They're dreamin'

Darryl Kerrigan, the classic working class Aussie father from The Castle used to like reading the 'For Sale' adverts in the Trading Post.

"Hey Dad - guess how much they want for these jousting sticks?" 

Darryl would hear the outlandish price and scoff, "They're dreamin'!"

It's amazing how often I think of him - a fictional character - when I'm out with Robyn on a brocanting (flea market) jaunt. We tend to meet each other at the Genevan equivalent of Rundle Mall's Balls - The Broken Chair.

This little group regularly demonstrates on the quadrangle out the front and is noticed by, well, no-one much. They're dreamin....



Over at the actual flea market in Plain Palais, I had a five franc budget for the day (that's what having a now-healthy twelve year old does to you) and a determination to photograph anything that elicited a 'They're dreamin'!" response.

Like this. A box of skipping rope handles.



Still, our friend Jenny later remarked that they could in fact be good for those of us who tend to fall over the rope. "Just twirl the handles and jump," she suggested, "without then being in danger of having your ankles whipped out from under you."  A nice idea, but a week later when she went brocanting with Bruce, they were still for sale.

So if a workout partly coordinated by The Invisible Man wasn't a bargain hunters' dream, perhaps a second-hand trophy was.  Hold me back - it was the Inter Banques Petanque Victory Cup from..... *rushed past the 1870s Singer sewing machine* ...... 1988!



Better still, he only wanted a teeny five francs for it!

But we'd only just begun and on the very next stall was a bewildering combination of retro racism, nineties ugliness and mismatched ornamentation:



I'd venture that the blues bass player would not have even heard of a compact disc, let alone be allowed to sit down next to the white men who were developing them several decades after his night club gigs ended.  Sixty francs - they're dreamin'!

But wait ...... what was this I saw before me....?  Something the Abominable Snowman used as his school satchel?



A hairy backpack. Not a euphemism, but slightly mange-affected and with a distinct aroma of armpit. I tentatively stroked it and decided not to ask the price. Coarse hairs had stubbornly stuck to my fingertips and it took several wipes on my jeans to get rid of them.

Gone with the wind in German?  We all know that der Deutschland is the poetic language of lust, love and longing, much as we all tend to say, 'Jeez I'm starving. I'm really hanging out for some German tonight. Cancel the Thai Palace, let's find us some stuffed sausage!'

This stall owner wasn't even trying to convince us that these wooden shoe molds were worth considering, as they were carelessly tipped out on the ground next to some curtains and motorbike helmets.  The effect was slightly creepy and at ten francs per foot, it was beyond 'dreamin'.



Moving right along to get that sad little scene out of my mind, I noticed a masterpiece:



Nude musicians, Picasso-style, for thirty francs. With a bonus empty banana box to carry it home in. Very, very tempting, as was Shazza Stone, featuring in a 1993 magazine shortly after flashing her map of Tassie to fame:



Still my five franc coin stayed in my pocket, now with a few hairy backpack fibres clinging to it. Would it ever be spent on something unique, something special, something that would find a fond spot in our home?

These were five francs each but looked too disgusting to touch, let alone read the labels or sniff the corks. A shrug was all we got in response to "What kind of wine is it? Quelle age?"  

We suspected that the real answer was Le Ancient Garage.



Still, a glug or eleven of Dodgy plonk might have helped convince me that a blowfish lamp could soften the blunt impact of our IKEA-laden apartment:



....or that a set of photographs depicting eye surgery might look a treat when framed and hung up on the eastern wall of the living room.



Maybe the poor patient was given these menthols to help in their recovery afterwards.



Onto Spanish comedy magazines from the nineteen seventies, with Super Senorita's head concealing part of the title so that I originally read it as 'El Pus' magazine and was reluctant to open the pages.



It must be said that a big part of brocanting is the rummaging, especially in neglected boxes of assorted junk. It is there that silver jugs, rare saucers and vintage medical equipment can sometimes be found.  

This box of old mice and cords didn't scream out that usual siren song, however.  Dust, desperation and despair was more like it.



Jenny had already wandered off and found some terrific pewter plates with very intricate inlays on them, hand engraved and dating from the 1920s.  With her halting French, she managed to convince this top-hatted fella to drop the price.



He had some pretty unique and genuinely antique pieces for sale, but the ambience was made slightly challenging by the death metal blasting out of the speakers in the open doors of his van.  Jenny's sign language possibly proved more effective than her spoken French.

Stop the search...... could this be something I put away for Love Chunks, I wondered.  A turn right sign and a yellow bike frame?

Er no.

And this world weary chick agreed with me.



Here it was, finally! THE piece that would make our Allen-Key Apartment a home. A quirky one perhaps, but an individual one.... Tacky, funny, furry and grotesque - flea market perfection.

Yes. This was where my five francs was going to be spent!  A triple-legged lamp stand!



One hundred and fifty? Was monsieur quite sure?  No, I didn't want to take a look at single cow horn night light as a forty franc alternative, so I was on my way....

....to finding some real art. Art done by the people, for the people.



Well, blind people perhaps.

If the box of Commodore 64-era computer equipment for sale wasn't optimistic enough, we came to these - unloved remotes for five francs each.

Nope, couldn't do it. My coin stayed with me for another hour until I found the complete works of Jane Austen crammed into one bulging paperback - in English - for two francs and a cup of coffee for three.

Four hours of fun for five francs. I'm starting to love living in this bewildering, slightly odd, tiny little city.