Cheers - it's la foire aux vins.

Each year, around the middle of the summer holidays, supermarkets will remind parents that la rentrée (back to school) is looming.  A huge aisle will greet them as they walk through the doors, shelves groaning under the weight of every conceivable school supply know to man.  Frazzled parents then have the unenviable task of buying all the items on the LONG list of supplies their children will have shoved under their noses at the end of the last term.  

These lists are very specific lists and believe you me, it is no easy task.  You can read more about it on this blog post but in summary let me tell you that it took several years for me to really understand how many different exercise books there are ... umpteen sizes all with different numbers of pages, different size of squares inside (almost none have lines), spiral bound or not ... Ahhhhhhh!!  And for goodness sake which stencil am I supposed to get when there are so many to choose from????

But all is not lost.  Once the children go back the supermarkets realise how stressful the whole process of buying supplies was and they quickly transform the aisle into this:

Yes, it's the much more eagerly anticipated Foire aux vins!!!

Merci les supermarchés - cheers and à votre santé!!