Car Boot Sale

Young Joe

This is a re-post of a blog I posted  on my old site just over three years ago.  I just happened to think about him, hoping he was okay  and wondering  how he was getting on. He was such a lovely little lad.  I hope he's growing up into a fine young man.  Haven't been up to Chirk car boot  sales for quite a while.

 'August Bank Holiday Sunday and another day for clearing out the tool shed! The alarm went off at 2.15 am and we were on the road again by 3. Aren't the mornings so much darker now? We pitched on our usual spot and waited for the day to break. The wind was cutting and it was perishingly cold outside.

The Travelling family we've met on several occasions before, pulled up on the opposite side of the road to us. Isn't it interesting watching people unload! You'll never guess the contents of their stall! First of all T drove up in an ambulance - no not the model kind - the real thing this was! In front of  his stall he placed two alabaster Venus sculptures and three PC World purple plastic pull-a-long shopping baskets on wheels. There were various entranklements and two green vintage Mini doors. His son, a little lad of about eight years old followed Dad around and whirled his little LED torch in the air and then proceeded to shine it under his chin and pull horror faces. After a while little Joe ( I gathered his name was Joe when his mother hollered , "Joe put  yer shoes on your right feet!" to which he promptly took no notice and proceeded to make his way over to our stall, laces trailing behind him and shoes at quarter to three!)
"I'll help you to set up," he offered enthusiastically.
 "Perhaps Your Dad could do with a hand?"
"Ach me Dad's unloaded most of it already!"

Joe was my companion for most of the day. He confided, " Me Dad said I wasn't to pinch anything off your stall 'cos you're his friends and he'd give me a good hiding if I did!"
Phew, that's a relief. The usual chastisement is for getting caught!" Little Joe was shivering under his thin t-shirt and flimsy fleece. I wondered whether to offer him a blanket out of the van to put round him. However he trotted off and re-appeared some few minutes later wearing a  grey GAP thicker fleece.
"A woman down the field gave me this for nothing."
He certainly looked more comfortable and she obviously had the same tender mothering instincts as me. He showed me what he'd bought! A red plastic jelly-like 'splat' ball with a little pink and white plastic whale inside.
"I could throw this at the side of your van and it would stick"
"Perhaps that wouldn't be a very good idea. What if you hurt the whale? Is he your pet?"
He told me the whale's name was "Free Willie," so he'd obviously seen the film at some time or other. However Willie did break free before long when young Joe stuck his finger nail through the plastic and Willie disappeared somewhere in the grass. Non-plussed he turned his attention to my bucket of sweet peas and buried his nose in the bunches of flowers.
"Corr them smell nice!"
"You like those do you!"
The bucket of sweet peas were beginning to look a bit flattened and worse for wear so I asked Joe if he'd like to take a bunch for his mum. That was a good idea. I tie each  bunch with raffia and create a little vase for each out of a plastic bag with enough water in for people to transport them home in one piece. Young Joe promptly turned his bunch of flowers upside down to see if the water would run out - which it did. But he was so delighted and breathed in the fragrance as he trotted off to his mum across the road.'

My O/H saw Little Joe, few months ago. He's grown. He was asking where I was. O/H said that I'd gone to church. And he said quite concernedly, 'Has she gone to see the Pope.'

'No, he was too busy today.'