New Business Strategy?

Who am I kidding?
I have been trying to tidy up, get organised, clear my stock room and arrange my armoires. I still haven't finished but I did realise that I should buy less and concentrate on smaller items. They would be easier to carry and store. So, newly organised and armed with my new strategy I set off on my buying trip this weekend.

 Look what happened!
First, I visited a friend who has just opened an antique shop in a nearby town. He called me to say he had kept some textiles for me from a chateau clearance. As he has no interest in textiles he keeps everything for me and I never know what it will be like. This time it was fabulous.

 

There is a stack of huge velvet chateau drapes waiting to be photographed. They were so heavy that I did something awful to my back and was unable to get in the car for a while, luckily I know what to do and it passed fairly quickly, otherwise I would have still been standing in the car park trying to look nonchalant.  Well worth it though as there is an equally large mound of linens. But they are not just any old linens (and in France that can be pretty special) These are rare.

They are embroidered with a nine pointed crown indicating that they belonged to a Count.

And the crown on these shows they belonged to a Marquis. 

One of the table cloths is over 18 feet long.

Quel joie! These really are "chatelaine-chic".

I also visited a couple of vide greniers where the streets were brimming with good natured buyers and sellers enjoying the hot Autumn sunshine beneath intense blue skies.

As usual there was a wide variety of things to see from plastic toys to carved volcanic rock gatepost finials.

And to eat, these are sausages cooked in the remains of the crushed grapes in the heat of the 'alambic' the mobile still that travels round the local villages to distill a powerful local 'eau de vie' called 'gnôle'. The cooking aromas are quite heady.

I think this is the nicest Autumn I have ever known.