A Flea Market in La Bourboule



A flea market has come to la Bourboule!  I always get terribly excited about them, together with thrift shops they provide my favourite shopping experience.  So as soon I had finished the Cure yesterday I mingled with the crowds to have a quick gander at the offerings.

There is usually not much going on around here, so just about everybody descended upon the market for some cheap entertainment, if not to say buying opportunities.  I didn’t see anyone actually buy anything, but no doubt purchases occurred.  Prices are a bit steep, especially considering we are in the deepest countryside – very similar to Oxford, in fact.



First off I looked for scarves, but there weren’t any.  This is doubly regrettable, because (a) I lost my pashmina at the Grands Thermes yesterday (stolen! proclaimed the matron, but I still have hopes that it will be returned by an honest finder), and (b) I stupidly agreed to a challenge by R that I would not buy any Hermes scarves until November, excepting only those I might come across at a flea market at an incredibly low price (K’s challenge is to lose a stone in body weight – wonder whether she will be as successful as me?).  Since I did not find any scarves at the market, I ended up buying a shawl in a boutique – it gets quite nippy in the evenings and early mornings, and without a warm shawl one easily gets cold.  

Having not found any scarves, I looked at the rest of the offerings.  The linen sheets were reasonably priced and of a good quality, but since I already have a life-time’s supply of them and they are heavy to transport I resisted.  While taking photos I fell into the hands of a very persuasive dealer who tried to sell me the statue of a naked woman, not my favourite subject matter (why is it always women who are naked?) and anyway how would I transport her home?  He kept reducing the price, and offered to ship her to London, and told me about amazing reviews in English speaking magazines of his store, but I sought refuge in my inability to understand French and eventually managed to disentangle myself.



I think in France I have the look of a sucker about myself, a charmingly helpless female who can be easily exploited and taken advantage of, probably because of my lack of language skills.  Several people have found out to their cost that I am not as easy as I look, including the old man who used to work at Les Galapagos and tried to chat me up last year – I felt quite insulted, what made him think I could possibly be interested in someone like him?  Duh!



In the end I bought five DVDs for E20, all brand new but probably unpopular, given the price, and spent the rest of the day watching them.  My cold is still going strong, and watching Cleopatra for four hours was just about all I was good for that day.  Mind you, I watched it in French, with English subtitles, so hopefully learned a few new words.  Tragically I best remember words I have least use for, so Cleopatra will probably turn out to be less educational than Comme un Chef, which has useful terms like ‘Tu Remue Tu remue Tu remue’ – you must stir you must stir you must stir – the soup, in this case.