vide-grenier | Aussie in France

It’s not the first time Black Cat and I have participated in a vide-grenier. Living in an appartment with no cellar meant we needed to regularly get rid of toys and clothes and the local town hall had a free garage sale for kids once a year. After that, we shared stalls with friends until Black Cat was old enough to branch out on her own.

With our move to Blois scheduled for 30 September 2014 and Black Cat actively looking for work in New York, we have taken a stall at the yearly vide-grenier in nearby Rue Colonel Driant. We’re up early and at 8.15 am we’re handing in our documents (ID and electricity bill to prove we are locals) and paying 15 euro in exchange for 2 metres of pavement space. I go and get the car which Jean Michel has filled up the day before and park it temporarily in front of stand n°65 while we unload.

We set up a trestle table and Black Cat starts putting the clothes rack together. As we unpack, the early scavengers arrive, mainly looking for jewellery. By the time we have everything out of the cartons, it’s 9 am and we’ve already made a couple of sales. We also make the acquaintance of our neighbours.

Checking out the neighbours' stall — Checking out the neighbours’ stall

On the left is a Ukranian girl and her French friend. It’s their first vide-grenier but, apart from the fact that their two clothes racks topple over at regular intervals, they seem to have their act together. They have a mirror which we don’t have but they lend it to us whenever we need one. They seem to be having a whale of a time. Everytime I look over they seem to be dressed differently!

The lady on the left is a regular. She has a small stock of women’s clothes that she has brought in a suitcase, including a rack that regularly falls over with the wind as well. She also has two plastic sheets that she spreads on the ground to display anoraks and jackets. She explains later in the day that she buys summer dresses cheaply on cheaper markets and sells them on the more expensive ones.

Clever use of grating to hang up clothes and shoes

I’ve brought along two folding chairs because I know I can’t stand up all day. We can’t possibly display everything we have on the clothes rack and table so we work out a new arrangement. We put the table on one side and the rack on the other so that people can enter the stand and also look through our cartons which we’ve divided into tops, skirts, dresses and pants.

The vide-grenier went right down Colonel Driant

Business is steady. Black Cat’s fairly large collection of DVDs, a handful of CDs and my books are the most popular initially. At 2 euro for a DVD and 1 euro for a book, you’d think it was a bargain but there are still people who want to bring the price down. We’re selling the clothes at 2 euro for a top or skirt, 3 euro for a dress and 5 to 10 euro for jackets and coats.

Late morning, I go back home and make a large thermos of tea which I bring back and share with our neighbours who are delighted. “Oh, but I don’t have anything to offer you”, says the Ukrainian. “That’s OK. We’re using your mirror.” But when I bring the second thermos around 4 pm, she has acquired some biscuits to share.

During the day, at least three English speakers, hearing me chatting with Black Cat, come up and ask for directions!

Most of the people are friendly which is not true of all street markets. I tell someone that Black Cat has made some of the clothes herself. Those items are snapped up as unique pieces. One young woman makes us laugh as she wiggles into a skirt then removes her own from underneath so she can check if it fits properly.

There’s a big fight at the stall opposite at one stage when a woman claims that she hasn’t had her money’s worth. It looks as though they might come to blows but she finally walks away.

At about 6 pm, business picks up and we bring the prices down even further. I tell my neighbours they can take what they want because they are all doing another vide-grenier next day. Then it starts to spit and we all have to start packing up before everything gets wet.

Jean Michel turns up with the car and we bundle it all in. I take everything to La Ressourcerie at 62 rue Oberkampf because there’s no way we can store any of it. Black Cat is very pleased with her takings and I have had a most enjoyable day with my daughter!

Yesterday was the first time I spent May Day in Blois. It was a good day. I woke up alive for the 3rd day running since I smashed my head into a very low authentic Renaissance beam at Closerie Falaiseau that you are supposed to duck under to go into one of the rooms. The people were on the short side back in those days! It felt as though I had a huge weight on my head and I did wonder for a few days whether it hadn’t been damaged forever. But it seems that I have survived!

While we were having breakfast, Relationnel suddenly got up, put his cap on and left. I was a bit put out until he came back a few minutes later with three little sprigs of muguet from the garden of our “little house”. It’s the tradition in France to give lily-of-the-valley on 1st May for good luck, especially to your loved ones. You can find it on practically every street corner, mainly sold by charities and similar associations. And because it’s Labour Day, it’s also the one day of the year when anyone can sell on the street without a permit in France.

Then we set out for the annual Chambord “brocante” or “vide-grenier” as they call it (attic emptier), the largest in the region, whom Madame Previous Owner had told me about a long time ago, warning me that we should be there by 7 am! Since we didn’t even wake up until 10.30 am, it was considerably later by the time we left. On the way, we saw a sign for another “vide-grenier” at Maslives so I insisted we stop.

It was very much a local edition, where most of the people obviously knew each other. We wandered around in the wet grass, delighted that we had had the foresight to change into our walking boots. I saw the most amazing child’s tricycle with long handlebars to turn to make it go. Relationnel spied out a lampshade made of pig’s bladder on top of the most hideous lamp stand imagineable so we paid the full price and left the lamp explaining to the vendor that we wouldn’t be able to use it. He commisserated saying that he had inherited it from his mother and didn’t have room either – but didn’t bring the price down!

We continued on to Chambord. You could tell from the gendarmes everywhere that it was not on the same scale. We parked, as directed, in a large field and were thankful, once again, that we were wearing our boots. By then, the sun had come out for the first time in 4 days, and we had a lovely time exploring the endless rows of stalls with the majestic Château de Chambord as a backdrop. The prices, however, were much higher, and we didn’t find anything to our liking.

At about 2.30, we decided to have lunch at one of the two restaurants in the castle grounds – Le Saint-Louis – which had both reasonable prices (about 12 euros for a salad) and friendly service. We’d done enough brocanting by then and went home to change into our cycling gear. It was great to be able to ride out the gate and down our country road. Not exactly possible in Paris!

After cycling along a dirt road and through a few puddles, we reached bitumen again, to my relief. We then rode up a very manageable slope to the highest point of Blois which means we’ll be able to cycle into the city centre in the future without too much effort. On the way, my chain came off and I thought I should learn how to put it back on by myself for when I go cycling without Relationnel. Newfound independence!

When we got home, we attacked the expresso machine again and finally made our first cappuccino! It was excellent (the coffee came from Verlet, I might add, and was accompanied by chocolates from Anglina’s). And despite the fast-descending temperature, we decided to dine al fresco for the very first time in Blois!

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A Vide-grenier from the inside

May Day in Blois

from the Tropics to the City of Light