The autumn brocante takes place in Rauzan next weekend (10th – 13th October) which makes me feel worse than ever about the mountains of spare furniture in our barns. I really should be turning all this “stuff” into hard currency and the brocante is the perfect opportunity.

Brocante is a strange concept somewhere between a jumble sale and antiques market. Until recently I’ve always laughed at just how much the French will charge for what can appear to you or me as total rubbish – rusty clothes stands, incomplete chess sets, on one occasion the Badger found an Amstrad word processor, not even a PC, which was marked up at 60 euros. Maybe it has antique value now? And these gems sit alongside 17th Century mirrors at 3000 euros a go.

There are no particular categories and the exhibitors seem more interested in setting out and eating an extravagant picnic lunch which stretches from the “apero” at about 11.30 right through the day until about 4pm. It makes you feel exceedingly awkward about interrupting their meal to ask after the price of anything. I have a feeling that anyone who tried active sales techniques could clean up.

I’m thinking that we should have a rummage through Badger’s barn and see what we find in there that we could sell. I wonder what the local community would pay for a four poster bed from Lombok. And how scratchy the Badger will be if after setting it up at the Brocante it doesn’t then sell? Unless I make him a decent picnic and let him lie on the bed and model it all day?

This needs some thinking out!