Battered, Bruised And Beaten At Battersea Boot Sale

Today I endured one of those quintessentially English experiences. You know the ones I mean, like queuing for the bus in the rain only to watch the bus sail past as it is already too crowded to take on any new passengers, or enjoying the smelly armpits on a crowded Tube on a Summer's afternoon...  stuff like that. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today I was initiated into the phenomenon that is the Car Boot Sale.

And oh boy, was I underprepared for the onslaught that ensued. I had been to a boot sale before, in fact I went to one with Mal and Ken when I first arrived, and I had also been to several computer fairs with them, so I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Oh boy was I wrong.

Before I can go into all the gory details, I'd best give some background to the decision to actually participate in a boot sale. You see, Nicole is moving home and Jane has found somewhere cheaper to live, so from 25th December I am officially homeless, as I didn't want to have the responsibility of trying to find new housemates when I would be in Australia anyway. They would move in whilst I was away, and I would be more than a bit worried about strangers in my house around my stuff, if you know what I mean. Plus its really expensive at our place anyway, so it's time I found somewhere cheaper. Of course, this means downsizing - as prior to Le Villa Wavertree, I had lived by myself in Chateau La Hackbridge, thus necessitating purchases of furniture, cooking utensils etc, and therefore accruing a whole load of STUFF. In order to live more cheaply I'm going to need to move into a shared house, hopefully already set up with this stuff, so it's time to get rid of a lot of it. It's sure not going to fit into a small room.

The UK is not as set up as Oz with regards to the Trading Post. Sure, they have their 'Loot' magazine - but there's a lot of whackos out there and I wouldn't feel comfortable about them coming over and looking at my furniture. Then there's the 'Gumtree' - clientele mostly Aussies and Kiwis - well I put some stuff on there, but no joy. So that left the last resort, the Pommy version of the garage sale - the car boot sale.

Now these mostly take place on a Sunday (I think there may be some on a Saturday though), usually in school car parks and other buildings / open lots which are not used on the weekend. Jane did all the leg work and phoned up the one at Battersea Technical College, which is apparently a very good one, and we got ourselves a plot booked for Sunday 11th, at a cost of £12. They told us to arrive at 12.45pm and the sale would open at 1pm. I was a bit skeptical, as it would only give us 15 minutes to set up, but went along with it, because we didn't exactly have any other options, now did we.

Well as I said before, it's been some time since I've been to a boot sale, and as Jane and I both had things to sell, I thought it best if we price up our items with coloured post it notes. I kind of envisaged the two of us sitting happily on a couple of chair behind a table, people casually strolling by, looking at our merchandise, negotiating the price with us - and we would calmly write on the post-it the new price, stick the post-it in a container with the money and later on work out how much we each made. Pretty good idea, I thought.

Sunday approached and the weather looked grim. This was not aided by the fact that I have been suffering for several days now with a heavy duty cold - laryngitis, sniffles, sinusitis, and a huge hacking cough. So I wasn't feeling the best about the boot sale, but it's the only weekend we can do it, so we loaded up the car and set off. Nicole had given me a little warning beforehand - she said that we would do the most selling within the first 10 minutes and that it would be to other stall holders, as they would scout around to see what they could get cheap and mark up for their own stall. She also said they'd probably swamp us as we were setting up. Ok, I thought, I can handle that.

Oh no we couldn't. We pulled up to our alloted spot, got out the car, and the minions descended upon us like vultures on a rotting carcass. I hadn't even made it to the boot before some guy was screaming at me "Any mobile phones? Any mobile phones? Any Playstation?". "Go ask her" I said, indicating Jane, as I knew she had some. So I opened the boot to start unloading, and no joke, people started pulling things out of my car and looking at them. They were screaming for the TV, for the computer monitor, for mobile phones, for Jane's computer (she was offloading her old Mac), and they were pushing and shoving, and I was being pushed away from the car. And that's when it got nasty.

Picture this: Jane is over by the passenger door, swamped by people bidding on her computer, playstation, you name it - I'm trying to unload the boot, being pushed away by people scrambling to see what we have - one guy takes out Jane's sky tv box, another the computer monitor - I'm trying to keep an eye on them - then I see one guy's got my old camcorder and asking the price for that. He wasn't keen on the price I gave him, so he put it on top of one of the boxes I'd unloaded. Someone else is now crowding around looking at my garden chairs, I'm trying to keep an eye on everything, people are shouting, screaming, pushing - and then one bloke asks me if the guy had paid for my camcorder. What guy? Yep, you guessed it, some guy walked off with my camcorder. "He's just over there," the other guy says. "Where?" I hadn't even seen him, and I was off wandering around. But of course, I never saw him. The blighter walked off with a perfectly good Canon camcorder which originally cost me £300. And I had committed the cardinal sin - I had left my post - so Jane couldn't handle all the people crowding us as I was looking for my camera. I lost my Star Wars electronic game (a real collector's item), my computer speakers and my camcorder.

The afternoon was therefore wrecked for me. My top selling items had been nicked, and no-one was interested in my coffee table, or my dining table, or even my external modem. Jane made a real killing, she sold her playstation, a TV, her mac, her video recorder, her DVD, mobile phones, DVDs... you name it, if she had it, it went. Fairly. Not nicked.

Me, I managed to offload a little bit of stuff, but not all that much. Coupla books, coupla CDs, coupla DVDs, but that's about all. One bloke, looking through my CDs, asked if I had any Jazz. "Sure, here's some Herbie Hancock," I replied, showing him the disk. "Never heard of him" was the response. He only wanted - get this - Kenny G! That's the guy's extent of jazz knowledge! Oy ve. Meanwhile, Jane, being somewhat obscure in musical and movie taste (compared to mine) - managed to offload a whole heap more than me. Just goes to show you what sort of people go to these boot sales... either that, or I should worry about my taste in music...

I was feeling pretty low about the whole thing, and about the only saving grace was that Agnieszka had been in the neighbourhood, popped in to see us and plugged us with fresh, steaming hot coffee (oh and a yummy muffin!). Very welcome on such a cold, miserable, overcast afternoon. We'd been there about 2 hours when the heavens, which had been threatening for so long, finally opened up, so we cut our losses (again, mostly mine), packed up and headed home.

Final tally: Jane, most things sold, only 1 thing nicked (a hat) =£400+ after costs. Me, most things unsold, several things nicked (worth £300+) = £70 after costs.

In the words of Queen Victoria - WE ARE NOT AMUSED!!