Heavy Bags, Heavier Heart

Not a great shot, but it marks the day.  We saw it coming as more and more stalls in our local food market have been empty of late,  but it was there in black and white this morning: that it will be closed permanently from 21st January.  The atmosphere felt different with the bad news notices hanging up from every stand, all the customers asking what was going to happen and no-one really knew.  All they knew was that the space had been bought by a multinational company and there were rumours.  One is that it will become another big supermarket.  The older stallholders who are near retiring age are going to stop working.  The younger ones have either already found themselves a space in  another market or are looking for a place nearby.  For those interested, like myself, we had to leave our names in books put out by individual stalls if we wanted to be kept informed of their whereabouts.  This is the stall where we buy our yoghurts, ham, cheese and sometimes spicy chorizo.  I went to say cheerio and to give our best wishes to the older lady who sells olives as she'll be retiring and I'm not sure if I'll be back before next Saturday.  I hadn't intended to buy prawns today, but wanted to give a last bit of custom to the fish stand we use.  We're well stocked up for the week now as I also bought chicken and bones to make soup.  I left our fruit and veg stall laden too.  With heavy bags and a heavier heart I walked out the door.  We've lived in this barrio 19 years and this is where we've always bought our fresh produce, 3 mins from our front door.  I'm sure we'll find a few excuses to pop in during the week.