(La boulangerie)

I slept really well last night after our long walk yesterday. Now we’re on the road again heading for the Voie Verte – the greenway that used to be a train line. It’s a path for walkers and cyclists, we found it last year. First though, we needed to stop off at the bakery, la boulangerie.

(Not Brennan’s but sure we’ll be grand…)

Our Brennan’s Wholemeal Chia, Pumpkin and Poppyseed bread has run out so from now on we will be eating French bread. I think we’ll manage. We spotted the bakery as we were leaving Dijon. It was open, not a given as today is Sunday and opening times are very restricted. Not this bakery, they open from early until late.

(Can you make out their opening times? 6.30am to 7.30pm every day, exceptions: closed all day Tuesday and closed thirty minutes early on Sunday)

We decided to have a coffee since we were here and that’s when I spotted the baker preparing his bread. He had a huge rectangular fabric mat, the size of a narrow single bed. It was laid out on top of a trolley and on top of the mat there was the uncooked dough. When we first walked in he was busy snipping the baguettes with a scissors. Then he rolled the trolley to one of eight ovens and raised the trolley bed (like you see paramedics do when they take a stretcher out of an ambulance?) making it level with one of the upper ovens. Then he opened the oven door and slid the fabric mat and the baguette dough into the oven. And then he went on to the next batch and I saw the way he transferred the soft baguette dough onto the fabric mat with a wooden paddle.

(Can you see the way the trolley might elevate to the height of the upper oven? And that he’s holding the wooden paddle? And that there are 8 ovens!)

I wanted to take a photo to show you but it seemed rude. I should ask, right? So I did, I went up to the lady on the counter and stumbled through the French for, can I take a picture? She understood and gave a wicked grin saying, you want a picture of the baker? Of course! The next customer joined in with something that made her laugh out loud. Probably rude…

I don’t care I got my picture. Mairead