Ardingly Antiques Fair, Sussex.......by Louise R

Towards the end of July we spent an exhausting but fun day out at one of Southern England's largest antique fairs held in Ardingly, Sussex.
It is held at the County Showground, both indoors and out. Thousands of stalls and traders from all over Europe as well as local dealers and buyers.
I really recommend this fair, the next ones are on the 7th September and 26th October.
Fortunately it was a lovely day, we started at 10 and it took us about five hours to cover the entire site, with vital stops for food and drink and a chance to sit down for a minute!
The first thing I saw was an old Malicorne platter, It was inexpensive, but I couldn't decide, I wasn't quite sure about it. As I hovered, another buyer grabbed it and bought it! Ah well!
We then came across a large Dutch gentleman with a huge amount of Quimper spread out on blankets on the ground.
He said he'd bought up an entire collection and we got quite excited for a moment, but on further inspection a lot of it was damaged or just odds and ends.

Still, I got to practise my rather rusty Dutch on him and I did buy two things, a completely silly,very pink, early Keraluc candlestick which I love, and a nice blue HB Modern Movement shrimp dish.

Later on we found two plates (No, not more plates!).
An HB croisille with Breton and an earlyish HB with a rather nice swan on it.

These were so cheap it seemed silly not to buy them. Ah, I can hear you all sighing, we've all been there!

Bryan bought some old toys (second childhood!), as we are going to trade at the next Alexandra Palace, London, fair in September and we need lots of assorted treasures to entice the buyers.
I might put some Quimper on the stall if I can bear to part with it! Its a local fair for us, so easy to get to, do drop in if you're in London.
We will head for France in October when all the schools are back.
We haven't been for over a year due to Bryan's health so, I can't wait to see Bretagne again. I've been keeping up my French classes, its so easy to lose a language if you don't hear it spoken.
I wish I could find someone to do ceramic restoration in this country, Quimper is quite specialist and here they just seem to do porcelain repairs.
Sending it to France is not easy and risks damage, if anyone knows someone do let me know.