Paris Salon 2008

The five-strong South Lambeth Contingent (3 Companions, one Deputy and one Chair of Trustees) is back, happy, exhausted but highly satisfied, from our first experience of The Paris Salon.

The Salon is an Emmaus International event, where we take over the equivalent of Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre for a weekend, spend Saturday setting up our stalls, and sell the items we have gathered over the past months from 9am to 7pm on the Sunday.  It is now an annual tradition in Paris, and highly popular, as we were to find out!

For us, the trip began when we started gathering bric-a-brac weeks ago.  We had been told that teapots were particularly popular, and one of the UK Communities had gathered 100!  Emmaus Bristol lent us their mini-van, Emmaus Gloucester their lorry, Leeds brought their van and the Dover minibus completed the quartet of UK vehicles.  Mega-plaudits are owed to the drivers who had the extra effort on top of the hard work us non-drivers undertook.  Thanks, guys.

For Emmaus UK office, it was a logistical triumph, and I’d like to thank everyone involved, whether there, on the journey or on the stand, for giving me the most amazing weekend of my life.  I enjoyed every aching minute.  (Sorry, I meant waking… didn’t I?)

South Lambeth hosted a dozen visitors from various Communities on Thursday night and we set off at the relatively civilised time of 8.30 on Friday morning, were on the Eurotunnel around 11.30 and arrived in France before midday.  Then there was the long leg to Paris and inevitably we got caught in the rush-hour which, together with an interesting (?) 15-minute diversion round some road works… meant we arrived at our hotel around 6pm.  The hotel was simple, clean and probably comfortable – I can’t honestly say, since I would hardly have noticed if my bed had been made of splintered rocks – I was asleep within 30 seconds of lying on my bed each night!

Up for breakfast at 7.30 next morning (6.30 here…) and off to the Salon at 8.15;  our quartet became a convoy in Paris – at one stage, there were 9 Emmaus vehicles with just one rather self-conscious ‘Meubles de somewhere, shame shame, I’m not an Emmaus van!’ stuck between Emmaus Murcia, Emmaus Iase (Romania), Mossley, Gloucester, Bristol, Lille, etc.   Setting up and unpacking the several tons of bric-a-brac then pricing it took up the full morning, during which one of the Emmaus UK team came and asked if I would like to join a guided tour of Paris;  now, is that an invitation you’d be stoopid to refuse, or what, so I was one of 16 that gratefully accepted.  An ex-student of our Chair of Trustees,  Parisian-born, had joined us and bravely offered to take us around her lovely city;  should she ever need a career change, we can willingly provide her with a BA in Herding Cats or being a Sheep Dog, for however hard we tried, there was something just down here or a little way over there or….! 

First she took us towards Notre Dame, where we found lunch cafes, then off to see the Cathedral, of particular significance since that was the setting for Abbé Pierre’s funeral.   The Hunchback was on his hols, but we were privileged to hear the choir and organ in full spate.  Then on past the Hotel de Ville, the Pompidou Center,  the Louvre and the Pyramid,  a promenade down the Champs-Elyse

é and finally to the Eiffle Tower.  Yes, it was a full day’s sightseeing in just under 4 hours!

Back to the hotel for a whiz-through shower and change, off to a nearby restaurant, in bed by 11pm, asleep by 11.000005!  Up for 7.30 breakfast, off at 8.15, tweak and twitch last minute things on the stand before the announcer counted down the final seconds to opening… and, sure enough, just as we’d been told (but frankly took with a grain of salt), the first punters were running up the aisles in seconds!

I spent the morning at the packing table, and got quite good at wrapping tea services in 3 sheets of newspaper.  Teapots are a particular pain – but true enough, they went like hot cakes – we even sold THREE with no lids!  My morning stint went by in a blur, then off to lunch;  imagine a small aircraft hanger with about 50 trestle tables groaning under vast platters of meats, salads, cheeses, baguettes, and a couple of orchards-full of peaches, nectarines, apples, pears…  I had some fantastic beef, bean salad and a slice of brie that I think was making a bid for freedom disguised as soup, it was so ripe!  Long will I remember that taste….

A poignant moment as I weaved my way back through the throng;  the Prisoner of Conscience stand had a mock-up of a prison cell scarcely bigger than my en-suite shower cubicle with a small barred window;  unimaginable to think of being in it for days, weeks, months at a time…

The packing table being full on my return, I became a ‘runner’ for a while.  This involved helping customers (in my case, mostly running to a French speaker and introducing them to the customer!) and then I spent the last couple of hours seated at the cash table;  after eight hours of standing, my feet were exceedingly grateful.  I will spare you the bizarre complexity of the French receipt system, but it involves a lot of writing at high speed, and I’m pleased to say a quick look when we finished proved some of my early tickets at least were legible! 

All too soon, the final whistle blew and it was over.   The once-heaving tables piled one foot high and the scores of crates under them had been reduced to a single trestle of left-overs, which we donated to the Polish contingent, as had been done in the past.  Back to the hotel for possibly the most welcome shower in my whole life, then off to another nearby restaurant for a delicious Salad Adriatica, full of various fish.   The meal found a dozen of us in hilarious ‘demob-happy’ mode, (or perhaps I mean exhausted hysterics?!) – suffice to say my chuckle-muscles are still vying for attention with my blistered feet and swollen ankles!

Once again  it took me micro-seconds to fall asleep;  fortunate, as the alarm went off just under four hours after I had packed my last few bits.  Yes, folks, at  4.30am UK time, Yours Truly was gazing out of her Parisian hotel window for the last time, going downstairs with luggage, grabbing a coffee from the vending machine whilst the other members of the party gathered, all for the sake of missing the traffic jams on the Peripherique.  Good job we did, too – even at that ungodly hour there was a snarl-up, though fortunately it was just at the point where our route went a different way, so we made good time and our Deputy treated us to a greatly welcomed coffee and croissant or sandwich at a service station well past the half-way mark back to Calais.  We kept the Deputy (who was also the driver) liberally supplied with mints and crossword clues to keep us all awake.

Once back on British soil, we dropped off various folk at Ashford and Greenwich, then arrived home weary but triumphant at around 2pm.

Would I go again?  You bet!  Tomorrow?  Possibly not, but  give me a couple of good (ie, LONG…) nights’ sleep, and I’ll be ready for anything.  Can’t wait to see the allotment, though!

Take care till we meet again,

Elizabeth

Well, hello again,

It’s been quite a traumatic week, really – and I completely forgot to mention last week that I had been invited to do some Public Speaking last Sunday, together with our Chair of Trustees who related the Emmaus South Lambeth story and another Trustee who gave our background history. 

 Oddly enough, I didn’t feel in the least bit worried or nervous;  it was to the parishoners at Holy Trinity, Upper Tooting, who have been very generous donors, and I had met some before at a wonderful Benefit held for us before Christmas and when a member came to give us the proceeds, so I knew they were very nice folk anyway.

 We were given 15 minutes, and I must have gabbled through, because there was time left over for questions.  It was only as we were walking back to the pew that I started to quiver – and I couldn’t read my order paper for a minute or two, I was shaking so much!  Still, it was quite fun, and a couple of other Companions and I are mooching over to their ‘Painting Party’ tomorrow, to paint their Church Hall.

Now, if that was traumatic, I had far worse ahead – the builders!   Here in earnest!  Ripping up the pristine tiles and boring holes and replacing with some discoloured ones and and and

And now we have swapped some of the units round, so I find myself taking four steps to fetch something from drawers that are now in the opposite direction!  However, deep, deep joy at having the taps pointing the right way again at last (for those who missed that issue, count yourselves lucky!)

And it’s blissfully cool when the fan sweeps fresh air in….  But, as is the nature of things, a further glitch has arisen, namely having to lie flat on the floor for five minutes, gas lighter in hand, inventing some swear words before giving up and finding someone slightly less techno-phobic to light the pilot light … EVERY time we want to use the oven after turning the fan off!     Aaaagh!  I’m off to the allotment to eat worms!

Talking of which, broad beans are getting broader by the minute in this humid weather, and at last some of the onion bulbs are beginning to fatten a little instead of growing 2’ long bindings for when I string them up!  I have also found a wonderful source of grass cuttings which I’m going to collect and put over the potatoes.  The tomatoes got a little weary of that nasty wind at the beginning of the week, but have survived.  And today the robin came and had a chat while I took a water break – he’s moulting at the moment, and looks very … fluffy!

‘S’all for now folks, take care,

Elizabeth