Backwards in time
Posted on May 27, 2016
An open topic for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge this week gives me an excuse to post this image.
It was taken in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, which is housed in a former mainline railway station. This is the inside of the clock tower. I was praying that everybody else would get out of the shot before this gentleman decided to move on and spoil the composition.

This is what it looks like from the outside:

Thursday Doors: Chedigny
Posted on May 26, 2016
The little village of Chédigny, in the central Indre-et-Loire département, is widely held to be one of the loveliest in France, and is particularly noted for its flowers, which line the streets and can be found on or outside pretty much every house. Of course, every house has at least one porte and on a recent visit I took enough photographs for at least a couple of door-themed posts.
I’ll save the best flower-surrounded examples for another time (respecting the old adage that you should ‘always leave them wanting more’), but to whet the appetite, here are a few of the plainer – although still interesting in their different ways – examples.
The only thing to say about this first one is that it seems to have been overtaken by events, as half of it is below the current pavement level. If it opens outwards, then someone’s in trouble.

By contrast, here are two doors with more elevated aspects, both of which you would step out through at your peril:


And finally the austere simplicity of the side door of the village church:

Thursday Doors 26 May 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Jubilant
Posted on May 22, 2016
‘Jubilant’ derives from a Greek word which means (literally) ‘shouting for joy’. Not unlike this guest at one of our grandsons’ birthday parties:

Obviously a French water buffalo…
Posted on May 20, 2016
Thursday Doors: Delage
Posted on May 19, 2016
As far as I know, there’s no rule that says Thursday Doors have to be on a building…
So here are the doors of a Delage vintage car, taken at a fête des fleurs in Magnac-Laval earlier this year:

Thursday Doors 19 May 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Face
Posted on May 14, 2016
Chiropodist needed….
Posted on May 13, 2016
Recently, we went to watch some alpacas being sheared. These are the feet of one after it had also had its toenails clipped…

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Feet
Thursday Doors: Chez Philippe
Posted on May 12, 2016
Chez Philippe is what’s known in France as a ‘Lieu-dit‘ (literally, ‘a place called..’). This appelation is usually given to a group of buildings not big enough to constitute a village, or even a hamlet. This one is in the neighbouring commune of Nouic and consists mainly of an alpaca farm run by an English couple. It also has many interesting doors, including the only one I’ve ever seen with a window-box:



Thursday Doors 12 May 2016
Shouldn’t that be ‘vin’?
Posted on May 9, 2016
As one of France’s leading utility companies, EDF (Électricité de France) supplies something without which modern civilised life would be quite impossible.
As well as electricity.








