The glorious sunshine and the anticipation of finding the Thursday Brocante on the Rive Gauche promised to make this morning a great one. The station square was sunny and bright as I headed for the metro station and my intended destination of ‘Joffre Mutualité’.

The metro stop for the brocante is the first one after crossing the Seine, and it took a few moments and a stop to ask directions before I came across the covered market.

…but I knew I was onto a good thing when I came across a multitude of white vans parked haphazardly on the side of the road – when there are this many vans in one spot it can only mean one thing… Brocante!

Full of anticipation I went to see what was on offer…

I have a bit of a thing for old french gilt mirrors – but at 80€ I had to ‘reflechir un peu’.

I couldn ‘t resist this ‘still life’ and was quite taken by the ‘fishy’ picture.

I was just sneakily taking this photo, having asked all the other stall-holders for permission, and frankly just getting a little too blasé for my own good, when a deep voice thundered from behind me,

“ça va coûter 10€ pour prendre un photo…’  (that’ll be 10€ to take the photo)

and lo and behold if it wasn’t my old friend ‘the second hand bookstore’ owner! Needless to say  we exchanged greetings and then I carried on regardless before wandering off to see what else was on offer…

Sometimes there are wonderful monogrammed old linens, but this time they were sadly disappointing.

What I did buy today however was some lovely Toile.

I feel some curtains coming on…