Buddhism and boot sales

Vide grenier, in this case - literally, empty your attic. I've blogged about these events many times as they figure quite high on our list of activities. Not quite so much lately as I'm in a bit of a purge phase feeling a move may be on the horizon . . .
Anyway, we did go to one this morning, and quite exceptional it was in its leafy, sun-dappled autumn way - held on a piece of ground next to the rugby stadium which has thoughtfully placed ancient plane trees for shade.
Sometimes on approaching a Vide Grenier I have an overriding sense that it will be a waste of time - an ocean of plastic and baby garments; this one had an air of possibility. Lots of great clothes, which we didn't have time to rummage through as Mark had a rehearsal in the afternoon, but within five minutes we had deniched (uncovered) several bargains.
Little worn Italian leather boots for two euros, a selection of videos including three volumes of Betty Boop; Casablanca, Grease and a bio-pic by Clint Eastwood and an excellent Paul Auster novel all for ten euros, and a beautiful unused Japanese metal teapot with stand for three euros.



Such joy.

So, the Buddhism bit . . . or Stoic, or anything else that encourages us to live in the moment. I equate the Vide Grenier experience as being similar to walking - except walking is healthier and generally requires no money being spent unless one happens upon a tea shop (unlikely in France) - in that one enters a small space of time where general worries and planning disappears as one peruses other humans' weird and wonderful/not wonderful collections of stuff. Of course there are moments (for me anyway) of: Holy shit, look at all this stuff - landfill, panic, there is no hope, etc, but on the whole it's a gentle, harmless and lazy Sunday morning activity which swages the desire to consume and recycles otherwise neglected things which would probably have headed to the bin.



re-homed teapot with its new companions.

Two ferrets and a Soda Stream

Nope - not a new Curtis film, the result of going early to a Vide Grenier (car-boot/yard-sale) this morning - not that perhaps anyone else would have bought ancient taxidermy specimens. (Except Andy, if you read this). Five euros a piece - s'got be a bargain! The soda stream has yet to be tried but I can't see there's much to go wrong there.

                                 

So, what else has this season's scavenging unearthed? It's been a good few Sundays - last week procuring several shirts for Mark at a euro each. Actually, this is odd - how we always seem to find him shirts as he's not exactly a standard Southern France man shape, more Nordic, Viking, even.
Last weekend also resulted in clothes for me, a huge salad platter, an exceptionally nice etching for 5 euros, teapots to replace broken ones, a 1970s wall-hanging to funk-up Mark's music room and various other (mostly) useful items. Why anyone bothers to shop for new stuff is a mystery to me - OK I draw the line at certain things like . . . underwear, and . . . that's about it. Maybe not a second-hand pressure cooker - bit scary.
 A bit scary, is also how much stuff we, the human race - or at least the members of it who have manufactured all these non-vital things - have managed to accumulate over a relatively short period of time. This was just one small amassing of a few folk's spare room rubbish, in one small French village. Imagine all the millions of boot sales and variants of, all over the world. Eek. We are indeed heading towards a possibly not too distant new Earth-Epoch - Plasticusgallusossum era, perhaps. A plastic and chicken bone sedimentary layer. The end of the consumers.
Oo, dear, this is getting a tad dark.
Time for a cup of tea in one of our new 1970s brown teapots.



                 Suitably apocalyptic and lovely etching from a couple of Sundays back.

Story starters from junk hauls

Here's a good one: a small 1920s ceramic, sea-bathing-costumed lady, forever captured in an oval glass enclosure on a porcelain stand. The name of the seaside resort she had been a souvenir from had almost disappeared, just an F left, and, as the old man selling her had remarked - all the surrounding fluid long gone, just a scattering of dusty sand and shell left.
I bought her at this morning's 'Vide grenier' (car boot sale) trawl, for a euro - the price of a baguette.

                             

one of many reasons to like summer

Apricots! And Vide Greniers (car boot sales)
The apricot: probably the king of fruit, as one of Iris Murdoch's characters noted in The sea, the sea (incredible book).
Cooked with nothing other than a dribble of Banyuls (local version of sherry) they turn from, nice but not extraordinary fruit to absolute irresistible fruit, especially when served with cream . . .



Bowl from last Vide Grenier and a marvellous old battered spoon from a car boot in Birmingham many, many years ago.

Car Boot Booty

Or in this case - Vide Grenier Booty, (Vide Grenier = UK's car boot sale or USA's garage sale) and this one, last Sunday, was the first haul of the year.
We are total Vide Grenier (empty-out-attic) addicts. The first of the season and it was a good start.

For twenty euros:
A large, ancient but pretty bedcover, daft red shoes (rather a good make), two antique lace curtains, a retro board game for Ezra to study the elements of (into making his own board games), the oldest recording of the Carnaval de Limoux, a text book on Easter Island, a rather beautiful ash tray for our 'Workaway' guest, four porcelain ramekins, a bundle of old wooden and wire plant ties, a white mohair jumper and a wooden bench.
This was a particularly good example of how V.G's should be: friendly and no stupid prices - the concept being that you offload a pile of stuff you don't want, earn a bit of cash, have a natter with your fellow stall-holders, drink coffee provided by the village holding the event, and try not to come away with more than you had taken there in the morning.

Bucolic car boot sale

Or as we say here: Vide Grenier - emptying one's attic.
Compared to the boot sales I remember from the UK days, most V.Gs are set in small villages, usually on sunny days, where you can wander, perusing the usual glut of hastily bought and subsequently dumped Get Fit equipment, clothes, shoes, fois gras funnels, records, video cassettes that nobody wants, terrible paintings, plants, kittens, jam, fondu sets, etc, etc.
The last V.G I went to before departing back to the UK for a few days (where I didn't go to a car boot sale - not for the want of trying) was in the grounds of a local church edifice: the Basilique Notre Dame de Marceille    
I paused before walking across the grass, stunned at the tranquility of the sight before me; each stall of utter crap transformed momentarily in the morning sun to a lost scene of pastoral beauty as happy peasants traded their goods for a few rustic coins, and the purchasers wandered contentedly back to their donkeys, (large 4x4s).

Into the vide.

I (if I ever had the patience, and indeed the intelligence and power to spell correctly) would do a PhD thesis on the comparisons of vide grenier and boot sales. It's a fascinating thing to see the detritus of human everyday life on display, at least in the western world. I don't suppose there would be a great deal of excess at an Inuit equivalent. Damask canoe cover, unused set of Ikea BBQ fish forks, velour husky bed with matching lead . . ?
At boot sales —depressing acres of drizzle-infested mud fields filled with persons keening for electrical equipment, one could generally count on seeing these items: heated rollers, stationary bikes, and other 'sport' equipment bought in a panic-moment after Christmas excess; yogurt makers, twenty three tons of plastic toy landfill, and at least fourteen copies of top gun.
Observations on the vide grenier (attic clearance).
Generally they take place in non soggy fields with sun (a better start). Similarities: the discarded health equipment, slightly less toy landfill, A LOT of fondu sets, which we have managed to avoid so far, even though their attractive 70's colours call me . . . and in recent years, a rash of those stupid sets of glasses with stems but no bottoms that have to sit in a stand — there is no hope for mankind.
Away from my serious studies . . . the simple pleasure of wandering around in a slouchy fashion on a Sunday morning with a pocket of change, joy!
En famile this Sunday we visited a pretty village near Limoux and took in their fairly typical V.G complete with sun, acid coffee and bad parking.
Came away with treasures: the glasses above illustrated — marvelous 1970's smoked glass, a snip at two euros, and we were probably the only people in the whole of the Aude valley who would wish to house them; a rusty cow bell, records including an Arminian church service and a production by the Bulgarian tourist association, and . . . a bike! My old parchemin one, now classed as a death machine as it no longer features brakes has become an installation in the garden and I am now the proud owner of a happy 80's style shell suit-coloured two wheeler with brakes and gears.