We are slowly settling into this beautiful apartment and making it our own. As I predicted from looking at the on-line photos of French apartments, there was a surfeit of uncomfortable chairs and little space for putting books, files etc. We came upon the local auction house by accident and decided with some trepidation to try out a sale. About 50 mostly middle-aged people crowded into the room. David, who has more experience at auctions than I do, found the auctioneer rather bland by Canadian standards. However, he did make a few jokes and berate people for their low bids. As at any auction, some items that seemed worthless kept going higher and higher (a small Chinese pot) and others (a lovely chest of drawers with a marble top) went for practically nothing. I was unable to determine how people were indicating their bids so my anxiety rose the closer we came to the items we wanted. Finally--the furniture and I hoped that our limit of 40€ would get us one of the chairs. The auctioneer began at 40€, I hesitated, put up my hand but it seemed he had already made it to 50!!! David kindly said he thought there had been another bid at 40. I think I bid against myself! In any case, it was mine and the staff announced to the room that “Mme. Jeanette” had successfully won the bid. The “table simple en bois”, at 30€ was ours too. Then, as David said, we became part of the “street theatre” of the city as we walked home carrying first the table and then, the chair. At times on the narrow sidewalks there was hardly room for us and our prizes as we negotiated past parked cars, families with strollers and the cafés terrasses.
The local equivalent of a garage sale is the more elegantly named vide grenier (empty the attic). Unsure of what we might find, we made our way to the harbour early one Sunday morning for a sale that was to begin at 8 AM. We were the only customers; vendors were still setting up--another French message to us to slow down and leave North American life behind!Our spoils of that day--a brass lamp.
A few weeks ago, we discovered a French Ikea clone, Conforama. We bought two small cupboards, both of them in boxes. Upon opening the one, we found large scratches on the doors. Returning all the pieces would mean another expensive taxi ride so one of our French friends persuaded them to let us bring only the damaged pieces. We arrived at the store fortified with new vocabulary and courage for what we thought would be the fight ahead. "Pas de problème,” smiled the clerk. In fact, he wanted to give us back the damaged pieces as well as the new ones. David couldn't resist--you never know when you might need a piece of wood--so we staggered home, this time on the bus, with the two new pieces and one of the old ones. Now our belongings are neatly put away, David and I both have little office corners and we feel like this is our place. We are chez nous.
