Photo of Leyment home of brocante heaven.
Leyment Brocante Fair in France…twenty five miles long, two thousand dealers, over one hundred thousand buyers, once a year at the end of August.
Photo of Nathalie in full gear early in the morning.
We slept in Nathalie's van the night before under a thick down comforter covered with a lovely pink and blue floral comforter cover.
Why have practical sleeping bags when you can go in style. We also had monogrammed pillow cases with lace.
Photo Perfect Parking Place.
Around four in the morning we woke up to the sound of security guards talking about how they were going to ask us to move our van! Nathalie did not take to that idea gently. Imagine moving the van and trailer ten miles away after we had arrived the day before, and were told we could park where we were.
Photo Dainty floral comforter cover better known as "Perfect Hiding Place".
The security guards taped on the van's window beaming their flashlights in on us. Before I could say boo, Nathalie opened the door and jumped into their faces. They soon found out that the little cute thing standing in front of them with only her tiny tee shirt and panties on, was a a firecracker on speed. She barked back, in more expletives than I care to write on this blog.
In brief the four security guards told her to move her van and she fired back no "&@!#'ç:§" way. Yelling, cussing, a scene out of a movie carried on outside the van while I buried my head under the comforter with the dainty pastel floral cover.
Photo of Dusty, pooped out happy girl after brocant-ing. (Fran-glais verb- when doing the Brocante.)
Nathalie got back in the van, under the comforter cover she laughed then teasingly said, "Thanks! You were a big help!" I cheered how she was a gutsy wonder woman, telling her I could have never done what she did. Imagine me a butterball blond saying, "Oh I am sorry, I'll move the van if you can find me an equally as good place as the one we have." Nathalie said, "Yeah that would have worked with those macho, wanna-be, FBI-type security guards. Let's go back to sleep."
…and we did.
Nathalie's van is nearly as bad as my old car. It is dinged, scratched, the fender is nearly falling off and as Nathalie said to me before we left, "I have two pieces of bad news to share with you."
I braced myself as she gave me the lowdown, "One the air conditioning doesn't work." I told her that was fine my car does not have air conditioning period. "Secondly," she went on, "The window on your side doesn't open."
Ah the life of girls who will eat dirt, drive hours to dusty and hot places, sleep in a car, go to the bathroom in cornfields all in the name of love.
Cornfields.
The dusty drive out of the Leyment Brocante.
After hours at the brocante we loaded the van. (Every muscle in my body aches.) and headed home. As we went over a bridge the river below was far to appealing to pass by. Nathalie did a quick fancy u-turn with the loaded van and trailer and we walked down to wash ourselves from the dirt and grim of brocanting.
Later we hiked up the side of the river to go to the bathroom. I covered for Nathalie and then she covered for me. Well wouldn't you know it, just as I pulled down my pants and squatted a group of young boys who were swimming nearby, started running towards me!!! Talk about peeing in your pants! I pulled up my pants so fast and we ran laughing up the hill (Laughing is not a good thing to do when you have to pee.)
Tomorrow I'll post photos of what I found at the brocante. In the mean time I hope you enjoyed the juicy details of a life as a brocanteur with Nathalie and myself. I bet you want to come with us after hearing about it!! If so be prepared to pee on the go and learning a few cuss words in French.
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