This is a new book from The Little Bookroom that was also released a couple of weeks ago. It’s called The Flea Markets of France and is a great guide for finding fabulous brocantes around the country. I was asked to create the cover! That’s my handiwork you see above. I collected things that I had bought at brocantes, and lay them out on an old pretty map of France. The fab book design team at The Little Bookroom made the label for the title. What do you think?

In more exciting news, both my book Paris: Made By Hand and this one, The Flea Markets of France were featured in the latest issue of British House & Garden magazine, with special mention about the covers!

The article reads “The covers of most travel guides are predictably pedestrian…so when you come across jackets as charmingly whimisical as those of Paris: Made By Hand and The Flea Markets of France, you foresee something different, more personal, within them.”

I’m chuffed to bits…

Brocante is the French word for flea market. And the French love flea markets – you will find brocantes all over France, all time of year. They are just one of the many reasons why I love France and her occupants (by now you are also well aware that I love her for her food and wine). When I was living in Paris last year, going to brocantes were a weekly treat. At the beginning of each week I would research what brocantes were on within the city as well as in the surrounding suburbs, and plan the weekend around it. I found so many antiques and vintage wares, and on many occasions my arms would be so overloaded that I could barely get on the metro back to the apartment. There is no doubt I am addicted to brocantes, and now whenever French Boy and I travel back to France, we instinctively find the nearest brocante to explore, and last weekend’s sojourn was no exception. Sure I lamented over what I didn’t claim as mine (read and weep with me here), but below are a few of the treasures that I did claim. First, a set of vintage number stamps…

Then came this gorgeous terrine. And below, a set of perfectly kept French cotton napkins…

…We also found a tin box of antique wooden bowling pins that are specifically from the Jura area. They were quite a find and I will show you once I have cleaned them up and find a place for them in the boat. Also among my collection of brocante finds were some vintage doilies which I am using to make something (another show + tell to come no doubt).

I adore re-using, re-thinking, and re-styling oldwares, and finding such things in flea markets is just the best fun!

It was a misty drive back through the French countryside… The fog was thick and heavy, revealing some rather eerie tree creatures along the way. I was able to capture a few with my camera from behind the safety of the car window – they were so spooky, I did not dare open my window to get a closer look, just in case one of them stretched their ghostly branches toward me and snapped me out of my warm comfy seat.. to get a really good feel for this ghoulish ride, click here to open a new window for the soundtrack to this post, then come back here to scroll through the images below… happy halloween my dear readers…

…as you know I snuck away to France last weekend. It is the same place in fact, that I took you to when I first started this blog at Christmas time last year, do you recall? (Click here to see it back then in it’s wintry glory.) This time it was of course Autumn in this special place in the east of France, and all the leaves on the trees were turning magnificent shades of gold, orange and red. On my way there I saw a billboard by the forest that said…

Plongez au coeur du poéme vert…

Which means “Let your heart dive into a poem of green”. How beautiful. It was the perfect way to describe how I felt about this wonderful place (had this billboard read my mind?)…

I found myself writing my own little simple poem…

I love these Autumn trees
with their paper-thin golden leaves
that flutter in the breeze…

I asked French Boy the names of the trees in the forest as we drove to our destination, and he rattled off the following names: Le Chêne (oak), Le Hêtre (beech), Charme, Acacia, Charmille, Bouleau (white birch) and Peuplier. It all sounds so much more magical en français…

There are many things I love in this area, but I especially love the farm houses – each one has it’s own vegetable garden, and often it’s own cattle, sheep, or horses…

It was a brief stay, but just enough time to go for an afternoon stroll, eat and drink the local victuals, go market scouring, and collect a trunk-full of wine and cheese to bring home. Next week I will show you my brocante finds from the trip, and this weekend we are hosting a wine and cheese night to share our Jura specialities with friends. But before I sign off here for the week, I have one more post for you from the trip…

(PS I love this song with this post)

(PPS But now I also love this song with it too. And here it is live.)

…I saw a man, perched precariously on the edge of the arm of an outdoor bench, with all limbs crossed, reading a comic while drinking an espresso and smoking a joint.

Amsterdam never ceases to impress me.

Meanwhile, le petit bateau now reeks of fromage. I may or may not have bought a few hundred kilos of the stuff yesterday. I may or may not have bought (too) many fabulous bottles of fine French wine. I may or may not have sunk this boat.

whoops.