theonlyD800inthehameau
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Thursday Doors: Tranquility Base
Posted on January 5, 2017
Over the past year or so I’ve posted a number of pictures of doors that are to be found in Tranquility Base, my working title for the little hamlet we live in. Thus you’ve seen Emily’s Henhouse and Bernard’s Barn, amongst others.
Now, I certainly don’t want to give the impression that everything in Tranquility Base is falling down, but here are a few more very local doors, beginning with front and side view of what may once have been a shed that belongs to our nearest neighbour:
Fortunately, this barn is in rather better condition:
Although it’s a bit dodgier round the back:
This one doesn’t see much traffic either:
Nor do these doors, which many years ago would have served to keep the pigs shut in:
Thursday Doors 5 January 2017
Thursday Doors: Lesterps (Part 2)
Posted on December 29, 2016
For the second instalment of doors from the village of Lesterps, we’re going a bit downmarket, beginning with this gloriously ramshackle garden shed…
…which doesn’t look much better from the side:
This one is in slightly better condition…
…and this one’s positively pristine:
But this is just a fire hazard:
Here’s my favourite though. Probably the most pointless door in the world. Not only is it a doorway with no walls on either side, but it’s open. It must be (fanfare) the 2016 Ramshackle Door of The Year.
Thursday Doors 29 December 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Path
Posted on December 24, 2016
The path shown in this image, taken in the nearby village of Bonnefont, is certainly a literal interpretation of the challenge for this week.
However, with Cheri hinting that more figurative interpretations of the subject could also be appropriate as we near the end of the year, I might point out that it shows two clean, straight and close parallel lines heading together into the frame before disappearing – still together – to whatever lies beyond that bend.
And a Happy New Year to you too.
Thursday Doors: Lesterps (Part 1)
Posted on December 22, 2016
Lesterps is yet another of those charming old villages that surround Tranquility Base at a distance of an approximately twenty-minute drive. It’s best known for its very large 11th century church (more specifically, it’s an Abbatiale, which means there must once have been an Abbey there), which dominates the village, to the extent that it’s virtually impossible to get a proper photograph of the whole edifice. The image from Google Earth at the bottom of this post gives some idea of its relative scale.
This is the main door:
and this is one of three substantial archways, which I think qualify as doors for this purpose:
This walled up doorway on a building just acrooss the road from the church could well be a remnant of the accommodation of the monks who must once have lived here:
Elsewhere, this house (also opposite the church), with its massive beam, looks like it might once have been a byre, housing livestock:
We visited Lesterps last weekend for the Marché de Noel, so here’s something in the Christmas spirit. You’re welcome.
And this is quite possibly the smallest door in the entire commune. It’s at about head height but it certainly doesn’t look like a shutter, and I can’t imagine it’s the meter cupboard:
Next time, more from Lesterps – including some very strong contenders for Ramshackle Door of the Year.
Thursday Doors 22 December 2016
PS here’s that screenshot from Google Earth:
Mundane: But Who Will Frame The Framers?
Posted on December 19, 2016
The’Mundane Mondays’ Challenge asks us either to find a kind of beauty in, or find a beautiful frame for, the commonplace. This one might be a bit off-piste, as it were, but for a challenge where framing is important I couldn’t resist this sign, outside a picture-framer’s workshop (‘encadrerie’) in the village of Gargilesse, in central France.
Mundane Mondays
Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire – the gates
Posted on November 24, 2016
As promised, this week we feature some of the more interesting gates to be found in our local village of Mézières-sur-Issoire.
You’d expect the grander houses to have gates and indeed they mostly do, like this rather commanding set:
although personally, I found this next set more interesting. I particularly liked the way that the autumn leaves wrapped themselves around the gatepost.
Whereas those two examples are a bit off the beaten track, the gates below are on the main road, and at least you can see the house that sits behind them (the architecture is quite typical of the maisons de mâitre around here):
Notice also that those gates and railings could do with a lick of paint. As indeed could the long-unused gate at the corner of the garden of the same property:
…or this one in front of a much smaller terraced house a little further along the street:
And, of course, gates don’t always have to belong to houses – or even lead anywhere:
Thursday Doors 24 November 2016
Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire
Posted on November 17, 2016
Everywhere in France is part of one commune or another (and every commune belongs to a canton, and every canton belongs to a département, which in turn is part of a region and so on). Our little hamlet is about four miles from the eponymous village in the commune of Mézières-sur-Issoire.
Although we’ve now lived here for over four years, there are still parts of the village that I’ve never explored or looked at in any detail, but a recent Sunday afternoon provided an opportunity to redress that shortcoming and discover that there is no shortage of previously unseen – or at least unnoticed – interesting doors (not to mention gates, although that’s for next week).
For example, this charming wooden outbuilding, set back from the main road:
as is this barn:
Along a little lane which I’d never previously ventured down was this door in the corner of the garden wall of one of the village’s larger houses:
Much more familiar is the very grand house right in the centre of the village that’s lain empty for years. Somebody’d just bought it for a knock-down price, but now faces the mother of all renovation projects. Good luck with that (he said from personal experience).
This imposing edifice, also on the main road used to be a commercial premises of some sort, but the sign has faded to illegibility:
On a smaller scale and down a side road is another former commercial outlet, to judge by the door on the left, but again I’ve no idea what sort of business used to operate out of there:
Next week’s post will be devoted to gates rather than doors. On my wanderings around the village, I came across some highly photogenic ones.
Thursday Doors 17 November 2016
All you need to know
Posted on November 11, 2016
Nothing much to add in explanation of this image of our local village’s electronic information sign. Except perhaps that those clouds really were as dark and threatening as they look: about five minutes later we had a brief but heavy hailstorm.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Chaos
Posted on November 5, 2016
When we bought our house in France, it had been unoccupied for some time.
Unoccupied but not unused. Our neighbours – sheep farmers at the time – had taken to use it, probably initially as a storeroom, subsequently as a general repository for what can only be described as ‘all sorts of crap’. So our first view of what became our TV room was this, which I think could fairly be described as chaos (as well as a few other choice epithets).
Chaos
It looks better now:
Thursday Doors: Gargilesse
Posted on October 20, 2016
Not far from Nohant (assuming that your coach driver doesn’t get lost, like ours did – and not for the first time that day) is the picturesque village of Gargilesse, where George Sand had a smaller house, which was subsequently home to her daughter and husband for many years.
As well as a medieval church – of which this is the side door – with a remarkably frescoed crypt, the village also has a fair few, more interesting, doors.
There are doors in there somewhere, trust me:
These are rather easier to see. The first one is my favourite of this batch:
More from Gargilesse next week.
Thursday Doors 20 October 2016
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