COLLECTING

Now that spring has arrived in the Lot and the countryside is burgeoning, so are posters advertising upcoming ‘Vide Greniers’ or ‘Trocs’. These are not to be confused with ‘Brocantes’ which are slightly down market versions of the very serious and astronomically expensive ‘Foires des Antiquités’. Trocs and Vide Greniers are far more fun, for they are garage sales, and perfect places to uncover yet more junk to add to ones’ collections. Upon arrival, I feel exactly the same excitement I experienced as a child in the Gilbert and Ellice islands when out on the reef searching for live shells to add to my Dad’s collection.

Amongst the many things I look for are ‘Plateaux a Fromage’. I think they date from the sixties and are largely overlooked by the buying public. I wonder why?