Hi Val
Don't know if this will work but found this on The Guardian web site.Anne Penketh in Paris
The Guardian, Monday 29 December 2014 18.29 GMT
The pearls were in osyters from Arcachon Bay, south-west France, and were only likely to 'have a sentimental value, not a commercial' one. Photograph: John Carey/Getty Images Few French people downing their festive serving of oysters would expect to find a pearl inside the shell. But one market stallholder was confronted with not one but two.
“Finding two at once is extremely rare,” said oyster farmer Malika Molen who sold the molluscs at Saint-Jory market near Toulouse a couple of Sundays ago. “He’s one of my regular customers. He always buys two dozen – one to eat while standing at his couscous stall, and the other to take home.”
The wild pearls were in two oysters from Arcachon Bay, south-west France, which the stallholder took home. “The next Sunday he brought them back to show me,” said Molen, from La Teste-de-Buch on south shore of the bay.
In fresh water, pearls can take between 12 months and six years to form, while the formation of saltwater pearls takes much longer. Molen’s oysters mature in seawater in the bay.
Molen charges €7.50 (£5.80) a dozen at the market where she has had a stall for 32 years. So could the lucky customer strike it rich? Depending on their size, quality and lustre, wild pearls can be valuable.
But the ones found in the Arcachon Bay oysters were only likely to “have a sentimental value, not a commercial” one because they tended to only be the size of a large pinhead, said Molen. “But still, it’s a nice Christmas present. It’s the pleasure of the discovery.”
It was not unusual to come across them, she added. “My children found one, this year seems to be quite propitious.”
lorraine
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