Avoiding supermarkets

The pledge to avoid supermarkets is a good one. I would like to add online shops and ticketing too.

I had planned to buy a season ticket for the local football team to give me something to do most Saturday evenings. The team – SM Caen – have spent a year back in the top flight and play good football, although their young starlet Yoan Gouffran has just been sold to Bordeaux.

I could have tried my luck buying a ticket online, but instead I got a bus to the stadium and had my longest conversation yet in French. Sadly, all the season tickets where I wanted to be were sold out – but there are plenty of tickets sold the Monday before each match, so I will do that. Perhaps it is better, so I can try out different sections of the stadium and also take people along with me.

We had also planned to buy ourselves some Calvados – the local apple brandy – and buy some good wine to drink. We could have done both in supermarkets, but we didn’t. At the local Calvados shop the propriétaire explained (in French) all about the different types of the drink, which we got to taste in quite generous quantities.

Of course we bought a bottle. We chose an ‘old’ Calvados, Dupont ‘Hors d’Age’, which is perfect for a digestive after a meal, a little luxury I’ve always found useful for my Crohn’s (no, really…).

Following our Calvados tasting, we popped into a small independent wine merchant quite near our home. Again, the caviste was most helpful and gave up talking in English as soon as he realised that we could understand his French. We were steered away from the €70 bottles and recommended a stunning biodynamic Bordeaux for €6.70.

When the propriétaire found out that we were in town for a year he invited us to his regular Saturday wine tasting sessions which are free and last all day apparently. I suspect we will be there regularly and probably come home with bottle of wine or two. I can then have a little sleep and head off to the football – not a bad plan for a Saturday.