Horrible handbags at the ready

There is a welcome breeze in the French air today, after more than a week of sweltering temperatures. It's warm but not as crazily hot as the last two weeks.

A day without sweating is a day to be savoured, as are the early types of fruit from the purple-leafed plum trees encircling the village. In the garden, there is a Mirabelle and the fruits are delicious lightly stewed and served with ice cream.

In the markets, the fruit and vegetables are equally fresh. It’s a joy to wander around, soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of the rural French way of life.

In the supermarkets E Leclerc and Carrefour, the fruit and veg sections groan under the array of melons, lettuce by the yard and apricots, lots of lovely apricots, and nectarines.

The fish counters are works of art and the cheese section has me salivating at the choice laid out before us. Prices are not cheap – this is not Spain – but the quality and freshness is most excellent.

There is a promotion on in Leclerc at the moment for Tupperware. Collect enough stamps and you can purchase an abundance of items for which plastic was made for.

Remembering the parents of friends' Tupperware parties of my childhood, the prospect of getting my mains on one these containers begins to excite me until I remember we’re in the age in which the love of plastic is akin to devil worship.

At the till, our trolley groaning with products, we are offered stamps for the latest promotion. Hey, Tupperware, lead us not into temptation.

But then I don’t have to resist it, as the cashier tells me the Tupperware promotion is over and gives me a brochure detailing the latest offer.

I leaf through to see UP TO SIXTY FIVE PERCENT OFF handbags and purses, apparently designed by sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner. (I have recently learned these two young women are famous for being famous.)

Their faces peer out at me from the pages, like two vacant, vapid sex dolls, with lips parted and pouting a la mode, and eyes that wish they were somewhere else . They stand together, in an incestuous, slightly girl-on-girl pose, the brunette holding the blonde one’s jeans together and the blonde one's hand on her sister’s tummy.

The blonde one looks very uncomfortable, as if she is about to break wind and is worried the button of her jeans is going to blow off in the process. The brunette appears to be saying through gritted pout: 'Just wait for the photo to be taken and then you can go to the toilet.'

I have no interest in celebrity culture and only know the two of them are Kardashian relatives after watching the television series about OJ Simpson in which Friends star David Schwimmer played the lawyer with the Mallen streak.

I looked up his character on the internet (I’m a Google and Wikipedia junkie in my search for useless bits of information, which will never be of any value apart for winning the trivia category in the village quiz), and discovered the Kardashian and Jenner cult of which, up until that point, I had not been aware. 

I don’t get out much. Tabloids pass me by, along with glossy magazines. The things inside them are mostly hateful, pointless or made up.

So, anyway, I leaf through this brochure with the sex dolls - sorry, the Jenner sisters - to find the most hideous merchandise I have ever seen with their names plastered all over them. Why would anyone collect vouchers for this crap, let alone pay full price for it?

When did the public get sucked into all of this rubbish? And when did the sex pout become fashionable? And why? I swear in thirty years' time, kids will be looking back at their parents and grandparents' photos and laughing like drains.

So I politely decline the stamps we are about to pick up with our shopping and resolve to make a point of shopping in the street market next time we need anything.

Handbags at dawn, anyone?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x