Search Results for: travel writing

night. It was around midnight and we strained our ears to hear, hardly daring to breathe. And there it was a kind of crunch, crunch, crunching sound.’

John’s life as a travelling brocanteur (antiques dealer) in rural France is decidedly less colourful as his unscrupulous yet affable partner in crime, Serge Bastarde, marries and decamps to Martinique. But, like a bad penny, Serge returns, his personal life in tatters. What follows is a madcap adventure which sees John being coerced into striking deals with the Romanian ‘mafia¡’, re-roofing a huge Basque house and getting trapped in a skip in the dead of night, while Serge rides an emotional roller coaster.

Serge may be as faux as some of his antiques but, with John’s help, he eventually strikes gold in this laugh-out-loud romp.

It would have been churlish to have refused his invitation to accompany him on
a trip to ‘forage for hidden treasures’. If the truth be known, I secretly couldn’t resist the novelty of passing time with a bloke called Serge Bastarde.

When John decamps to France to start up as an antiques dealer, he doesn’t count on meeting Serge Bastarde. The lovable rogue and brocanteur offers to teach John the tricks of the trade in return for help in a series of unscrupulous schemes. As the pair trawl through markets and farmhouses, they con hearty lunches from old peasants and get into scrapes with priceless collectibles. Filled with eccentric characters and unlikely adventures, this is a hilarious romp through the real rural France.