Standing on the balcony I realised I was gazing into the Dufy painting of the Baie des Anges – same turquoise sea, same curve in the bay, same ardent palm trees, same Hotel Negresco that had ushered Marlene, Salvador, Grace and Satchmo through its opulent doors. Colour, colour, colour. My blanched, be-wintered spirit was stunned […]
Thanks to H&A for their online feature: “Showcasing a stylish and homely mix of French finds for her first time at BDAF was Gilli Hanna Decorative Antiques……” http://www.homesandantiques.com/feature/antiques/fairs/26th-bath-decorative-antiques-fair-pavilion-bath-0
The hotel lobby on the outskirts of Le Mans was busy with dealers who were regulars at the Deballage. Laetitia, the receptionist, handled their jocular high spirits with seasoned aplomb. The hotel restaurant was passable, and a dinner of steak frites, Tarte Normande and a glass of red wine worked restorative wonders. Just before 8am […]
The truck in front of me on the old National 23 from Chartres to Le Mans braked hard and swung off down a track. As I sailed by I glimpsed a large building with Antiquités Brocante painted in large letters. “Zut!” I turned around at the next hamlet. A willow swept over the rushing water outside […]
It was a dismal morning, not yet light. The parking areas of the Parc des Expositions were full of muddy ruts. Vans were all over the place, backing up, wheels spinning. There were shouts and waving torches. No one could see much through rainy windows. Having reversed out of the scrum I found a spot […]
Come November I made a swift and functional circuit to Chartres and Le Mans for two dealer’s markets. I stayed in budget hotels near the exhibition parks, where the parking spaces filled overnight with white vans. It was a straight forward drive down from Le Havre to Chartres. As I walked across a narrow stone […]
A mean Mistral was blowing as we started our drive home. Despite tall lines of trees planted as wind breaks, vines were waving in leafy frenzy. We were taking our time, travelling through the Cotes du Rhone. We stopped in Vacqueyras for lunch and to buy wine. Café tables were covered in shreds of tree […]
The Avignon market offered even more to tempt the avid purchaser. In the large open-air spaces chandeliers sparkled in the sun, piled white porcelaine glinted and metal garden chairs curved elegantly. A stunning gilt wood bed side table on such delicate cabriole legs glowed. I had to buy it. “Have a cherry liqueur chocolate,” offered […]
The deballage at Montpellier was vast. A milling crowd of dealers had already filed past the ticket collector into a glass atrium. At 8h precisely the doors to one side opened and we poured out into a large open space where lorries were being unpacked at speed. Cavernous halls stood around another open air selling […]
Another afternoon, driving back from les Saintes Maries de la Mer – a village all bright and dazzling by a windy sea, with narrow fisherman’s lanes, a pretty restaurant beneath a mulberry tree, women in gypsy dress offering lavender, and such views of the Camargue from up on the church roof – I saw a […]
The Camargue is a particular place, not like the rest of France. Black bulls, the Guardien cowboys, white horses and flamingos are its usp. As well as mosquitoes and the violent Mistral blowing down the Rhone valley. Our gite was in Montcalm, a hamlet with an 18th century chateau surrounded by vineyards. In the 19th […]
Under low cloud we climbed high over the Massif Central, a smooth and exhilarating drive along the autoroute with views of pine forests and ruined chateaux perched above craggy valleys, and over the fabulously daring Millau viaduct. Much easier than a thousand hairpin bends through the gorges. I wanted to visit two dealers in Vic […]
A bright September morning in Le Havre with Graham, emerging from the cavernous ferry garage, heading for the Mediterranean. Once over the Tancarville Bridge that sails over the Seine we traveled on National roads, past villages with steep slate roofs and needle-sharp church spires, past large tan and white cows, half timbered barns and stacked […]
I had bought well the year before from an elderly couple in prime position at the start of the five kilometer forest road. They lifted boxes on to the trestle tables and let me rummage by torchlight and do the unpacking for them. “We don’t know what is in the boxes,” they told us, “it […]
Next morning we drove down the Cotentin peninsula to visit another dealer. Graham began making noises about lack of coffee, so at the next small town we parked by the church and sat outside a modest restaurant as it was preparing for its lunchtime trade. Small square tables set with paper place mats, stainless steel […]
As much as the springtime palette of Provence the month before had filled my eyes with vivid colours and light, it was still a gentle pleasure to return to Normandy in May. A brief visit this time to collect an oak buffet I’d bought nearly two years previously, to visit a few dealers and attend […]
All of my purchases had been collected and loaded by late lunchtime as a long line of vans trailed its way inside the perimeter fence to begin picking up. The transporter’s lorry set off northwards but my flight wasn’t until the following morning. With the afternoon free I drove south of Avignon and chanced upon […]
I stood in the growing crowd by the gates at the Avignon dealer’s fair the next morning. The tanned, worldly, elegant with hair swept suavely back, and the portly, gruff and voluble waited in palpable anticipation. At 8am the gates opened and the rush began. In the main exhibition hall stall holders had already set […]
Later that afternoon I drove from Beziers to see the Mediterranean. A group of men by the port at Agde were intensely focused on their game of pétanque, and someone else was scraping down his wooden boat, listening to a breezy tune on his radio. A few couples sat out on café terraces, but it […]
For the next three days I stayed in the ochre-painted, blue shuttered farmhouse of a delightful couple, Yvette and Alain-Pierre. Behind its tall hedges Le Mas de la Cigale Bleue sat in the middle of vineyards and orchards, Gushing irrigation ditches ran alongside surrounding narrow lanes. My first visit to the major Deballage at Beziers, […]
I stayed the night just outside Arles in a village I had known well when I was twenty. As I walked down the “Passage du Temps Retrouvé“, it was on my mind how in thirty or forty years a place can change entirely, a business grows then closes, someone moves away and is lost. Time […]
I wanted to have a look at the big fairs in the south of France. Beziers, Montpellier and Avignon, three major international events all in a line along the coast from Languedoc to Provence. Prices were reported to be high but I needed to see for myself and, for a first time visit, it seemed […]
The day before the Autumn Rederie at Amiens could not have been wetter, and the upper most blade of the wind turbines along the road from Dieppe disappeared in low cloud. Graham was with me, as I’d discovered back in April that this market was a hard one to do on one’s own. We eventually […]
Fields adjacent to the market had become vast parking lots and crowds queued at the portable ticket kiosk. I wanted to find the woman who sold an exquisite collection of ribbons, pharmacy bottles, curiosities, tiny pill tins, small music cards from marching bands, bundles of wicks, old parchment, fragments of fabric – all in a […]
