Markets

Split market, Croatia

 I’ve just finished my latest jigsaw. It is a Wasgij one, i.e. the picture on the box is not the one on the finished jigsaw but rather a clue to what is on it. Usually it’s a comic scene from which you have to imagine the scene see through the eyes of some character featured in the picture on the box. This one is different. This time you have a comic market scene set in the past – I can’t quite decide when, the 1950s perhaps – and the finished jigsaw is set in the same but more contemporary English market square.

It’s made me think about markets. On the box there’s a bull running amok, people & dogs scattering in all directions in panic. In the background there is an open-topped red double decker bus of a style that looks as though it has recently evolved from a tram. The only other vehicle is a push bike. Out of the window of the town hall the mayor looks on bemused. The women have wicker baskets on their arms – pre-plastic bag days these.  

The completed jigsaw had the same buildings in the background. The blue of a motorway sign has appeared along with cars. Now the bus is a more familiar style of single-decker red bus. The market no longer has livestock. Instead it is a man dressed up as cow & advertising a dairy, who is running amok after having a child hitting him with a plunger-ended arrow. The square has been taken over by the tables with parasols of a nearby café. The lone policeman has been joined by a policewoman, both dressed in protective vests & wearing short-sleeved shirts. The bicycle has become of a motor bike for pizza delivering. The French, too, have arrived. A man in black beret & Breton shirt sells garlic by the string. Paintings & hair tonic are on sale. A young lady pushes a toddler along in its push chair whilst talking on her mobile phone. The mayor is now a lady mayoress, only now she is escaping from the roof of the town hall by the Mayor 1 helicopter. A plane flies overhead.

I’ve always loved markets. It’s something to do with the colour & vitality of them. I particularly like those selling fresh food, especially fruit, flowers & vegetables. It is a source of great disappointment to me how poor our markets have become.

When we first moved to this area nearly 40 years ago, there was wonderful market in Lancaster. There were about 4 fish stalls, 4 meat stalls, a couple of veg stalls, a dairy produce stall, a rabbit stall. There were other non-food stalls too. The market was open 5 days a week. A couple of days of week there were also a few stalls lining the streets, again selling primarily fresh fruit & veg.

That market hall disappeared after a fire happened. A new one was built but it was never the same. By the end there was just one meat stall, one fish stall, one cheese stall, one veg stall & one health food stall. All the rest were records, pictures, curtains, leather goods, cheap clothes etc. It had ceased to be a place you even thought of for food. Even that market has closed now & stands empty. A few stalls still appear on the streets but there are few food ones, except when there is a farmers’ market.

Morecambe’s Festival market isn’t much better. The last time I looked there was one stall selling some very sad tired veg & one selling a few nondescript pieces of Lancashire cheese. Nothing to inspire you. Great place for curtains, cheap clothes & shoes, bedding, tools, second-hand books etc. but not food. We rarely bother going.

With this in mind, you can understand how we relish markets abroad. They’re clearly going strong still in Croatia. The food we had at the hotel was so nondescript & repetitive we had wondered if the quality of food produce was poor in the country. We were soon put right at the markets which abounded with beautiful produce. As in France some of the stalls were clearly local farmers bringing in whatever they had to sell that week, no matter how little. You could almost taste the juiciness of the cherries & strawberries just looking at them.  A cheery banter spread between the stalls. That’s what a market should be.

Trogir Croatia

Split Croatia

Nice France

Nice France

Venice Italy

Gouda Netherlands