Sunday Brocante -- Dives Sur Mer

Wow! It's been one of those weeks that feels like a month!  It started with celebrating July 4th (French-style!) and moved on to our family adventure to attend stage six of the 'Tour de France'  and finished with a few wonderful evenings BBQing in the garden and celebrating 'Petite Filles' SIX month birthday!

Oh--what's missing?  Une brocante! Mais oui!---Having endured the mishaps and missed-adventures of the past two weekends--I had high hopes that one of the very large multiple 'vide greniers' in our area would glean some pretty amazing finds!  Admittedly I have been a tiny bit lax in this very, very busy part of the summer...I have neglected my blogs, not listed many items on Etsy, and have even cut-back on my long distance love-fests with friends and family on Facebook. (Seriously. That proves I am busy!)

So I needed a very exciting, treasure producing, happy vibe-y, jam-packed brocante to inject some energy into my weekend and give me the boost to get back to business! And......

 .....did the carefully selected venue in Dives-sur-Mer pay off???

No.

Here's how it went.  Trois enfants and French Guy and I pack into the family roadster (our huge silver Mercedes wagon that I have recently (okay, just now) decided to call Bernadette.  Off we go--about a 45 minute drive to the 'vide grenier' that was supposed to (supposed to) have just under 100 vendors--mixed--the clean-out the attic types, the clean-out the barn types, and the semi-pro van full of the good-stuff brocanters.  It was a mish-mash of.......nothin'.  Not only that, but maybe these folks didn't get their second cuppa-java on this fine morning, because the Frenchies (and the few token Brits) were downright 'ronchon'
that's French for --- snarky.

Now had there been some good-goodies, I could have gotten past that part---mais, non.  But here is where the drama begins---someone else was a teensy-tiny bit ronchon---ma petite fille....and guess who forgot to bring her beloved p-a-c-i-f-i-e-r...?  Okay, I am not pointing fingers here--but let me just say his name starts with an Fr--has a -Guy at the end, with a ench in the middle.......you with me?

But no worries--it is now lunch time, we are all starving, Petite-Fille is working up to a moderate H-O-W-L.....the deux garcons are in a really-really great mood--and said pacifier is most likely on our bed--in our bedroom--at our house......only FORTY-FIVE minutes away!

So the entire family packed back into Bernadette--in desperate search of the one, ONE, pharmacy-de-garde (which on a Sunday is the one pharmacy in the area that is open for 'emergencies') in hopes of buying one precious little pacifier that might save our day!  We found one 7 minutes away--that closed in TEN minutes......

Does this little story have a happy-ending? Sort of.  We purchased the pacifier, which because it was not her 'brand' was refused by Petite Fille, who by then had mellowed out a bit anyway, in search of the pharmacy we had ditched the bland, boring and fruitless vide-grenier.....and we had ended up here.....

.... in the seaside town of Cabourg....not a bad place to land, oui?  The day was saved by a yummy lunch at 'Chez Monique' where French-Guy and I split a bottle of wine and ate 1 kilo each of 'moules-frites'... took a long walk around town with the much more cheery enfants---and drove home a few hours later at which time Petite Fille--reunited with the right brand of pacifier.....took a lovely-long nap.

The End....... almost.  Here are some pictures for you to enjoy...

 The Grand Hotel

 

 

Have a wonderful week mes amis!