A Day in Saint Valerien

Around the town of Sens, in Roman times,  there used to be a wall.  Outside the wall there used to be, I guess, a ditch.  This site of this ditch is now an attractive boulevard of trees, a part of which is sometimes used for a flea market

with an interesting assortment of fittings from another life - when sound came out of a trumpet

and dolls resembled the children that played with them (rather than the adults they would too-soon become) .

A few steps south, and we came upon the centre of Sens with a flower market in front of the gothic cathedral 

and lemons (that I had always imagined that lemons grew on trees).

There was just time to glimpse the main street with its thirteenth century houses nearly deserted on a Sunday

and note that even here the recession has bitten - as it has bitten everywhere.

Later, we went for a walk near Saint Valerien with Hodmandod Major, Majorette and Esteme (the dog with amber eyes)

and noted the plentiful amounts of mistletoe nesting in trees

and the old washing house in a place that now seems too far away from houses

before taking a rest in Marcel and Colette's garden.