There was a lady selling her own jam. We bought a jar of raspberry while she had great fun explaining why my strawberry went wrong (see 17th June). As it turned out, her raspberry had good flavour but was rather more runny than it should of been. There was also a degree of fakery in that she had gone to the bother of putting proper paper covers on the pots, fastening them with rubber bands, but with the paper covers on top of the screw top lids, in our case for the pot of marmalade that it had once been. Perhaps food hygiene regulations forbid the use of paper covers unsupported by proper covers. We associated to a yarn from my childhood whereby the company that manufactured the fake pips (made from pine) used to improve the appearance of raspberry jam, to make it look as if is was actually made from raspberries, was deemed to be an essential industry and exempted from the conscription during the second world war, it being thought important to keep up appearances during that difficult time. Also to the turnips which my father used to claim were the main ingredient of factory jam, like that made just up the road (at the time) by Chivers, quite unlike the stuff he used to make. Used to make, I may say, in a solid copper jam pan which always ended up glowing clean and golden. Who is to say how much copper we were ingesting as a result? Does that explain everything?
No jigsaws of my sort, that is to say arty, 500 pieces and not more than £2.
There was also a very engaging refreshment caravan, about the size of a large transit van, which was painted in a amateur if talented way with scenes of the tropics, including dusky maidens in bikinis. Both the painting and the van looked as it they dated from the seventies of the last century.
Of a good size for a quick visit on a Sunday morning before one got onto the main business of the day; one could get around the thing in an hour or so.
We went away with the thought that the Midsomer people ought to move on from village fêtes to village car boot sales. All the same fun to be had but rather more likely; people actually do car booters, while fêtes are nearly extinct.
Next stop on the buying & selling front was auction put on by Hose Rhodes Dickson (http://www.hose-rhodes-dickson.co.uk/) round the back of Brading High Street, with them planning to do 423 lots with average estimate around £33 in one sitting. I guess they would need to be pretty brisk to make it pay. We only managed the view rather than the sale, at which there was a fair showing, mainly of much the same sort of people as you get at car booters and second hand book fairs. Three lots caught my eye. First, a collapsible top hat, of a variety mentioned by Osbert in connection with his time with the Guards at the Tower of London. Far too small for me. Second, something called a galvanometer, a splendid piece of old-speak scientific instrument, all brass and mahogany. Would have looked rather good in the study if I could have found room for it. Third, and best of all, was a glass topped & fronted draper's display cabinet. Nicely made of beech in the fifties with 25 smoothly running drawers arranged so that you can see into the top of all of them from the customer side. A wonderful thing for a collection of small objects, perhaps netsuke (see May 28th 2012 in the other place), but the estimate was £250-300, it would not fit in the car and it was not clear where we would put it or what we would put in it. So, sadly, we had to desist.
As it happened we came across another sale a few days later in Shanklin, put on by another lot, but there were very fierce signs saying that there was no viewing on the day of the sale, which it was, so we didn't.
Furthermore, when we got home on that day, we were just taking our tea when half a dozen or more police vehicles turned up, complete with the sort of police men & women who wear funny jackets and baseball caps rather than proper uniforms. They were there for around half an hour, but we never got to find out what they were after. A bit of cannabis being grown in the waste ground behind this particular row of houses (the same waste land which houses the tree which housed the crows. See 19th July)?
PS: just found that even government sites are now doing advertising. Is there no escape? See http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/outbuildings/.
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