Battersea Car Boot Sale

On Sunday The Old Man and I decided to go to the Battersea Car Boot Sale, gawd, what a palaver that turned out to be.

The boot sale is celebrated for its array of bargains, vintage clothing, the number of stalls and for being lie-in friendly (it doesn't open until 13.30pm). Having read a couple of reviews of it (what? I was bored at work one evening), it became apparent that those in the know turn up in the 12 hour and not the 13 hour. So we rocked up rather earlier than we had meant to - 12.52.

The Old Man started complaining at 12.53 about being hungry and in need of immediate sustenance. Having read the reviews, of course, I was hesitant about leaving the already massive queue of three people to go and find something to eat, so I sent him off on his own with orders to bring something back.

So, left to my own devices, I started biting my fingernails and trying to see what was going in beyond the gates, where the stalls were. You can actually get in earlier in the day - but for the privilege, you have to pay several pounds, and although I was itching to get in there, The Old Man was too much of a tightwad to allow it. A lady joined the queue behind me, standing just that little bit too close - little did I know that this was largely due to what would become necessity in the dog eat dog world of car boot sale queues.

Shortly afterwards - approximately 12.58, a small family joined us in the queue. Well, not so much in the queue, but at the edge of it - or more precisely, in a perfect spot to jump to the front of the queue of us four honest waiters (people waiting I mean - not waiters in a career-redirection sort of way). This is when the bloke in front of me in the queue started mumbling in my general direction, getting gradually more confident in his mumbling, to the point where he was looking me right in the eye and mumbling.

His mumblings were, predictably, about the small family in push-in position. Something more than slightly racist, which I declined to respond to, so he lost interest. At which point, the lady behind me takes her opportunity to let me know that the small family are going to push in and that it's despicable.

I had been a little suspicious of the man in front of me to be honest, though I had not known to suspect the lady behind me. Really it should have been obvious by her snuggling up to me when there was no one behind her in the queue. By this time, it was around 13.06 and I was desperate for The Old Man to come back and save me. Which he did not do until 13.12. At which point the crazy man in front of us turned and started mumbling at us again, rather louder, interspersed with crazed wide-open-mouthed laughter.

I don't know why I thought The Old Man's return would be any sort of saviour, because, predictably, he turned around and pretended to be looking at something terribly interesting off in the distance somewhere, leaving me to have to nod, smile and "hmmm" at the crazy man. Typical.

An Aside
When we get people coming to the door, trying to sell us tea towels or monthly direct debits or god, and The Old Man answers, he doesn't do his best to politely send them away. Instead, he tells them "Well, I'm not interested, but hang on a second, just let me get my girlfriend, she might be interested". I find this wholly unfunny, being a rather more sensitive sort than him, it usually takes me some time to find a polite and sympathetic way of telling them that I'm afraid I'm not interested either, but thanks very much (my explanation usually includes some sort of boiling pan or oven to turn off). So as you can see, no real surprises that The Old Man also abandoned me to the Crazy Mumbler and Snuggling Lady.

Now I don't overly mind queuing, there's plenty I can daydream about to while away the time. What does bother me though, is the people I am forced to queue with. Not least The Old Man, who by 13.13 was complaining about how long he had to queue.

As the queue got longer, the woman behind snuggled up more and moaned incessantly about those pushing in - at one point, going over and telling them their place was at the back of the queue, getting mightily miffed when two of them did not heed her warning. She came back to the queue to let us know that she had done her bit, now someone else had to go and tell the stragglers, "but maybe it doesn't bother you..." she said.

Well, in honesty, crazy lady, it doesn't overly. It's two people, we'll still all get in. But being surrounded by tetchy people tends to make me feel tetchy too. So it was with very little patience that I faced The Old Man's complaints about being bored of waiting, being cold (it's March, he dressed for May - I have little sympathy) and finally, about there being nothing to see once we got in.

He wasn't entirely wrong about that - however there were one or two good bits that I was prepared to bargain for. However on production of each item, The Old Man announced we simply don't have space or requirement for my well found items of beauty/style. Then, to top it all off, it started raining, which I saw as a bonus - surely the stall owners would be more likely to take a cheeky offer if they knew everyone was leaving. The Old Mad did not see it this way - what with being coatless and bored.

P.S. Sorry for such a long post...