Low life | 17 August 2017

On Sunday morning we went, Oscar and I, to a vide grenier in the ancient, picturesque Provençal village. Vide grenier means ‘open attic sale’ — which is the French equivalent of our car boot sale. Oscar had €20 with which to buy homecoming gifts for his Mum and her partner, and his three half-siblings. The stalls were set out under the shade trees of the village boulodrome. Ex-dustman Grandad loves browsing in skips and charity shops and at car boot sales and he was in seventh heaven.

At the first stall, I was very drawn to an old hand-tinted framed print of two peasants standing in a furrowed field. The sun was setting, their shadows were long. The man had his hat in his hand and was thanking God for their harvest, a pathetic basket of potatoes. His wife’s head was also humbly bowed in prayer. My first instinct was to laugh, my second was to mourn, my third was to ask how much.