Memories: The vide grenier

[anotherbanana]

Vide grenier

Lunchtime, and we have survived, to chicken and tomatoes and cucumber, from a plastic bag, whilst our neighbours have freezer boxes full of delights prepared by fairer hands than mine, and crockery and cutlery. By now the sun is high and hot, round 35° and rising, but we few, we lucky few, we band of latecomers so stuck away down the end, so out of sight that no customer will come, but they do, oh yes they do because we have what the others do not - shade, shade, shade, from rows of wild oaks and cliffs. And we are round the corner too by the river bank so that we do not get the stench from the ever so offensive sewage works behind the hedge just round the other side.

Between, on the left, a crocked lorry driver who collects coins as a hobby and is selling off a few from his collection, with BD and magazines, with his son who fixes and flogs used computers, who offer us beer and some of their space for the trailer, and, on the right, a surly family with a noxious chuwawa (sic: it tries to chew anyone who passes!) who are flogging off a 'few unwanted baby clothes' and toys which require at least eight metres of space and racks and containers and tables and table and tables of the stuff. And no, they are not professionals are they, just a big family, with a big white van, by chance.

Mr Coins (we are now friends for the day) says that some of them are managing to do upwards of 15 vide greniers a year, though two is the legal limit and making a very handy living and that there are now far too many for the gendarmes to check, despite the organizers requiring photocopies of yer papers. It is really possible that someone in a small office somewhere is attempting to collate all the names of all the sellers in all the vide greniers, in all the world, and why the heck did he have to pick on mine...... (ok, Bogarde moment over!).

And there are others, stuck in the blazing sun and wilting, hundreds and hundreds of them, so many in fact that we had to wait in a queue down the road for half an hour to get in.

So, what do they sell, these serried ranks of decorator's tables and battered trestles covered with STUFF and more containers full of OTHER STUFF? Well, clothes and household stuff and widgets and grommits and used fliggertygits and lots of coloured wangles and tidgers and tons of goolagies, all tied up with string and sold for €1 each, these megawongles that were once the pride of Pierre and Jean-Marie and Paul. Oh, and paintings of the beach, the chateau and the countryside, and strangely, still lifes of apples which have been chewed, that all look so good, with their bright colours, but when we get them home they never really find their place.

The problem is that it is all the same and noone really needs any of it but it is there anyway, run by the good ladies of France, they who control the beating economic heart of the country and who force Marcel and Kevin and Jean-Christophe out of their Sunday lie-in at six am to flog the family slivers (sic) for a bit of money to buy a holiday or a repaint the backroom for the baby or ..... well, who know what these lovely ladies have in mind when they slip your euros into their purses with a discreet merci.

Of course, some think that their battered wine bottle corker that is trenty-treize years old and has been repainted flourescent green is really worth €20 and that the half broken pair of wing mirrors from a Renaucitroen RC9000 are collectors items and a snip at €30, and that the old hand sewing machine that Tante Alice so treasured in its lovely, polished, plywood case is a real snip at €50. But these things sit there in the sun and blister and crack and noone is buying....

The customers come in waves: first the pros, early and sharp eyed, offering nothing for what they can resell at ten times nothing down the row, then the quiet questioners who wait until you are alone and ask after old toys and watches and mobile fones. Then the early birds with big cabas who seek and hunt and hunt and seek and seem to find a bit here and there to build their houses - light fittings, flashing, brackets, unused IKEA yunk (sic). The tourists, mainly Brits, wearing those sandals, often in shorts (please don't guys, it is not dignified), seeking entertainment and occupation and a touch of real France which they miss because they do not look at the people now getting seriously oiled round the bar or jamming down another cornet de frites, or the people opposite who have good jobs but are finding ends hard to tie up and anyway don't like waste and who have given the son €2 for the day and don't really want him to spend it on sweets and reason with him and he sulks and argues back.....

Some have taste and can talk knowledgeably about the old Stanley Yankee or the interesting barbecue skewers or the pig money box, and how to maintain the old wooden carpenter's planes. And they love the bits of old linen, try the pinny which they pay full price for. And the mirror with the little doors in the front which they look at for hours, then discover the original price in pounds which was very high and want it even more and can they keep the original price as it makes it exotic.

And they buy, a few euros at a time, with the satisfaction of knowing they have haggled and got the price they wanted to pay, which was the price expected anyway.

Then a pause for lunch which we take away from the stand, by the river, but watching, all the time watching for the odd unlunching person who might want the tile cutter or spotlight that are sticking. But it is as if a giant gong has sounded and they have gone. So we eat and count our gains and are satisfied.

And wait for more of the same in the afternoon, but hotter, slower, and feel sorry for the stalls in full sun which are now brown and burnt and jaded.

A customer comes, perhaps the last but he has been before, alone, with no woman to inhibit him, a man who feels he must spend, must buy, a compulsion he doesn't understand, but his lovely day out will not be complete without filling the cabas with stuff he doesn't need or want, and maybe this evening, full of beer and sausages he will try and understand why the heck he bought all that, but will be satisfied.

Then it is dead, the heat has taken its toll, and we repack, noticing the empty containers and are very pleased. As for the left overs, well, maybe they will survive for another sale, maybe go to Emmaus, that junk repository of last resort, where they will be bought by those semi-professional people and will again find a life on another stall full of qnobbleysomethungs that noone really wants.

A good day out in rural France.

[cajal]

[quote user="anotherbanana"] 

Some have taste and can talk knowledgeably about the old Stanley Yankee [/quote]

That'll be me then.   I still have, and occasionally use, the one I bought back in 1975.

Top tip. If you own one, fit a jubilee clip on the chrome section of the handle just above the spiral lock/unlock mechanism. It will never roll off a flat work surface again.

[Loiseau]

You forgot to mention the display catching fire...

[anotherbanana]

Yes, I forgot that; we had one of those small magnifying mirrors on a stand for sale which, being in the sun at the front of our stand, focussed the sun’s rays onto a piece of cloth. A potential customer kindly pointed out that there was smoke rising and that perhaps we might not welcome a fire. Immediate action of course and profuse thanks.