Last week’s market: Guingamp

We did our usual visit to the Guingamp Market last Wednesday. The sun was shining and it was quite warm by the time we left. There were no major incident apart the lady replacing the usual market manager. She pretended we weren’t supposed to be there. But I was quite convinced of the contrary and when I mentioned the freedom of the press, she suddenly walked away to do her business.

Later, I overheard a gentlemen speaking Breton next to me. When he had finished his conversation, we started chatting. He was friendly and quit knowledgeable. He seemed to have a lot of respect for the Welsh missionaries who came to Brittany in the 19th century and translated the Bible into Breton. It turned out he seems to be quite a militant for the Breton language and culture. He used to paint over signs back in the days when everything was monolingual. He also did it in Wales once (and if I understood well, he got arrested for that). When I told him my wife was Welsh and I was learning Breton, he seemed even happier to speak. One interesting fact is that he knew the former Pastor of the Guingamp church who used to be involved in the Breton Cultural centre for years.

Apart from this conversation it was fairly quiet. We packed up at the usual time and went back home for lunch.