Cellpic Sunday: All The Angles

This is our local ‘salle polyvalente’ – in effect, the village hall. It’s where it ‘all’ (such as it is) happens: long lunches, aerobic classes, meetings, exhibitions – you name it.

It’s obviously a comparatively modern construct and utilitarian by design. Yet it was only last week that it struck me, while we were making our regular Sunday pilgrimage to the recycling point, how angular and geometric it is.

Cellpic Sunday 2 February 2025

Boulangerie – Terminé

This – really very good – boulangerie in the village has just closed down without notice and no indication of why. At least we still have the local superette (which used to be based in these premises – hence the ‘Viveco’ sign), where the bread was better anyway, although not quite a match when it came to patisserie.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Storefronts or signs

Summer’s Last Hurrah

The last picture on my smartphone in September.

The Last Photo – September 2021

Monday Window: Mezieres-sur-Issoire

Behind the altar in the church of our local village, Mézières-sur-Issoire.

Monday Window 31 August 2020

52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 28 Culture

This week, the challenge is to post a picture that conveys ‘your culture’.

Which begs the question, what is my culture? As an English (although I prefer to be Scouse, which is most definitely not the same thing) expatriate living very happily in rural France, the answer is by no means clear-cut.

However, I think this image of a brightly painted old-fashioned cart on display outside the Mairie gives a decent idea of my current cultural circumstances.

52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 28 Your Culture

Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire (Finale)

This week we have what are, to the best of my knowledge, the last few photogenic doors in the local village of Mézières-sur-Issoire

Last week’s post ended with the door at 1 Rue du Lavoir. Here are some more doors from the same little street:

In rather better condition is this shed door, to be found on the main road:

And finally, just to prove that we’re all out of doors, an impressively weatherbeaten pair of shutters (big enough to be a door)

Thursday Doors 15 November 2018

Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire (encore)

A couple of weeks ago saw the annual ‘Expo’ of arts and ‘passions’ in our local village. As in previous years, Madame dispalyed some of her quilts, to widespread approbation, while I stuck up a few photographs for people to walk past without noticing.

Once again, I took the opportunity after lunch to go for a wander around parts of the village that are off the beaten track and managed to find a few doors (enough for this week and next, at any rate) that I had somehow missed in previous years.

This first one is actually on the main road, but down at ground level I’d not noticed it before.

The next few doors were along a road that leads out of town into the countryside.

This one is particularly interesting – if you like that kind of thing – as it’s clear from the surrounding stonework that it’s been repurposed at least twice in its history:

Back in the centre of the village is a little lane, Rue du Lavoir (Laundry Street), that few would venture along without a specific purpose – or the need to feed the insatiable Doors monster:

Thursday Doors 8 November 2018

The Water Pump

The French equivalent of the Fire Brigade is the Sapeurs Pompiers. At last October’s Expo in Mézières-sur-Issoire, the local Pompiers put on a display of some of their ‘veteran’ equipment, including this mobile water pump that dates from 1949.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Fire Service

Benched

This well-weathered wooden bench is just outside the Cabinet Médicale, on the main road through our local village of Mézières-sur-Issoire. It’s been there for quite a while.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Seating

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beware Of The ‘Sheep’

WordPress’ Photo Challenge for this week asks for an image of where we live.

The eponymous village at the centre of the commune where we live is called Mézières-sur-Issoire. With the best will in the world, you couldn’t describe it as a tourist destination. There are no buildings of particular historical interest (although it does have its fair share of interesting doors). In the summer, tourists are more likely to pass through than to stop, unless it’s to use the parking facilities for mobile homes.

However, it can boast a touch of whimsy, in the form of the concrete sheep that are dotted around along the main road. This is sheep country after all.

I well remember the first time we saw them, as we drove into the village that has now become our home. They are – at least if you’re in a moving car – quite realistic, and are positioned so that they appear to be about to cross the road. They’re at least as effective as a speed bump – the first time, at any rate.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Tour Guide