May and June.

In my part of Canada the spring blooms are in full flower, and signs for weekend garage sales pop up as often as dandelions.

It’s once again the season when people sell things they no longer via their garage or outside their house.

When I lived in England, I don’t recall this kind of sale. The closest equivalent was a ‘car boot sale’ where people also sell things they no longer want. However, at a ‘car boot,’ people sell from the boot (trunk) of their car in a public place like a school grounds, car park or field and pay a small fee to use the space.

Both types of sales, though, are a way to nab bargains on all kinds of goods and keep them out of landfill—reducing, reusing and recycling.

After clearing out my late parents’ house and now with English Rose living mostly on her own, I’m not actively acquiring ‘things’ to fill our main home or lake house.

Still, when I spot a garage sale sign by the side of the road, I’m often tempted to stop. From the ordinary to the unusual, items for sale tell stories about the people selling them and are catnip to author me.

Last Saturday morning, I drove from the lake to our small-town home and in that scant hour counted more than twenty garage sales, including a large all-community event.

I only stopped at one sale but it was, as I’d say in British English a ‘cracker’ (for North American readers meaning ‘very good’).

Raising funds for a rural church, I browsed goods laid out on the lawn and in the parish hall while Floppy Ears enjoyed the dog treats on offer and temporarily became the sale’s unofficial, tail-wagging ‘greeter.’

I bought several books, a small table and vintage folding wooden chair (the latter to hold a porch geranium), all for the sum of $5.00 (circa £2.85 in the UK).

Even more meaningful, though, were the chat, sense of community and human connections that for me are more infrequent in our online world.

Since I was driving a small car with Floppy Ears in the back, I reluctantly passed a sale displaying a trio of life-size illuminated Christmas lawn reindeer (yes, Tech Guy, the kind I’ve wanted for years!), but there’s always another weekend.

My small-town will soon host its annual garage sale, now in its sixty-first year, to raise funds for the local hospital. My next door neighbour is having her own sale too.

Even if I don’t find those reindeer or a replacement for the Royal Worcester egg coddler I lost in a move, I’ll find more chat, community and connection.

They’re the things I write about in my Harlequin Heartwarming books and am also lucky to live.