The Great Vintage/Antique Hunt

During the flea market season days normally begin early, and that’s 5 am early! Maybe that’s not so early for many people but believe me when I tell you, I’m so not a morning person.... 

With the window shutters closed and my bedroom in total darkness I’m blissfully unaware of anything, as is the loudly-snoring cat weighing down my legs under the duvet. Therefore it's up to one of many vintage alarm clocks to wake me for the day’s hunting adventure - luckily they're all reliable old friends.

First off I try to gently slip my legs from under the sleeping cat and fail - this means he’s fully awake and hungry, as are the rest of his furry tribe (6 cats in total). 

Okay, I'll deal with them first, so I reluctantly stumble out from under my duvet, wash up, grub-up les chats, and voila - before you know it I’m on my way to the hunt!  

The cat that weighs down my bed - heavy but adorable!

Now, it's important that you understand the cigarette lighter in my car doesn’t work, which doesn’t matter to me much because I gave up smoking years ago...... But hang-on, the sat-nav won’t re-charge without it! 

So, despite vowing to repair it every cold, dark morning it's needed and unavailable, some how it later manages to slip my mind until once again I’m reading hastily scrawled directions from the back of an old shopping receipt. Not to worry though, so far I’ve always managed to find my way to the fairs and markets, even if I do end up arriving somewhat later than planned. 

A bad photo of an event I visited last summer.

Upon finding a place to park, the panic tends to set in, especially as I notice people walking by with baroque-style antique mirrors, oil paintings of anonymous but important-looking figures, or maybe some other, unidentified object tucked proudly under their arms. With plastic supermarkets bags bulging in my pockets and keen Euros in my wallet, I walk hastily toward the stalls resisting the temptation to break into a sprint. It looks like a good one today - the excitement is building; what treasure am I about to discover?!

One of my good finds, although there is a catch - I'll explain in another post.

You mustn’t be fooled by these markets or fairs, even the ones in deepest rural France – the locale might be picturesque but the competition can be fierce and the bartering ruthless.  Whether the event is held in a summer field, a winter's day car park, or in the quaint streets of a normally sleepy village, you're normally going to meet the same hardcore collectors and dealers unless you venture further afield. 

After a while you tend to recognise most of them although I’ve not struck up any meaning relationships as of yet. That being said I occasionally receive a nod of recognition or even the odd, ‘Bonjour’.  You just never know, my future wife might be somewhere in among the crowd of shoppers.............

The hunt for me is mostly methodical, as that’s just the type of person I am.  I normally begin at what I consider to be the beginning of the stalls and start scanning each one furtively before moving onto the next.  You see, I believe the key is to first carry out a brief reconnaissance (mentally noting any items of interest worthy for later examination), while of course immediately purchasing any obvious treasures that you can’t bear losing to the nosy so-and-so who's been looking over your shoulder, greedily eyeing up that Napoleonic-era pediment. 

There have been countless times when uncertain as to whether to take the plunge with an item, I’ve put it back on the table to have a think only to have it rudely snapped up by some dealer lurking ‘in the wings’. 

But anyway, so where was I – Oh yes, so after the initial recon exercise is over and my must-have items are gratifyingly filling my plastic bags, I deposit them back at the car and return ready for action once again, only this time more prepared as I have a mental list of possible purchases thanks to the earlier recce. 

Also, having already grabbed some exciting items I can now take my time perusing the stalls from the beginning, but this time without so much of a panic.  At this time all is normally good in the world, everything being more enjoyable and a distinct feeling of calm comes over me. Okay, so maybe later I’ll get home to discover the boo-boos I’ve made, but at this point I’m blissfully ignorant to the coffee jug missing its filter, the missing piece from an antique chess set hastily purchased so the man wearing those silly 3/4 length shorts didn’t get it before me.

But - all good hunts have to come to an end so when it’s time for home, my legs normally feel heavy from the hours of walking back and forth while my stomach grumbles because I was too stingy to buy myself a cheese baguette. If the hunt’s gone well I'll drive home singing along to tunes belted out by my MP3 while feeling rather too smug, and if it wasn’t I’ll go home cursing the fact I’ve burned up a tank of fuel only to be soaked in rain.

Oh well, as the French say, 'C'est la vie!'