there they were under a little umbrella shelter, just as pink and ruffled as they could be. I told the vendor she was beautiful. She was.