The Cascais market

Every Wednesday and Saturday there's a traditional market held in the square in the Portuguese coastal town Cascais. Chickens cluck moodily from cages as people sweep by, laden down with produce fresh from the farms. Haggling is the name of the game here and the farmers are pretty forceful. One of them told me I looked ill (oh the joys of being Portuguese but looking like a pale English girl) and dumped an extra kilo of oranges into my bag to "make me feel better"! It was one of the first places I went with my dad when I arrived last week and it made me realise two things. The first is that I forget how all vegetables and fruit are standardised in size and shape in the UK - boxes upon boxes of odd and outsized produce are what you'll find in this market. The second was pricing. A bell pepper costs €0.05 here and 79p in Waitrose in London. Please could somebody explain to me when life in the UK got so expensive?! I've included a picture of our whole haul - which included a chicken, two bunches of calla lilies and numerous veggies and fruits - all of which cost a total €20. Sickeningly cheap and wonderfully tasty.