We had decided to attend an auction of the contents of a house located in a village a few miles up the coast from us. There was no catalogue of the contents; simply an advertisement placed in the local newspaper by the family notaire (lawyer) giving the address, start time and indicating that all was to be sold. We arrived early and thought the old place looked very promising.
The sun was blazing, there was no breeze and, as we had arrived early, we took a leisurely stroll along the sea front.
We ended up at a small restaurant.........
and easily demolished a huge dish of "moules a la creme" with frites!
We wandered back down to the old house where quite a crowd had already gathered for the sale. A mix of local dealers and some locals, who were no doubt inquisitive to know what their neighbour's old house held. I was quite fascinated by this young dealer's shoes; who knows,they may be as old as his stock?!
We joined the queue to view the house inside where we found it full of very heavy, very brown, rustic furniture - which was quite disappointing really But, we were told that the boxes of old linens and smaller, interior items would be sold over the garden wall but with no prior viewing......so it was back to the sea front!
The sale started and what fun - sitting on the sea wall in the scorching heat watching all sorts of family heirlooms on offer. No items could be examined close up; you just had to buy what you could see being dangled over the wall!
We went back to the car and looked underneath it, we asked to look inside the house again just in case they had dropped out of Mark's pocket in there.....but no! I walked to the tourist office who telephoned the gendarmerie and the town hall but, again, no reports of them having been handed in. How could we lose the keys in such a short distance? We were considering the option of having to arrange to be towed home.
Whilst all this was happening we were missing out on all the old treasures on offer!
As a last resort we asked over the garden wall if the auctioneer could interrupt his sale and ask the crowd standing beneath him if anyone had found some car keys. The auctioneer immediately did so - and slowly out of the crowd came an elderly, bewhiskered monsieur holding out our keys. He had found them and had tucked them away in his pocket. Pourquoi?, I asked myself. Anyway I gave him a huge kiss much to everyones amusement and told him he was 'un ange'!
Panic over ! We relaxed again and waited for more treasures to be carried out for sale!
Note to self.....get another car key cut, pronto!
Sooooo.............we have just arrived home and, now, to the news I promised you! A quick click on the site link below should explain all !!!
www.simply-chateaubrocante.blogspot.com
A demain mes belles!!
I can't wait!when do we get to see the photos?
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