Up early and excited we bundle into El Prado’s 4WD for the short drive from Clunes to Talbot. It turns out to be the 12^th anniversary of the Talbot Farmer’s Market and it is a beaut.  It is held on the 3^rd Sunday of every month and has grown tremendously since we were last here.

Yum Cha; magnificent pork buns, dim sims and spring rolls. Fresh vegetables; Black Russians, ears of corn and locally grown and freshly dug potatoes, still muddied. Rabbits and budgies. Chooks and piglets and Indian Runner ducks. Handcrafts and neck warmers. There’s even a lady who paints shovels, then builds mosaics on them using broken teacups. If you’ve never seen a shovel with a cheery face then this is the place to come. Half a dozen of the town’s streets are closed for this wonderfully eclectic market.

There are weatherboard cottages with abundant old gardens. Quinces, yellow and bulbous hang from trees. The footpaths have recently been renewed and bluestone gutters freshly reset. The town looks inviting and nothing like the almost derelict place it had once become. We shop to the sound of a fiddle and an accordion and Irish jigs. There’s even a budgerigar circus but how can I describe a budgerigar riding a toy train? Saddle back pigs look great on the menu board and smell wondrous cooking over charcoal beside the lamb souvlakis.

We stop for a sit and a coffee at London House on Scandinavian Crescent. The verandah seating overlooks the community garden. Beds of fragrant rosemary, strawberries trailing, espaliered apples and pears intertwined and a dove coat with birds in residence. What a colourful feast this market is.

Talbot Farmers Market

Talbot Farmers Market

Talbot Farmers Market

Talbot

Talbot

An avalanche of Romas