Having spent the summer trawling the regional brocantes (antiques markets) of the Lot region of France and having come home with armfuls of strange items for my new house I was perusing my new items thinking I should never ever buy another tea cup in my life! (I have over 60 now...)
One of the benefits of buying antiques in this region is the many chateaus in the area selling their wares. Dinner services, for example that are seen as fussy and old fashioned by their owners, but the city dweller picks them up as vintage chic. I did see a dinner service that brought out the seven year-old child in me, the princess fairy castle style, vile and pink but something of it reminded me of my youth.
When I was about seven or eight my sister and I visited the vicars' wife Lesley Condor at the vicarage to spend an afternoon making our own Faberge eggs (Ok I realise I am only 26 and this was about 1990 not 1920 but I had a rather Enid Blyton childhood). So we carefully blew the eggs which I seem to remember were the size of my head, but must have just been goose eggs not dinosaur.
We cut out the front, make a little interior platform, painted them and coated the inside with sparkle before affixing golden legs and a gold top. The best part however was choosing the tiny figurine to put inside and a transfer on the back. Being about seven I went for a Marie Antoinette looking fairy inside and affixed similar themed transfer to the back - this memory, stored in the far recesses of my mind flew straight into the present when I saw a dinner service at the brocante this summer. The motif was almost identical and this nearly saw me depart with €150 for a 53 (yes 53, must have had a breakage) piece dinner service complete with gravy boats, serving plates and an alarming amount of dinner plates! In which lifetime did I think 23 dinner plates would be necessary?!
This said however, since researching the practicalities of holding our wedding in France, buying these antique dinner services would be cheaper than renting them from the caterer! So next summer I shall take the plunge and get one, just maybe not with a pink Marie Antoinette figure on!
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