BOOT FAIR BLUES

I’ve always been interested in old, well-used things. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure so they say. Very true.  I only wish they had such things when my kids were small, would have saved me a mint.

To me, walking round a Boot Fair is as interesting as doing a museum, and opens up all sorts of imaginings about previous owners in my tiny mind. With the added bonus of perhaps acquiring something useful for a fraction of the ‘new’ price. OH doesn’t really like them. He dislikes having things used by someone else, (though he makes exceptions for family stuff) so not being a driver myself, I have been to comparatively few, though my Bestie has always made a bit of a hobby cum business out of it. I used to envy her weekly summer outings, running a stall with her Mum, seemed like lots of fun, clothing yourself in good often label-still-on clothes, and making a bit of pocket money on the side.

However, this year, being now OAPs, I resolved to do more Booting.  OH can stay home and watch the cricket, at least til it lulls him into a deep sleep.  The perfect opportunity arose when Bestie had a ‘Good Idea’. Why not, said she, do some Boot Fairs to raise funds for the (Brenda Kirby Cancer Care) charity?’

Now, Bestie rather disapproves of my hoarding ways, I have rooms full of my late Mum and Dad’s china, clothes, models etc etc, none of it valuable, except to me, and I rather think she was hoping this would be a back-handed way of winkling some of these items out of me, thereby making entry to these rooms possible.  But I am made of sterner stuff, and have managed to hold on to my inheritance so far.  But friends and family were generous in donating all manner of items for our stall, especially the husband of the late aforementioned Brenda Kirby, founder of said charity, who donated loads and loads of items of books and china, often collectors pieces, gathered over the years, but now just stored away pending down-sizing.

The day before our debut sale, we packed her Ford Fiesta so tightly I wondered where I was going to sit, and if indeed the car would move. A biscuit tin in the shape of a knight packed somewhere amongst the wide and varied donations kept shouting ‘step away from those biscuits!’, so we had to unpack half of the stuff to find and silence it.  It drove us mad on the stall next day so I finally let it go for almost nothing to a kid whose Mum has probably killed him by now.

Next morning, wearing our bright yellow BKCC t-shirts we set off at 6 and joined the already long queue for the sale at the Warlingham rugby club. Sitting waiting to be admitted, I wondered who all these seemingly foreign people with large suitcases on wheels were, walking up the road towards the sale.  My savvy friend enlightened me that they would have just been dropped by a coach, and we should watch out for them as they would swarm round our car as soon as we opened the boot and before we could set the stall up. Rats she called them. She warned me to watch the better items carefully possible as we were bound to have loads of stuff go missing.

She wasn’t wrong.  As soon as we parked up we were surrounded. Hands reaching into the boot, boxes overturned, and us trying to put up the trestles.  Voices shouting for prices in all directions.  I was actually quite intimidated, not a usual feeling for me. We eventually locked the car and waited for them to move off for the next victim.  I reckon we lost quite a lot of money before 7 a.m. that morning.  Bit nippy it was too. But it was a good day once they had got back on their coach for the next targeted sale, and we made a couple of hundred quid, and had a bit of fun too, taking turns on walking round to make our own purchases (hard one for me, I saw so many nice things..).

The second sale 2 weeks later was on the same lines, thankfully minus the Rats. We learned that collectible china and ornaments need to be in sets (surely I thought the thrill of the chase in collecting sets would be the pleasure of it?) so we took back quite a lot of it, but still managed to make over a ton, and picked up our own bargains to boot.  Now that was a very hot day, so we took to wearing a couple of the gold sequin studded 80s style caps of which we had been donated 15.  They’ve now found a new home at my school.  Bacon rolls and ice cream went down very well that day.

Sadly that was to be the last ‘selling’ sale of this years for us, as my already disabled Bestie became very ill and has only recently recovered enough to resume occasional Booting, but only on the buying side.  We’ve had some good bargains, found some stuff exactly what we wanted, and saved ourselves a packet.  For example, I picked up at one sale a nearly new garden parasol for a fiver, which would have been £25 new at least.

Yesterday’s sale (Sunday 14^th August 2016) was really a good’un, worth getting out at 6 for. The diversity of our purchases surprised even me.  Within one minute of arrival I had bagged a lovely Buddha garden ornament, just what I wanted. This was followed (in not very rapid succession as my Bestie is mobility challenged), by luminous yellow jelly shoes for me, several tops, clothes for the grandkids, an expanding play tunnel, a large saw, a sword (toy), another tiny wooden Buddha, cake topper, action men, plastic picnic set, cuddly toy……, and so many other things I’ve already forgotten. Oh and a trampoline, which OH took one look at and said ‘where the f h we gonna put that?’. 

Anyway the kids were coming to lunch. Or what passes for Sunday lunch in this house these days which is delivered by our local Kebab house, and very nice it is too. I cleaned said trampoline up and put it in the garden.  The youngest grandson did humour me by giving it a go but the most use it got was when said grandson fell asleep on it after his kebab and chicken nuggets.

My point is, Boot Fairs are great. They are a social service in several ways. Support your local Boot Fairs.

But watch out for Rats