French market at French Bay, Titirangi

We saw a flyer for the French market at Titirangi at the Eiffel cafe in Mt. Eden Rd. French Bay, one of the small bays on the Manukau Harbour below Titirangi seemed an unlikely place for a market but we decided to call in on the way to visit some friends.

It was almost mid-day when we arrived. A confident tricolour flying outside the yacht club reigned over the ducks bobbing about in the choppy bay, and the people making their way to the yacht club.

There were a number of food stalls... with long queues for the bread and pastry (mille feuilles and "cherie tarts"--not as many cherries as in their rivals at the Eiffel but cheaper) and for the "chicken basquaise" at an outside grill.

The Alliance Francaise were selling off some of their yellowing paperbacks, redolent of French curricula from the 60s... Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir. I got talked into buying a Giono novel after confessing I had never read anything of his.

The ice cream seller was fairly busy, in spite of the weather, scooping out authentic looking chocolate cones.

As we left, we say a tall French woman walking up one of the drives on the bay. Y asked, "Is it called French Bay because of all the French people living here?" Maybe once, but not in the 50s and sixties when the painter Colin McCahon was living up the hill a bit,

I'm guessing the market is every third Sunday.