Christmas 2015: Angles sur L’Anglin

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2015 as I've sent no cards or gifts this year. 

But I DO send a gift of LOVE, CARE, HOPE for better times! 

HOPE that Family and Friends relate kindly!

HOPE that displaced people find safety, warmth, shelter, food, purpose, income and an expression of their own talents, skills and intelligence.

Two Poems: Two birds: Five Photos: Two February months of a French Wintry World

Les Petits Oiseaux: SweetpeainFrance copyright December 2015

I have no photo of a blackbird, no poem of robin.

Yet on my roofs 'des petits oiseaux' stand and sing:

“Bon Noël”- we bring for you “une année heureuse,”

whilst Sweetpea sings Peace for Earth, Sky, Universe

Jewels for a Blackbird, returning summer and spring,

here is my poem to ring ding a ling.

Hope, Health, Happiness – All is Everything.

​Robin February 2015 copyright

Jewels for a Blackbird: SweetpeainFrance  copyright February 2012

Today I was singing and dancing 
as I stepped through the snowy hedged woodland 
where the angled branches of the trees criss-crossed each other 
as the patterns highlighted by white snow

rested on the tops of the lines of the branches. 

I had no camera. 

Today I was singing and dancing 
along the snow-packed lane feeling the joy of living 
to witness such regal majesty

of the wintry phenomena of frozen water 
and the prints imprinted of animals, humans, wheeled vehicles,

skis and toboggans; 
all had been there before me with tracks to places known and unknown. 

Today I was singing and dancing 
to let the bright light into my eyes and heart 
and let it make me tired and content.

Today I was singing and dancing

as blackbird hungrily ate the beautiful red jewelled pendants

hanging in a garden not far from the river.  

Jewels for a blackbird.  Will he sing and dance for me?

​The Chateau Angles sur L'Anglin: February 2015 

The End of the End of Year Message! 

Roof 1 Oiseau 1

Best wishes for 2016 

Roof 2 Oiseau 2

Angles sur L'Anglin Painting Competition

A few weeks ago in July there was a village 'one day' painting competition. There were few participants as painters were perhaps deterred by poor weather. However, as this is a new event organised by the village and not by any particular artist or business, I was told that there would be better advertising next year. Evidently, some promotional information was not published in the local press or elsewhere.  I could only find two painters during the afternoon. In the photo below my favourite art work is on the lower level to the left.  The painter was from the south of department 86 and of Asian extraction. She talked to me about the difficulty and pressure to produce a worthy creation within only a few hours. I loved the way she daubed colour onto the canvas with a palette knife to represent reflections in the river.  In fact I am sure she had erased quite a few by the time they were displayed for the public to view.  If you think you would like to participate next year then contact the Mairie or Tourist Office.

Shepherd or Vineyard Worker Huts - Posting Two

Sunday 9th August 2015
A gentle morning.  Logs had fallen from the stored stack so were pushed back.  Lunch was leftovers.
Out came bicycles. We returned to follow tracks we made yesterday to Remerle, intending to continue to St Pierre de Maille. The tracks on the map led through woodland but in reality we could not get through.  We returned by the way we came and spotted another of the ancient cabanes or loges or bories.    It had been beautifully built and sadly was now quite tumbledown.  Continuing our route we found another. We parked our bikes before walking across the field. This is one of the best condition huts I have seen. Wonderful! Onwards again to walk across another field to what we thought was another such construction but we only found thick walls, piles of stones and dead branches.  All that excitement as well as finding a small private vineyard  was fascinating but 'twas tiring for my arms and wrists to ride on bumpy tracks.  We met the tarmac to cycle to Remerle, took the lane to the Confluence.  I had to stop and remark about the difference between the summer lane of yesterday and the one strewn with autumn leaves today.  It rained last night and does feel decidedly Autumnal!
Altogether we did 14km of cycling. We were out four hours because of exploration of ancient and natural formations. We like doing that.  He wanted to find a shop but I said it would be closed which it was. However, a bar was open so we decided to opt for a hot chocolate.  There we met two people we knew who bought us beer and so we chatted and had another.  Then a third was offered by another man but we declined.  I had to walk up that incline out of that town and when I got to the ruined chateau of my village, again I walked another incline.  Pushing the bike up the steep hill opposite the Chapelle is I think harder than cycling the road loop and I was pooped!
Home!  My leg is bruised and injured badly because I fell whilst stationary astride the bike.  Whilst looking at the map,  the legs wobbled in an M.E. way, the handlebars twisted and suddenly I was grasping my calf to staunch the pain and blood.  The pedal stabbed me!
Evening meal for me was an egg scrambled with mushrooms adorned with lettuce, one oat biscuit and a bit of cheese and Rooibus tea! YUM!
PHOTOS:
The first loges found next to the track.  Note the perfection of the rounded inner wall.

The second loges was reached by walking across a field. The modern tuffeau slabs once held a door.

 ...the view from its doorway...

 Inside, the earth floor is dry but stone walls have let in rain...

 We spotted the back of the domed shelter from far away!

Later we discovered another cross.  Passing locals knew nothing about the inscription: 1865 BAUDRONNE FRERES ... ???? Arunguiers ..... or something like that ... it was situated in private fenced land.

THIS IS A REALLY GOOD LOCAL SITE for maps for walkers, cyclists etc for routes and shows the one we did...found after the event!  You can also get the leaflets from Tourist Offices.. we used to! Go explore!

A walk

Saturday 8 August 2015
This was an extension of a walk I know up to The Witches Rock, Le Roc a Midi, return to the footpath, turn right towards the road. Turn right instead of left at the road.  At the stone crucifix we did not choose left or right but headed straight on over the field to the water's edge to proceed left with no pedestrian track. Without maps, I realised we were walking on the opposite side of the river to the original site of the sculptural 'roc auc sorciers'.  It was difficult to identify Doux through the trees but interesting to see from this side. We came to the Confluence of the Gartempe and Anglin rivers. 
I wished to walk further along the river but was unsettled by the proximity of a road with fast flowing traffic.  I was confident of the direction of the village but the sun was hidden.  With woodland to traverse, we crossed the field to the track.  No cattle in the fields!  Then we walked parallel to the river returning to the stone crucifix but instead of turning right to retrace our steps we headed straight on. This follows the curve of the river to "Le Moulin de Remerle".  I vaguely remember being on this side of the river a decade ago having walked to this point exactly by the water's edge from the bridge.
At home, studying the map, I understood my disorientation because the River Anglin meanders, forming a loop, before it meets the waters that it flows into.
It was an enjoyable few hours mostly held without discussion between two people. I love walking alone. I love company. This was a happy balance.
How annoying! I just wrote an elegant phrasal expression about reflections as to what I have learned and it has become deleted because I pressed the wrong button after I'd made it italic !  gggrrrrr! Maybe just as well!

without zoom

This plant has holly type leaves.. I know not its name.

This artform 'sculpture' worthy of any title by Richard Long, might have been made by a beaver or a coypu but as it was so symmetrically curved that maybe it was carved by a person.  Behind it is the tree that it came from or another felled by wind or man! I very much liked this natural artistic installation!

 The confluence of two rivers.

The River Anglin meets La Gartempe

Across the other side of the river, low at this time of year, is a place where I often stand after walking along the D6, down The American Way to the water's edge, then along the track to the Moulin de Remerle, a place where kingfishers play!

Keep to the riverbank and one arrives at the 14th century Hosannah Cross in the cemetery.

At the bridge we wondered what was best to do after an almost two hour walk. Pancakes at home! Given the hour we had an earlyish supper: cold lamb and leftover salad vegetables, oat biscuits and runny cheese, pancake with apricot conserve that couldn't achieve the temperature to make jam! Coffee after wine. I felt relaxed at last. Tensions had been displaced for another while. A rest day had ensued.
The morning had been entertaining two guests who we met the previous Friday evening. It is unusual for me to a) sit at anyone else's table... I only did so as we were departing to help translate the mystifying APERTIVO menu...and felt rapport!  hence b) I invited them to morning coffee at 24 at 10h30 but they came an hour earlier bearing croissants and stayed for coffee and tea leaving at well after noon.   Nice people, but I wish that someone would not dismiss one of the couple with thoughts about their faults and social weaknesses whilst praising the other half of the couple! None of us are perfect.     I know it is something I learned to do from him or others and have been trying to shed such negativity.   In my opinion, it is better to try to see beyond any niggles we might have about for example  how much anyone else talks or if they have what might be what was described as an irritating habit of smiling a lot!

Midsummer morning

It was Midsummer. An incandescent summer’s night and day. She’d gone to sleep with a full moon spreading its light at midnight. She rose with the morning lark, which she could not hear.  Six in the morning. Day had been awake for some time!

With the rising sun behind her she strode full of energy.  Overjoyed she always is to see her sweetpeas there at the roadsidc where they grow every year.   Stepping down ‘The American Way’ named after someone who used to live in that secret house hidden from view of the single-track footpath. There, with a full view of the sweep of the river, aloft on the cliff, his house stood without water and electricity. Owners have fought to have both installed. It is a protected heritage house.

Careful she was not to slip on the dew-laden rocks and roots forming the well-trodden descent to the river’s edge. The flowing current could be heard magically in the morning magnificence before she caught a glimpse of shining water. Step around ‘Le Moulin de Merle’, a watermill where she noted the growing sandbank. Above the dam the waterlily pads conceal frogs which ribbet and croak amongst those green plants. All this has been witnessed during the passing of time, the thousands of years since an Ice Age formed vast cliffs called the Roc of Sorciers. Majestic, they look down.

At the road bridge she decides upon an extension to her walk. All is unplanned. She is free to respond to a moment, a whim, an immediate choice for her and for no one else. It was joyful to be alone at last and able to move her legs and arms to and fro in a rhythm of a roaming rambler. Her mind is excited at this unusual event to be out and about when no one knows where she is or what she is doing for she has seen no one.

Along the banks vegetation encroaches upon the one-person track towards absolute primeval stillness, though she knows that the sun moves as it rises in the sky stretching shadows along the ground. Miniature flies float in morning sunrays as gossamer spiders float their webs preciously. Along and along, as birds sing-a-song and flutter tree-to-tree, leaf-by-leaf, woodpecker taps a different rhythm. Cuckoo calls, still singing in tune at the end of June, for July it will fly. By August it must be gone to Africa.  Woodpigeon rool-rool---coo-coos reflecting the languidity of a hay-mown scent of summer.

Darker it gets. Trees reach for the light above the canopy. Moss hangs on every branch above rock and stone where ferns, bracken and other humid hugging plants thrive.  In dappled morning light, She feels safe not seeing a soul in the Devil's grotto.  Ah, unexpectedly, she hears a cough!  A trace of humankind. Is someone wild camping?  No, ‘tis a jogger!

How dangerous to be moving quickly across such rugged rocky ground, where footfall or rainfall dislodges crumbly, gravelly stones even though larger and heavier boulders dig deep. Tread carefully. She has learned by experience.

'Bonjour.. fait attention!'  but she hears no reply and suspects he is not French and thinks they would be too sensible to be running in that place in such early morning warmth.

The land is rising upwards out of woodland which has been like that since probably the Magdalenian era. Rising upwards into agricultural land where the single track opens to allow tractors to travel along the grassy chemins.

Again she delights in looking at hedges and trees of walnut, holly, oak and beech.  A sign says ‘Private’ but she ignores it as she has always walked by here around the Pigeonnier and indeed has seen French persons doing likewise. Out onto the road, feeling the morning heat rise from the tarmac. Let her cut across another chemin and another harvested field and wend her way back along lanes to the village where people are queuing at the boulangerie. Everyone shares happiness. Then to discuss with a fellow inhabitant what is to happen to that huge acacia tree at the end of her garden.  She shares her concern about the ever-increasing number of acacias popping up in her garden. There are more than ever before. Clearly they enjoy the drought and heat.  Autumn will be the time when the woodman will arrive to cut it down but how will he and she poison the roots left in the ground in her garden. They have drained the goodness from her potager and caused much extra labour.  She will wait.  She can wait.

With cheerful pride and self-ennoblement she breezes home for coffee and croissant at half past nine, breakfast time! What a wonderful three hour walk!

Wild sweetpeas at the roadside verge

Under the bridge a new sculpture has appeared!

Wall art!

Garden art

I still haven't returned at an appropriate hour to dig up this mystery.

River art

Moulin du Pré has a new owner and is being renovated.

Natural art!