A Field In England (7/7/13)

I'd never been to a car boot sale before.

J had wanted to do one for a while; clear the rubbish from the loft and the cupboard under the stairs (which is still referred to as PontyPandy, as Tom decided that was where Postman Pat's fictional village was located when he was three and on a major Postman Pat kick), make a few bob from it rather than just lashing it all.

J's mum was also up for the idea, for very similar reasons.

I had NO. DESIRE. WHATSOEVER. to ever do a car boot sale. I made my intentions very clear on this point. "Do you realise how I spend my life? I spend my life selling people stuff, do you really think I'm getting up at five o'clock on my day off so that I can sell different people different stuff? You and your mum can do it, I'm not. Ever"

But I do like the idea of clearing the loft. Get a bit of floor space back, be able to get at my vinyl, get at my comics. And we could clear the study out a bit, turn it into the office/workspace it's supposed to be - one end business like for J, the other end mine with significantly more guitars.

So somehow, on Thursday, I decided that we should do it. And somehow we decided that we should do it this week, J's cousin P (nobody in this family has full names and J actually calls P 'P' anyway) -and her husband Gaz were going this weekend so we'd go with them, learn the ropes, that kind of thing.

I spent Thursday sorting the loft, pulling out old books, old DVDs, old clothes, anything saleable with no sentimental value. And as I did, the day turned from grey and mild to a point where it began to herald the mini heatwave that we've now got. And it got warmer. And warmer. To a sauna-esque level. I spent the afternoon heading up and down a ladder, lathered in sweat (there you go, that image is yours now, you can keep it)

And to what end?

We got up this morning at 4.45. That's a Sunday morning, getting up at a time with a 4 in it. I assumed that I must be going on holiday because no other explanation for this state of affairs would be satisfactory.

We rendezvoused in the car park of the local Aldi (a safe meeting point, the police would be unlikely to assume that you were out dogging in an Aldi car park) and headed for Banks near Southport where everything went well until we got to the entrance to the field.

We had three cars, a mini convoy all our own, with the idea of all parking together and setting up the stalls across all three, stretch out and display our wares in a vaguely commercial fashion. I may be off work but I'm damned if I won't merchandise correctly. Unfortunately the 'lady' (and I use the term in the loosest possible manner) in the lane next to me had other ideas. She pulled in between me and J in the gap left by me stopping to pay the guy on the entrance (which J had already done) and stayed there. By the time I parked up J and her mum had already explained the problem to her. And she was having none of it.

I started to speak to her, J told me "it's no use, she won't move"
"Any particular reason?" I asked
"It's too much hassle" she replied.

Too. Much. Hassle. At 6 am, it was too much hassle to pull out, let me park behind my wife, mother in law and cousins and pull in behind me again. An action that would take maybe 30 seconds given that NEITHER OF US HAD UNLOADED A SODDING THING AS YET.

So we were separated and I stood at my car and didn't sell any of the books that I had after moving all the clothes down to J and her mum. And I tweeted my complaints to the world and I moaned on Facebook. I whined in a 21st century manner.

Eventually I decided on an honesty box policy, wrote a little note "take a book and leave what you think it's worth" with an empty cup for my takings and left the boot open. £2.40 I made and I'll tell you something; you can't even give '50 Shades of Grey' away now. Which reaffirms some of my faith in humanity.

Six and a half hours we were there and after paying to get in we cleared just over £100 and got rid of some stuff that wasn't going anywhere otherwise. And some decent people got some decent stuff for a decent price. And some less pleasant people haggled in a less pleasant manner. And I've still got a car full of stuff that I'm taking the Jospice on Tuesday, hopefully they can make something off them though I'm going to have to clean the birdshit off my suit jacket sleeve first. Birds, it appears, hate me.

So? Was it worth it? Got rid of some stuff that would still be sitting in the loft (and PontyPandy) otherwise and made some money.

But. Two of us at six hours each this morning. Four hours of my day on Thursday. Two hours of both of us yesterday, sorting and pricing. 20 hours. £5 per hour. Not even minimum wage.

And the early start killed both of us to the point that we slept the afternoon away. Saw the first two games of Andy Murray aiming to make history and woke up again in time for match point (the first match point, I saw another 15 minutes of tennis after that).

Was it worth it?

Was it buggery.

Never again.