Up with the dawn, cat slept beside me all night long as far as I know, shedding hair by the handfuls but WHY? It's miserable outside, the dim light of the pre-dawn shows nothing but clouds as far as the eye can see and, our favorite, heavy drizzle...slop I call it, just slop, is falling. Too wet to work outside to dry to be serious about a work stoppage. Damn! Today WAS to be for a major brocante happening, hunt for smaller fare than before, ancient photos, a painting or two, drawings, a side table. The 17th is Assumption, a Catholic excuse not to work today and instead take all your junk, furnature, rusted parts and inoperative electronic stuff and place it up for sale in a field somewhere. That's the GIVEN in the formula, the UNKNOWNS are but two...the weather, being cold or wet AND will people actually leave the warmth of their houses and come? Well, the weather part is determined, blustery and wet, slop...so we decide to try it anyway KNOWING hardly anything will stop a Brocante from occuring once scheduled. Off to Chateauneuf-Sur-Cher to see what is happening, in town we find the site, a nice man in a bright yellow safety vest is standing in the middle of the street opposite the alley where, at the end, are unbrellas and many parked vans and trucks and a few people visible milling around. We take the next alley across the bridge and park a ways down on the left side in a small parking lot. There are 5 cars therein, we make it 6. We leave the comfort of the warm car, I don a black shopping bag for a hat of sorts and we stroll quickly down the alley, across the brdidge and into the site of the main event. Muddy grass and tarp and umbrella coverred booths dot the field. Stepping around pools of water and with the drizzle coming down almost as rain now we examine booth after booth for valuable wares and wonders of the not so modern world. Touring row upon row seems futile as most things are either sopping wet or covered with enough visqueen (plastic) or dripping tarps to be un-seeable and un-examinable. We walk on. After some 15 minutes of this brutality we take our leave, as we pass a booth, a pile of rusty tools lying in a small bucket of rusty water grabs my eye and I stop to look. It is an apparently handmade, hand forged BOLT that has been made ingeniously into a monkey wrench! It actually WORKS too! Holding the item up to view "Combien, S'il Vous Plait" I ask, the gent replies "Doux Euros", I say "Tres bien" and hand over a two Euro coin "Merci! Merci" I say, and the beauty is mine! Useless but necessary. Now an iron paperweight with a secondary (wrench) and looking at the roughly mashed head, possibly third purpose (hammer) in hand we walk back to the car. Off to the next one which is in Pruniers along the highway to Chateauroux.
The drizzle continues as we near Pruniers, some cars in the marie parking lot but no sellers visible, more cars...but still no umbrellas, no booths, no traffic director person to point the way. This one actually appears to have been cancelled because of the weather! Unusual, we drive along slowly looking for any signs of activity, there is none so off now to Bommiers for the next one, 5 minutes later we pull into a parking spot with 5 cars once again and get out of the car, a loud female voice is calling to the public to
come to the brocante. We obey crossing the bridge over a small stream and l'viola! tables, umbrellas, 4 vendors, a doorway seems crouded nearby and we join the croud seeking warmth and to get away from the wet. Inside it's all crafts, knitting, embroidery, paintings, drawings, stupid bear lamps, handmade jewelery...nothing of real interest to us so off we go, back to the car to the next, final and last brocante of the day in ________________.. Hmmm, at last a vendor with which I have interest, goat cheeses, thimble sized, sprinkled on top of each was small quantity of spice, coarse pepper, cumin, oregano, mint, dried onion...ohhhh these are fine! I ask "Comien, S'il Vous Plait" He says "Doux Euro demi pour veigt-cinq"...cheap, cheap, cheap...10 Euro cents a piece! "Oui!" I say and he carefully plucks each one out of the display and places hem in a little plastic box then bags them. I pay with exact change " l'viola!" he says and I'm off with a ":Merci!". Homeward bound now trying to be dry in mind if not dry in body we reflect on the mornings activity. "What a bust!" Kelly says, "Yep!", I say "but got some goat cheese and a nifty paperweight! for 4 Euros 50...not a bad haul!" She nods in agreement.
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