Get your bicycles here
Posted on October 12, 2018
Like many towns and cities across the world, Nantes operates a ‘bicycle-borrowing’ scheme, whereby it is possible to take a bicycle from a rack provided by the local authorities and ride it around town, returning it to any other bike rack.
Cee’s Black & White Challenge this week is ‘things made from plastic’. As are the rear mudguards of these public bicycles, seen here lined up just outside the cathedral. In real life they are a very distinctive bright orange, although the monotone conversion allows the viewer to focus on the composition of the image.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Anything made from plastic
Thursday Doors: Perigueux
Posted on October 11, 2018
We recently spent a couple of days in the town of Perigueux, the main administrative centre of the Dordogne département, which is also blessed with a well-preserved medieval centre – with many doors. Not quite on the scale of Cahors, but enough to provide images for a few weeks of these posts.
So, to get straight into it, here’s one of the very first doors I encountered:
Not a bad start. However, as most old and interesting doors tend, in my experience, to be brown, we could hardly leave these out:
Perhaps a little more prosaic:
However, to finish on a brighter note:
Thursday Doors 11 October 2018
Bishop’s Move
Posted on October 10, 2018
I used to be quite keen on chess – but that was over fifty years ago. Nowadays, although we do have a very nice chess set on display it very rarely gets used. I definitively gave up when my grandson – ten at the time – beat me comprehensively.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Birthday
Posted on October 9, 2018
Frank has set the theme of ‘Birthday’ for this week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge and invites us to take creative licence with the subject.
So naturally I am taking it absolutely literally, with this image of one of our twin grandsons on the actual day of his birth. They were very premature and very small, as you can see. They spent a good few weeks in intensive care before they were allowed home. You should see them now, though, eleven years later.
Angry Birds
Posted on October 4, 2018
When my children were growing up in Scotland, a trip to the town of Linlithgow, just outside Edinburgh, was a common excursion, one of the highlights of which was to go and feed the birds – ducks, swans and gulls – on the lake next to the ruined palace (birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots).
I can attest from a recent visit that the birds are still there, just as greedy and just as short-tempered when you have nothing to offer them.
(Yes, I know it’s blurred, but you try keeping your camera steady while you’re being dive-bombed by irate, hungry seagulls. Besides, I think it works; it certainly gives a sense of motion.)
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: In Flight
Thursday Doors: Bellac
Posted on October 4, 2018
The pyramid structure of French local government is based, of course, on the commune, while at the apex of each département is what in the US would be the state capital (or, in the UK, the county town). In our case, this ‘capital city’, which is where you find the Prefecture, is Limoges.
However, between the commune and the capital is another layer of administration, as each département is divided into a number of cantons. The principal town of each canton is where you’ll find a sous-prefecture. Our canton is based in the town of Bellac.
There is a very picturesque area in Bellac which, oddly enough, I haven’t yet got around to combing for interesting doors. However, we recently went to the annual vide grenier, which takes place down by the river and, armed only with my smartphone, I spotted a few worthwhile doors, which can act as a taster until I undertake a proper doorscursion.
To begin with, two aspects of the same building:
A little further along this riverside road can be found this door, with matching balcony:
Both of those houses are occupied, but this one certainly isn’t:
This door is adjacent to the old stone bridge that crosses the river:
Finally, there’s this door in what used to be a garden wall:
Thursday Doors 4 October 2018
A bed of roses?
Posted on October 3, 2018
Back in July I visited the village of Doue La Fontaine during its annual rose festival. As well as displaying a huge number of different varieties of rose, there was also an exhibition of sculptures made up of roses, such as this deckchair:
Cee’s Fun ‘Foto’ Challenge: Things People Grow
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