Confluence: La Gartempe et La Creuse rivers: two rivers and their hamlet

I like being at these kind of junctions!

On Saturday my friend accompanied me on this walk I had been intending for some time.  The track wasn't always where I wanted one,  and in one place woodland had been ploughed by the farmer!
The confluence was difficult to see through the river bank shrubs and trees. The soil was alluvial. Lovely word...the land probably isn't geographically speaking such,  but... I like the sound of words...

Uxorious is another word I like the sound of ... and the meaning!

The ground was strewn with interesting stones;  a large 'potato stone' I carried home!  Some of the rounded stones were far too huge to move but a river could dislodge and move them over the years!

We came across a millenium garden out in the middle of nowhere.  Now that isn't true. The somewhere was Confluent - an agricultural hameau and when I saw it a few years ago, on a Patrimoine day,  it seemed untouched.
BUT NOW, if you look on Google map you can see where builders and farmers have carved out the soil to renovate a house, expanding land like a gravel pit but it isn't one.   AND also, several buildings have been re-roofed with red brick colour metal.  OH DEAR! What of conservation? 

We went because I wished my friend to see the wind powered turbine invented, constructed by Ernest Bollée and one of his sons Auguste, who, I think also have something to do with the invention of bicycles and I was led to believe that the auto-moto-velo museum at Chatellerault has information about them.   I have a leaflet somewhere!

PHOTOWALK
The Millenium Garden is rather nice and I can imagine sitting on one of the available benches in the sunshine of peaceful solitude reading a book.... 

 Walking at the edge of planted crops to reach the river...

 Along a pea field the tracks of deer or small chevreuil?

 Oh...how did the crow get into the cage... we watched and thought... then saw a dead one in a second cage. Were they bait?  Or had they entered the cage set to catch partridges?  We each wanted to release it but cautious?  Then he opened a door whilst crow or rook sat still until his freedom fighter had returned to a distance.   The black bird cried 'phwew' as he got free!  Hop Hop ... something wrong with a wing or hungry bird needs to gather strength.  We continued looking back seeing him still on the ground.. But then, when we got to the fox or badger holes we saw a rook or crow soaring as if to say 'Thank you".

On the way back two man made lakes seemed much bigger than when I was last there. WE came across a dolmen which was once considered the best in the region but last century it was destroyed. 

PEOPLE!!!

The stones around once marked the limit of the tumulus ... it was once a burial hill...

 As we came to the road it all looked so different.  But there was the wind turbine in the distance.

 And now the uniform holes for plastic doors and windows... and the razing of the countryside...

 Old French stone house

 How to create a wall in a barn...

 Gates of importance...

 all at the crossroads                           at                                                    on the site of

 

 red metal roofs!

 beautiful old shutters and their nailed crossbars...

 how many people ever stayed here?

 ans the gate is secreted from view

 Times of old...

This is one of the places...

...within Coussay les Bois on Saturday 17 October between 19h and 20h where I shall be playing my piano accordion as a Vagabond with Thomàs and his Stroh instruments.

 

On Saturday music will draw people along the route... 

pointers for people to observe 'les petit choses ephémèrales' as dusk moves to darkness.

I shall be assisting a guided tour - a Promenade to view sculptural forms created by three artists and inspired by peoples and their surroundings, history and geography, language and poetry, music and art.
On Wednesday evening I went as a guest to the first of the eight guided walks.  It helped to know the route!  Afterwards there was mulled wine and an opportunity to purchase the CATALOGUE  for 5 euros which shows wonderful photos, poems and explanations of the sculptures. Also acquire a free programme for the events in the village between 9 and 14 November 2015.
I'll show my photos of the works after I have played on Saturday but the Catalogue is excellent. WELL... here are three tasters.  One piece I shall play is called 'Gypsy Mood' and another 'Coeur Vagabond'.  With Thomas we shall play 'Autumn Leaves' and 'À La Dérive'. I hope for DRY weather and not too cold on the keys for my little fingers...but my accordion prefers warm and sunny weather! And so do I!   It will be different to NOT play Musette style music but to perform a more dramatic, theatrical style... I hope!!!!

Art at the heart of rural France

Le Petit Pressigny held their wonderful art event this year.  Last year, either it rained or it was cancelled!  This year artists and their works were more interesting and attainable to understand and to purchase than in 2013!  Usually, I try to see everything but this year I was more relaxed. I couldn't find any apples or walnut oil on sale.  I intended to return to buy a butternut squash or pumpkin for 2 euros but forgot as I was keen to move on and see my friend if she was at home. However, walnut bread was found, but I declined to buy apples baked in pastry. They were something we used to make in my domestic science lessons at school.  Naughty but nice, I purchased several slices of English cakes as my oven is caput and I don't wish to make cakes in a mirco-combi oven.
I wrote a postscript here.
Shortly after my arrival, unbeknown to me, I'd dropped my camera after sitting with friends.  It was at least an hour or more later when I wished to take a photo ( I am careful to not be too intrusive to the creativity of the artist  even though cameras are clicking often)  that I discovered it was not in my bag!!!!!!        "eeeekkkk" ... said "The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark" by Jill Tomlinson.
Two artists said I had not left it on their stall, so I went to the ACCEUIL to ask 'si un photo-appareil est avec les objets trouvés'  et VOILA!!!  I expressed great gratitude to the person who found it and the madame said she would pass that on!
The table for 'les aperos' after the speeches was one of the prettiest I have seen since living in France.

Empty glasses...those little home made sponge fingers -Savoiardi or Boudoir Ladyfingers -were melt-in-the-mouth.

The Autumn flower and fruit decorations were art in themselves.

This man made a captivating speech about his? study of the survival of rural villages in France.

Recycled Glass Bottles. Everyone now seems to be making flowers like my pottery teacher used to do.

I just love the colours of Cosmos.

There were amazing models... this one of the threshing machine process

Balmoral Gingerbread at the English Tea Marquee as I had had no lunch!

The sculptures were many. I hope the artists made sales! This last one, metal and glass, would be ideal in my garden. I did not look at the price tag!

Bordeaux Botanical Gardens

Opposite the city centre where tourists abound are Botanical Gardens which can be reached easily by tram or if one steps out it isn't a long walk from the bridge. Our tram ride was from the hotel near the peripherique. It was dead easy to find a place for coffee before entering the gardens.
For some reason I am working backwards with the pics!

Alongside the river were poems and historical facts etched into stone.  When I read and translated the one, by Jean de La Ville Mirmont,  not only did I think about those who went on a journey away from their families and friends during the war, but I also thought of the many people today who are migrating or travelling for whatever reason, leaving loved ones and beloved things behind.  I am also reminded of the journey of life, when death is perhaps the ultimate voyage. Those who are left, those who are not travelling, not migrating, might perhaps feel abandoned or rejected.  There are those who can feel the depths of intense emotion, passion, pain and torture of 'an unknowingness'  when their loved ones pack their bags. Much later, even after divorce or separation, even after wars of a different kind there are those who are saddled with their baggage.  WE MUST remember the faces of our loved ones, happiness we once experienced...and all of all the rest.  My memory often remembers my gentle grandmother; her face, her voice, her demeanour and I know not what baggage she carried! Hearts remember. 
My own interpretation is: 
This time, my heart, it is the grand voyage. We don't know when we will return. Will we be more proud, foolish or wise? Whatever happens we are going to have to leave and part from each other.
Before we leave, let us pack and put into our baggage all the wonderful and beautiful desires that we have offered or that have been offered to us.  Regret nothing, except the faces and loves which console us.  Remember.  This time my heart it is the long, hard, grand voyage / journey....
Is he telling his own heart, his own self or his sweet heart and all the people he has loved or known?

It made me cry as someone walked away.  I stared long at someone who was on a long journey  in which I was not included.  I braced myself.  I know that people have freedom to do they have to do.  I am grateful there is no war currently in my own life. Well... there have been plenty of disagreements in the past and there was certianbly something from someone going on this day.  Little did I know at the time that the global migrant issues were gathering apace.
SAD! 
Back to the joy of the gardens:
At the end of the gardens nearest to the river were wonderful metal gates but not gates, at the entrance / exit. I was not sure if they sometimes were closed. It didn't appear so by observing the ground.

The gardens were fascinating because they presented all forms of global terrain and the plants that grew on that kind of soil.  My heart found water lilies... whilst I was looking for lotus blossoms.

Within the gardens were apartments: the idea is that people tended the community gardens near to their housing, but some plots looked quite neglected.  The gardens are surrounded on three sides by high rise habitations and on the fourth side by the road, a green belt for leisure, cycling, jogging, picnics and the river.

The border of the botanical gardens is a metre wide wall of timber felled in the tempest of 1999. If one were to calclulate the amount of timber here one could appreciate the number of trees felled by the storm yet some put to good use here.  They probably harbour earthly creatures as well as provide a boundary.