French, Indian & Klingon

Art Nouveau tile

 

Well here’s some good news.

The earliest we are able to travel to France and England on our next buying trip is June.  Any stock we find won’t then arrive in Australia until August.  That won’t do.

So we’ve tried an experiment, and through a convoluted means we’ve been able to get some new stock from a couple of French dealers we often buy from and one vintage Indian specialist I’ve bought some great things from. 

It arrived in the country this week and we picked it up on Wednesday.  And yay, it’s great!

It’s not the same as going to Paris ourselves – of course!  And we haven’t got the more unusual things that I have to just stumble across in my travels.  But in terms of many of our “staples”, enamelware, dough troughs, watering cans, various excellent vintage kitchenware, it’s great. 

We haven’t offered a great deal of vintage and antique Indian pieces before (although we’ve kept a few for ourselves), but I’m extremely happy with the items we now have.

Vintage Indian tika boxes

It’s a gamble buying things without seeing them first, but we’ve been buying from these dealers for a long time, I provided photos of the types of things I wanted and some excellent things have arrived.

So this new stock will start being presented from this coming Sunday (15 Feb) at Peregian Beach Market.  It will be great to see you, if you can come.

Meanwhile, there has been a small change to our market-going routine.  We tried Yandina Market – everyone said we should, and we did. 

But here’s the thing - getting up at 3.30am just isn’t natural.  It isn’t.

French blue enamel kitchenware

So although it was a pleasant location, and although we made a profit, we didn’t make sufficient to warrant this kind of imposition.  From now on, at 3.30am on a Saturday morning we shall be snoring, like normal people.  We might start up again in the cooler weather, but we’ll see.

But at least Yandina laid on one last strange person before we left.

She was looking through our vintage French images, and suddenly yelled – yelled – OMG, I LOVE this picture! 

It’s nice when something resonates so strongly with you, isn’t it?  I said.  But I don’t just love this picture, she said, it’s speaking to me. 

That’s nice, I said, thinking she was speaking metaphorically.  You don’t understand, she said, it’s really speaking to me.  In a secret language.  I can hear everything it’s saying.  And then she stood there for a full minute, spouting quite guttural gibberish at me.  Relaying what the picture was saying in its secret language, apparently.

Nice vintage fishing gear

Wow, I said after she had spluttered to a stop, it’s quite a talkative picture, isn’t it?  And I would have thought it would speak to you in French.  Why’s that? she asked.  Because it’s a French picture, I said, so you’d think any secret talking from it straight into your brain would be in French.

But I don’t speak French, she said.  But you speak ….. whatever that was, I noted.  Yes, she said, it’s a secret language, which I understand.   

And then she left.  This amazing picture, which had her literally yelling and talking in tongues, didn’t go home with her.  She tried to get her husband to come and have a look, but he was having none of it and stood a little way along the path, refusing her entreaties to join her.  Can’t say that I blame him.

Later, I realised she had been speaking in Klingon.  She totally was.  Now I’m dead impressed.

Just in time for Easter, a cute bunny mould

You know when we had the shop we were visited by our fair share of people who experienced the world differently (yes, that’s a nice way of saying nutters), but I’m not sure what brings so many to the Markets.

So far not many have descended upon us at Peregian Beach Market, which is just as well because it’s our favourite market and we want to keep it that way.  But when you visit next Sunday, we shall have the following exchange:

You will yell:   Nuqneh!  Gastah nuq?  This is Klingon for Hi! What’s up?

I shall yell back:  Nuqjatlh?  Which is Klingon for Huh?, because you’re clearly a nutter who is yelling at me in Klingon.