About once a month we go shopping in Charmes, mainly to get the cheap stuff.
Charmes is a fifteen-minutes drive from Bayon and both places stand in sharp contrast.
Whereas Bayon is a quiet countryside town surrounded with forests, rivers and lakes, Charmes is the perfect example of urban decay. To me, it is very much reminiscent of parts of North England. In fact, every month, it’s as if I were back in Stoke-on-Trent doing my shopping at Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s in Hanley: the landscape is exactly the same, so depressing. And when I’m waiting at the checkout in Charmes, I could almost be called “duck” by the natives who definitely have something to do with “Stokies”. I think it would be a good idea to have both cities twinned. In fact, just like in Stoke-on-Trent, there’s nothing charming in Charmes…