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!!!!

A beautiful rose

window at Le Petit Pressigny:

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!

Water Boiler Saga

Just to update this and as a point of reference for the future ....
and to the past my blog post.... 
I am not seeking attention but am explaining what can happen in France if an artisan appears not to have installed something properly according to a manufacturer's requirements.

I have PROTECTION JURIDIQUE insurance alongside my French mortgage with my French bank... whose name shall currently remain nameless.  I was wise to take it out. I was afraid of neighbourly disputes at the time!!!!!! I didn't have any but Miss Cautious Cancerian Clara inside me thought I should protect myself just in case!!!!!!
I contacted Protection Juridique two weeks ago. Whilst I was on one telephone line the nice lady spoke on a different telephone line to the installer (PERSON CC) of my expensive chauffeau thermodynamique.  He said he had not forgotten about me.  Hahaha ... how can someone ignore my calls, letters to his house, emails for a year? Doesn't that even indicate just a tad that he might feel guilty!???

He was asked to organise a meeting at my house with himself and the fabricant / manufacturer for a diagnosis of the problem.  I know what the two problems are because a different company diagnosed this in August!  Person CC was given until 9 October to contact me and has NOT done so!!!!!!!!

Today Madame (PERSON PJ), says she will email an independent technician (a representative in French) (PERSON IT) for the two of them to be here!!!!!!! I am supposed to wait three weeks for this LEGALLY.  I asked for special dispensation because I have already waited two weeks and this is URGENT for me as have had no hot water since mid August and I have guests arriving in two weeks time at least.  I don't think my daughter and grand daughter will come at all in the next two weeks when it will be half term holiday. Maybe just as well!
Whether or not PERSON S and PERSON B have to be here or will be here or not I don't know. They are from central heating / electrician / plumber companies who came here in July 30th and in mid August and one of whom I saw two weeks ago because PERSON B was supposed to have written estimates for me at the start of September and it took me to visit HIM for HIM to do it. I shall refrain from further judgement or comment except that he was told NOT to laugh at me when he sniggered on the telephone!!!!!!!!!
 I am unable to get any electrician here to give me an estimate for a completely new system. SO HAVE TO WAIT.
I think it is unacceptable, but I cannot do anything about the system that is designed to mediate in legal disputes.
I think Madame PERSON PJ is doing her best!
Any suggestions?

A fishy plaque

This large fishy one is about 30cm in length made with white clay, influenced by a design in  museum in Bretagne, heavily modified! I realise now I had been mark making in clay. I think I would like to return to those regular fortnightly two hour meditational sessions where I could choose to model what I wished.
I gave this to my son and his wife. It was about two years late in the giving because of family currents being all at sea!
I rather like it.  I hope they will attach it to driftwood and hang inside their liveaboard tug!

13 October 2015: Postcript to comment received below: 
This fishy dishy was approximately six hours labour plus the intervention and support of my pottery tutor .. she is French. Lessons were approximately I think ten euros per hour.. (my memory is poor!) supposedly a group session but sometimes it was only me!  PLUS there was the time for first firing then the second firing in the kiln. I know nothing about kilns!  I didn't have to pay for clay or glaze.
Having all of those would be too expensive for me.
After going to LPP for L'Art et Lard I felt a surge of desire to return either to her or a different potter. There is an English guy nearby but it's nice to do these things in French! I live in France so should be speaking in French!!! Can't help who I am though! An English National!
There's a guy going to do printing lessons too! I asked him to let me know when he has set it up! He is also English!
At the art exhibition, I almost succumbed to purchasing a beautiful FUSCHIA photo in a shiny format... I do love that colour!   I also nearly succumbed to purchasing a blue pottery vase and a beautiful pottery bowl a painting of a nasturtium and a glass bottle windchime or even the one that just swung with the wind.. as life does!!!!!!

Walking high

In September my cousin and I walked to Culmstock Beacon in Somerset where heather, gorse, horses and views were splendid.

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.