Toussaint is the french for All Saints. The date is the first of November and it is a bank holiday.
Whereas in the UK we are obsessed with the previous night, Halloween, fortunately the hype and doorway robbery of trick or treat, give us some money or we'll flour and water your windows, has not reached Champniers in a big way. We did have two small girls who arrived at fish and chip night dressed as ghouls who were regally treated by other customers to sweets and a few cents but that was it, thankfully.
To the French Toussaint, which is a Catholic commemoration of all saints is amalgamated with the Festival of the Departed, originally celebrated on the 2nd November.
This is a time when people visit their departed family and leave candles and chrysanthemums on graves making the cemetries a mass of colour.
Stores are full of chrysanths for a couple of weeks beforehand and huge quantities are sold to be placed on 1st November.
A word of warning One of our clients thinking how nice the flowers were, bought one for a french couple who had invited him to dinner. He got the same reaction as if he had taken a bouquet made into the words MUM or NAN to an english lady
the moral of the story, take a bottle of wine, it's safer!
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