Vide grenier season again....

     Call me "Second-hand Rose". Very few items in our home came to us via the normal retail route. Almost everything here has a story behind it and, more often than not, that story began in a depot-vente (secondhand store) or vide-grenier (car boot sale, yard sale...).
    Recently, we drove to Dun to take in an art and crafts exhibition and, er, a vide-grenier. Slim pickings this time, as sometimes happens. Loads of kids' clothes, Barbie dolls, plastic whatevers, which is great for parents of little ones and, even if you're not, good to know that dear ole Barbie isn't going to end up, plastic legs akimbo, on the town dump. But on to objets that I do want:
    I've got the technique down by now. If I see something interesting, I never grab it with great shouts of joy. Better to sidle around it, looking at other objects, even asking the price of an elderly ash-tray that I have no interest in whatsoever. Then, almost offhandedly, I pick up object of my desire and see what the owner wants for it.
    She wanted eight euros for this little art nouveau jug. Hmmm. Don't need another jug (although "need" rarely has anything to do with what we buy at vide greniers) and eight euros is sort of at the tipping point. I walked back to the car, thinking about the jug, and picturing it holding pink roses. When I got to the car, I thought some more, and walked back to the stall. The stallholder immediately knew why I was there.
   "Eight euros," she said, "but you can have it for seven". Score.