As my family and friends might have guessed I have been planning to do a car boot since the summer. I ransacked the attic and forced my Dad to look through the shed, the other shed, the garage and various other placed my parents horde things.
I had a good reason to plan this car boot sale as I regularly gather old clothes, toys, bits and pieces to be taken to the charity shop at least every few months. But as I was gathering up another load when I came back from Cornwall, I thought why not make some money out of this? Wouldn't anyone think this?
I collected a fair amount from looking through the endless mass of unlabelled boxes in my cupboards and even roped my sister (sorry) into helping out too. My Nan even donated things to the cause.
About a month ago, I had enough things to sell. The plan was to do the sale before the cold weather set in and after two false starts and a mix up of dates we made it to the car boot sale in Shepperton. 6am wake up call to be at the car boot at 7am, felt like a breeze. Early morning call time mode and old ways kicked in but my Dad was a tad worse for wear.
We set up our stall, no pictures unfortunately, and people starting buying at 8am. We were slow setting up with my Dad sorting out a make shift clothes rail using the car rack and I was dithering about the display. But when we got sorted and all the early bargain hunters had drifted off, we started selling immediately. Quite a good car boot if you're ether selling or buying, so I recommend it if you live near by. I managed to sell all my old comics in one hit to a guy who thought they were Manga (they weren't), no matter, it was the biggest haul of the day. Things were usually sold one or two items at a time. I remember there was one woman who came back a few times to buy my Nan's trousers, that was amusing. Then there was the man who tried to buy a brand new tennis racket for a £1 but my Dad stuck to £3. I actually managed to sell a couple of Beanie Babies, which was a miracle as I heard a few buyers say they had seen lots on sale. Of all the things I got rid of, there was only on item I felt went for far too less. But its gone no need to wallow about it. My Dad was pretty happy too, he sold quite a few random bits, including the old door handles from the front door and a car fan.
I resisted the urge to look round and buy things but my Dad kept trying to run off to look at the stalls. He even pretended to look for something to eat when really he went off and bought some frames. Frames?!
A highlight throughout the morning was seeing all the dogs!! I even got to see the most adorable westie dog (West Highland Terrier).
The excitement of the car boot started at 8am, peaked at 9:30 and died down by 11am. The sale was supposed to go on until 2pm but we had packed and left by 12:30pm. Most of the sellers had too.
We sold quite a bit and made a tidy sum, anything left over we took to the charity shop.
I admit I had ulterior motives for organising and persuading people to do the car boot. Not only do I love clearing things out and the sense of 'getting rid off junk' I also wanted to create space. Our family likes to horde things, its a very bad habit.
I enjoyed it the morning and I would do again, maybe next year, in the Spring. If anyone near the Shepperton area is thinking about car booting, the sale is on every Saturday and on the website they said they would go on until October/November.
For now, I am car booted out.