Every seconds Sunday in the month our local town of Gaillac has a brocante market, last Sunday was our first visit to this busy little market held in the Haut’poul square. It was only two rows long, (I’m sure it will be much bigger in the summer months) but was packed with loads of interesting bits and pieces.
Although only small I ooooh’d and arghed at lots of fab finds, but with only €15 to spend in our pocket money fund I had to choose wisely. After a few trips back and for to various stalls we found a lovely if not shabby looking old candle lamp which had a wooden pole handle to hold it with, could this have been used by a stationmaster? A little more research will be required before we will know.
We both loved this item but the problem was that is was €20, now we all know that it’s customary to barter at a market but I had two problems, one Kev hates bartering for anything, two I didn’t know how to barter in French, hmmm a quick lesion from Kev solved that problem, the word to use to ask if someone will accept a lower price I learned is Vous Prenne which roughly translates a “would you take” so off I went leaving a slightly embraced looking Kev, armed with my new French words and my pocket money to find the seller of the lamp. I quickly found him slouched in a garden seat in the corner of his stall, mmm he looks rather grumpy and a bit disheveled I thought, will if remember my simple new french words and will I gabble them so he doesn’t understand? Deep breath, look confident and ask… And I did and he said yes so we got our lamp, yeh hey that was easy, poor Kev now I know how to barter in French there will be no stopping me, now where’s the cashpoint card…..
And here it is our lovely buyer grubby station masters lamp, soon to be lovingly cleaned and restored.
And here are some snapshots from the market.
I can see you making lots more visits there.