Bear with me. I understand that this probably sounds like an unlikely subject for a blog from me but all will become clear. To those of you not in the UK, a car-boot sale is where people turn up in their car (or a van) to a field or big open area somewhere with their boot full of stuff they don’t want any more in the hope that someone will buy it. The seller’s pay a fee to sell their stuff and the buyer’s pay a small fee to browse. The fees go towards the administration costs of the people organising the event.

Car-boot sale anyone?

I am writing this on a Sunday and there is usually a car-boot sale on a Sunday near where we live unless the weather is bad. My husband loves a car-boot sale. Me not so much. He loves rummaging around in boxes of old tools and generally looking at old stuff. I think we have enough stuff in our house and we don’t need anymore. As we walked the dog together today I got thinking about the car-boot sale and those thoughts have turned into this blog.

Within 2 years of meeting my now husband, he sold his house and moved in with me, his mum died and my dad died and we ended up clearing both houses. So we had a lot of stuff as I’m sure you can imagine. We ended up with a garage and a storage unit full of furniture, pots, pans, crockery, glassware, bed linen, knick-knacks. All sorts of things. As we were dealing with the estates of each parent we felt we had to try and make whatever money we could so in 2005 we embarked on car-boot sales. Our first was a real eye opener. We borrowed a van and packed it with as much stuff as we could fit in it and headed off to a sale a little distance away that we’d heard was a good one. It was a popular one so you had to be there early to ensure getting a pitch. I am not brilliant in the mornings so it was an effort to be waiting in the queue by 6.30am. We took breakfast and coffee to have while we were waiting and it seemed quite fun at this stage.  The gates opened at 7.00am and we parked up where we were told to and started to unload. We’d only just opened the van doors when people appeared beside us asking what we had, watching as we pulled out boxes and rifling through them before we could unpack them. I was so shocked I didn’t really know what to do and I was desperately trying to keep an eye on what was going on. Eventually we got it all out, unpacked and arranged it on the tables and blankets we’d brought. Then we waited for buyers to come and snap all the bargains we had to offer. Well that’s what we thought would happen but in reality it was an exercise in patience as we waiting for people to come to our pitch and then beat our prices down as low as they could. By around 12.00 when it was wrapping up we were exhausted. We’d made about £300 which was brilliant but we had a lot of stuff left. A lot.

We kept on going, getting up early on Sunday mornings and trying different car-boot sales to sell it all. Each one started with the same frenzied mob clambering to see what we had to sell (one time a man even climbed in the van and I found my voice that day and told him (in very clear language!) to get out). Then came the waiting and the haggling then the pack up at the end. It was this process that I was thinking about this morning. The filling the van each time, full of optimism that we would sell most of it, keeping our spirits up while we were there (no-one buys if you look miserable) and the packing up again what’s left at the end and dragging it all home. Then doing the same again next time, and next time and next time. Each time we sold a bit more so we took a bit less home but we kept going for months until eventually we gave what was left to the local charity shop.

 What did we Learn?

It felt like an exercise in resilience, patience and hope. It was of our own making and not that tough so low-level resilience really but we were exercising our stickability muscle by repeating it over and over again, by being patient with the buyers and hopeful each time that we would sell more. We just kept at it and slowly but surely we made progress. We could easily have given up after the first one, as no-one expected us to keep going back, but we were committed to doing the best we could. It was an interesting time, looking back, but I’m not that keen on repeating it.

The other thought I had as we walked this morning was about how my husband and I came to a plan this morning that meant we both got to do what we wanted without one of us feeling resentful because they were doing what the other one wanted. He got to go to the car-boot sale, I got to not go and we met up nearby to walk the dog and have a coffee which is what we both wanted to do. Now this might seem very simple to you reader but for “people-pleaser” me and “only child used to doing what he wants” husband this felt like a big step forward. Slowly but surely we are moving along this healing journey we’re on together. As I like to say “Every day is a school day”.

August 2021