A November trip with my good friend Catherine. We’ve come over for the annual large market in Lisieux, and are fortunate that the dates coincides with a large “Puces” market in Caen. We drive straight off the boat on a chill Friday morning and straight to the Parc des Expositions. Two large halls are all […]
We drove out to see Madame in Vaugines. In her white painted village house with a fig tree in the courtyard she had still more boxes of books. She told me her grandfather had been a baker in Biscarosse. She sold me some enormous registers from the early 1900’s documenting his customers and his sales. […]
On hairpin bends through the Ardeche gorges and into heavy mist and rain. Tendrils of cloud fingered the mountain slopes. Graham headed off on his bike towards scenic mountain passes and I made for a brocante outside Montelimar – nothing too inspiring, but a few folding chairs and a side table were loaded in grey, […]
In September Graham and I set off on a trip down to the Luberon and the Mediterranean – he on his Pan European, me in my van. We travel in convoy part of the way but inevitably lose each other outside Orleans. I arrive first at our Chateau chambre d’hote on the outskirts of a […]
I take a meandering route to Le Mans next day, through rolling landscapes and forests. A few more calls on dealers on the way. Fleeting, drive-past glimpses of grand houses down allées of trees. Eventually negotiating the tangle of dual carriageways around Le Mans I find my chambre d’hote, a picturesque 19th century residence in […]
Next morning as I’m tiptoeing out the kitchen, I spy the two family dogs in comical array. Oscar, the wire haired hound, is barely contained in a little dog bed and George, the Jack Russell, spreads out in the large one. George apparently likes to share Oscar’s bed, Oscar prefers to sleep alone and so […]
Further on I stop in a village to meet up with a dealer I’ve visited before. A wedding celebration is in full swing under a marquee next to the church. In the large warehouse I find an 18th century wooden altar surround stacked in pieces. I buy the dusky pink, elephant grey and gold painted […]
July. The weather is hot. I’m on an extended trip over to the Perche region and down to Le Mans for one of the large dealer’s fairs. I’m covering new territory, but also crossing the tracks of weekend visits made in my early twenties with my Parisian boyfriend to his father’s farmhouse in the Sarthe […]
Back again in May. French fishermen are blockading ports. Red painted slogans strung up on old sheets, and thick black smoke from burning tyres at many of the roundabouts as we drive out of Caen, instead of Cherbourg. I have brought my mother with me on this short trip. She has come well prepared, with […]
We drive to visit an English dealer who seemed oblivious to the fact that I might want to look around the shop, or eventually to leave! We were regaled with tales of poor health and many operations. I didn’t find anything to buy there either. A few kilometres down the road we pull up in […]
Three months later, I am back at the same café in Falaise, at 7.30am, this time with Graham. We are both glad of a grand café creme as the town shows signs of coming to life. Our first stop is back at Raymond’s to collect my pile of little objects, that have sat through the […]
The next day we met a dealer in an industrial unit with shutters rolled up to let in the light – and the freezing morning air. Fingerless gloves are a must! We talk as I make some purchases – a pleasing oil painting of a Provencal town, a sturdy fruitwood chest of drawers. Monsieur tells […]
We had a rendezvous in a neighbouring hamlet that afternoon – with the younger brother of Papi. Three people emerging through a picket gate from the allotments pointed us down a narrow lane. Raymond was out for the day hunting (my mistake with dates) and he had told his wife that she should show me […]
I take a winter trip over towards Lisieux with my old friend Hope. We roll off the ferry at 6.30am, seeing a glimmer of dawn on the horizon. We stop for a coffee when the cafes open at 7.30 and look over the day’s itinerary. I usually have with me a long list of antique […]
Sometimes I find nothing or little of interest as I drive from place to place, and then I chance upon the unexpected and delightful. In a small village, next to the worn stone church tower, I found a brocante in what had been the local theatre. Faded, painted canvas was still hanging over the proscenium. […]
Off again, direction Angers and beyond. In Le Lion d’Angers I popped into the local antiquaire but regretfully only bought some 1940’s postcards of the town. “Ah, but you have a photo of me there!” he said. The little boy standing in front of the Vieille Eglise, he assured me, was him, several decades before, […]
The chambre d’hote in question, at Ruillé Froid Fonds, was an ancient farm house, creeper clad, populated with suits of armour, beautiful furniture and an ancient wooden staircase that leaned. I asked Monsieur how long his family had lived in the house. “Just five generations,” he said from beneath his generous moustache. My plan the […]
I like September trips to France, when the hubbub of summer is over but there are still plenty of markets happening. Graham and I set off on a bit of road trip – me in my van and he on his motorbike. 1,300 miles of hot and glorious days, getting grimey and cobwebby, and usually […]
Sunday morning, at a more reasonable hour, was the annual Vide Grenier at Barneville Carteret – two small seaside towns of great charm on either side of an estuary. Highly reminiscent of Jacques Tati’s “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot” – what a dose of hilarious seaside nostalgia. We parked up in a field and Elizabeth […]
Elizabeth and I arrived for the auction at 14h, held outside a large shed on Rue de l’Ancien Presbytere, a narrow stone walled lane down the side of the cemetery. A crowd was gathered and soon the spectacle began. The auctioneer, Le Commisseur Priseur, addressed as “Maitre”, took the stand. “Hands up those who didn’t […]
Madame had set up the automatic coffee machine the night before, and left me a newspaper clipping next to the pots of home-made apricot and greengage jam: an auction of the contents of an antique shop was to be held that afternoon. Good news doesn’t come much better than that! I was en route before […]
Our first stop was an antiques fair at Briquebec, a pretty town with ruined castle and the quintessentially French, ivy covered hotel with red awnings nearby. Fairs offer not only the chance to browse all under one roof, but also to meet new dealers and those I had already visited. Madame Lannaud is a delightful […]
Summer trips are easier in every way. A calm late afternoon Channel crossing with broad horizons of palest greys, gentle clouds and shafts of creamy sun. My dear friend Elizabeth came with me early one July to stay at the lovely manor house near Valognes. The dainty purple and yellow violas were still bobbing amongst […]
The Marche Paul Bert was more lively, with some beautifully presented stands opening onto the narrow lanes. At lunchtime the dealers, mostly in sheepskin hats, thick coats and scarves, pulled up eighteenth century tables and chairs and sat down to their hot lunches, baguettes, cheeses and bottles of wine. Not a plastic packed sandwich in […]
