simply-chateau: Le petit diable..............

Sometimes it is the most timeworn and dejected treasures that catch my eye when out truffling!!

At the early morning brocante last weekend a local house clearer turned up with boxes and boxes of books. The local dealers descended on him and there was quite a tussle for the old leather-bound books. Some dealers tried to make sure they gathered up all the editions of certain publications, some grabbed the oldest ones they could find and others looked for rare books. It was all a bit frantic and got quite heated.

But not me. I was quite happy simply sitting on the tailgate of the house clearer's van with my nose in this battered old childrens book that had been thrown onto the floor by the serious book buyers!!

Dating from the late 1800s "Le Petit Diable" tells of the escapades of "The little Devil", a young mademoiselle full of mischief.

The vignettes are all so charming. I do confess that there are some very similar family photographs of me as a toddler with wild mad curls!!

My hair had been very slow to grow and, as a last resort, my mum kept rubbing olive oil into my scalp!! When it did eventually start to grow it was wild, curly and had a mind of its own!! At the age of three I had a sausage roll curl across the front of my head and I was told later that I hated it so much I hid behind the curtains and cut it off with mum`s sewing scissors! Hence more old photographs of me with a "Mohican" ! In my teenage years I used to desperately try and iron my long wild curls flat; all I wanted was long, straight hair!