Blog Entry Sunday May 4th, 2008
Sun in the morning, warm soothing sun, even the cats notice. Two days in a row now, a record. We had scheduled to go to a neighboring villages brocante with Raj and Nannette. They came over at 9:30, we shared coffee and happy chatter and off we went to see what gems we could find among the piles and piles of rusted junk and plastic crap that a few hundred souls are attempting to foist off to the public. The ride was without incident, we parked outside the town center in a huge feild with a topping of very wet grass and wildflowers, very soppy this. We walked each aisle, gawking at the offerings, old keys, rusted tools, baby rattles, plates, kitchen implements etc. The warmth of the sun made the day festive and kept everyone moving along.
Along with all the vendors there was a rather expansive display of old and classic cars, SIMCA, Pougeot, a Pontiac Firebird for god's sakes, an 80's Cadillac, a bright red and PERFECT Ferrari Testarossa 512 and many others. It was great fun looking at them all lined up adjacent to the village church as it rang it's bells every hour. I spent some time taking pictures as I do and bent over staring at the interiors. What this said to me was that the French LOVE their cars as much as we do. A gathering of ancient tractors lined one street, 20 of them I counted, Old Massey Furgusons, Fords, Fiats, Pougeots and others I've never heard of before. All running, chug-a-chug-chug, wonderful sounds of deisels and gas engines of very old designs still running after all these years. While walking along we ran into first one then many of our friends enjoying the sun and the bussling atmosphere of the brocante. Later we gathered at the bar tent for a few beers and laughs. Another hour later off we went to head home satisfied that we had filtered the place of any object worth our time and fast evaporating money. To the field we walked to see yet another acquantance with his front tires buried in the sloppy soft mud, uh oh. In the distance we heard one of the ancient tractors fire up and slip into gear. Soon one rounded the bend and drove into the field, an old hit-and-miss two cylinder gas beast belching black smoke and eager for the challenge. HA! Hooked up in a few minutes it readily pulled the offended modern auto out of it's hole and soon it was on it's way home. The driver of the tractor refused payment offered by the cars owner and just smiled and waved as he chugged along returning to the line up back in the village, a job well done!
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