Today was a biggie, it was the day of the annual Sacy-le-Petit brocante. The 5am kick off was so cold we just pulled our clothes on over our pyjamas and headed out to set up our stall. We found ourselves to be the first people to arrive – turns out Hermine is very keen. Here is our stall in all its glory:
We secretly hoped Jonathon our chuckie doll wouldn’t get sold as we felt he had found his rightful home in the Chateau. But he got snapped up! Along with all the jubilee mugs, biscuit tins, the vinyl, the Beatles photographs and various other bricabrac. The Frenchies loved our English themed tat! The only thing left at the end of the day was an Elton John Candle in the Wind CD and some plates in the shape of a cabbage. Oh and unfortunately the Princess Di glasses smashed in a gust of wind. Quel dommage!
At lunchtime Hermine served homemade quiche outside the house with a large glass of Rosé. She told us the story of how she met her husband Hugo in London the Swinging Sixties and how exciting it was at the time. We loved hearing her recounting her memories.
After lunch we carried on the Rosé theme, this time ‘Rosé Pamplemousse’ which was rather too drinkable. Each time we went to the bar to order we got a round of applause for ordering in French so we kept going back.
Hermine had lots of vintage dresses for sale on our stall (truly amazing) as well as plants potted up from the garden, homemade jam and gateau a la rhubarb. As a true act of kindness we ate slices of the rhubarb cake noisily to try to drum up cake sales. In total, we ended up making 90 euros for the local charity from our stall. We also met loads of lovely people, including the village eccentric, who did 3 outfit changes for the day. We were the butt of quite a few jokes in French that we couldn’t understand, apart from the term ‘roast beef’ that we are taking as a complement. I mean, who doesn’t like a roastie?
Pissed and with slight sunstroke, we wandered round the other stalls and yes, you’ve guessed it, bought all sorts of unnecessaries. We also noticed that if you photographed an item on someone’s stall they thought you really liked it and gave it to you for free. Nice one. Well, nice unless you were photographing it because it was so random. You should see the shit now taking up home in the garage.
There was one particular set of items we had our eye on, but at 100 euros was way out of our league. However, once we were home and having a well deserved cuppa tea, Hermine received a phone call. She started ringing the bell and shouting for us. We thought the place was on fire or something! We rushed downstairs to be told that they would take 30 Euros from the English people. We hot-footed it to where they were packing up and collected our prize. More on this tomorrow, but let’s just say we are VERY chuffed with the new additions to the family.
