Car Boot Car Crash

Gluttons for punishment that we are, we found ourselves at another car boot sale this weekend.

Handily it was the hottest day in history and even at 6am it was warm enough to be involved in an uncomfortable arse-crack/sweat situation.

We were at Skirlington – you probably don't know where that is and it's probably for the best. There had been a warning that it was the wolf fleece capital of England, but the weather denied us of any glimpses of such fashion car crashes. Instead we saw people in wolf t-shirts, tiger t-shirts and even a potted-version-of-Native-American-history t-shirt. Wow.

To describe Skirlington as a bit on the chavvy side would be like saying that Donald Trump is a bit of a git. It was extreme.

It wasn't made any better by Bob of Bob's Crazy Bargains who was setting up a stall behind us. You see, Bob has Tourette's and so he yelled out everything that came into his head. Highlights included: “Come on Bob, let's get this shite out of the van” and “When you see these prices, you'll think all this stuff's nicked. It probably is.” The low point was his tuneless singing of You Can Keep Your Hat On which lasted ALL FUCKING DAY.

There was the usual car boot situation of £1 or even 50p being too much for some people, the kind of people who not only expect you to give them stuff for nowt, but also want money for taking it off your hands. As a result not much was sold.

The entertainment of people watching was unparalleled though. There was the horrific sight of men with no shirts on who really should always have a shirt on, people with David Dickinson-style leather furniture tans, an abundance of 'Mam' and 'Dad' tattoos and more tracksuits than a Sports Direct clearance sale. An old man who sounded like a 70s stand up comedian made some sexist comments before hilariously commenting to a woman with a pushchair “I used to drive one of those”.

Breakfast was a sandwich generously filled with bacon which could only be described as “floppy” and made me wonder if Skirlington Market was where the phrase “chewing the fat” had originated. Said eatery also sold “Jumbo Scrambled Eggs” without specifying whether it was the portions or the eggs which were jumbo and boasted the poorly-spelled “Megga Breakfast”. Lunch was from somewhere selling “Panini's” and even the glaring grammatical error and unnecessary double pluralisation that is considered the norm in Britain wasn't going to stop my enjoyment of a tuna melt.

Not much money was made, we felt far from culturally enriched and my clothes were made of at least 75% sweat by the time we left, but at least we got to go to Mr Moo's for an ice cream on the way home.