Changing my mind

Change the mind and change my world!
I've just had several days or was it weeks when apart from trying to organise the mess that I create  and cleaning for a friend, I now feel optimistic!
Being lazy on a Sunday afternoon with the sun shining warmly, I decide it's better to be a social human being.  I decide not to shut the world out of my courtyard but to achieve what once a friend and I said we would do in France ... I open the gates, meet people, see places.  

First port of call was a small Brocante at Bonneuil Matours.  No more than a dozen stalls.  But no vide-grenier which was a welcome change! Then I wandered to where I thought there was a Park, carrying my picnic basket. Realising it was too far, I returned to the car. However, with a 'no entry' to my right I decided to explore, driving into narrow streets of the old town.  I wished to go into the church but at mid-afternoon the riverbank wall, warm with sunshine, urged me to eat my raw salad, yoghurt, scone and plums with Earl Grey tea.  The dam was automatically operating and seeming to clean the vanes of the barrage.  To my surprise, it is an old moulin which once created flour and now creates electricity.

I have to practice my French to read / understand more  here and here.  The noticeboard outside the mill was very interesting but I couldn't absorb all the history.

Then I found a park which will be ideal for my grand daughter as there is mini-golf, zipwire,  climbing apparatus, the usual roundabout things for younger children PLUS space to play ball or fly a kite and in the summer a place to swim or paddle with lifeguard present.  FREE!

Feeling quite buoyant I set off for home but took a different route and came upon L'Abbaye d'Étoile which was absolutely stunning.  It is a redundant, salvaged Cistercian Abbey.... the only one in the region of Poitou. The Cistercians lived in Silence but used Sign Language to communicate.  Unlike the Benedictines at St Savin, the Cistercians lived in austerity and poverty.  Some of the buildings have received much preservation work but more is required.   It will cost a fortune! How come I have not discovered this in the last 9 years of my knowing this region?  I definitely wish to return. After my solitary visit, apt to get a feeling of the vastness and the space that monks created and prayed in,  I had the opportunity to listen to the guide speaking to descendants (?) or people interested in, Les Acadiens. There was I think a twinning group from Archigny.  After a while I sloped off, for I did not wish to be "Who's that woman in our photographs?"  

A model of the entire site

Stars and Moons

The Chapel

There is quite a lot of history to learn!