theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Self-catering
Posted on November 19, 2021
A century and more ago, there were no school canteens – at least not in little village schools like this one in Montrol-Sénard. Pupils brought their hot lunches from home and kept them warm on the stove in the middle of the classroom.
Turning Stones To Bread
Posted on September 1, 2021
The theme for the Fun Foto Challenge this week is ‘We Are The World’, which – at least in this blogger’s personal opinion – is a cloying, cliché-ridden dirge produced (or should that be ‘perpetrated’?) by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, who really could – and should – have done better. Or just not bothered.
But I digress. I have no image to go with this title. However, in part the lyrics read “turning stones to bread”.
Stones have an integral role to play in the making of bread, from the millstones that grind the wheat to the bricks that make up the ovens that bake the loaves.
That gave me the inspiration to post this image of the interior of a very large communal bread oven, in the open-air museum of Montrol-Sènard. The ceiling is quite a triumph of the bricklayers’ art.
Fancy A Coffee?
Posted on July 15, 2021
This weathered sign, in the open air museum of Montrol-Sénard, is outside a century-old equivalent of a modern-day coffee shop.
Monday Window: Montrol-Sénard
Posted on January 20, 2020
This exceptionally lustrous stained glass window can be found in the old church (parts dating back to the 11th century) in the village of Montrol-Sénard.
#MondayWindow 20 January 2020
On the hotplate
Posted on January 4, 2019
In the old cafe at the rural museum in Montrol-Sénard there’s a wood-burning stove range. This is one of the hotplates.
Hot Dinners
Posted on January 19, 2018
In the schoolroom of the living museum of rural life at nearby Montrol-Sénard you can still see these cooking pots, in which the pupils would bring their lunches from home, sitting them on top of the stove to keep warm.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Broken
Posted on October 31, 2017
Still away from base, so for Frank’s Tuesday Photo Challenge this week it’s another dig into the archives to match his theme of ‘Broken’.
I must say, this is one of my favourite photos – a broken cartwheel seen through the window of the blacksmith’s shop in the nearby ‘living museum’ village of Montrol-Sénard. The blurring of the ancient glass and the spiders’ webs gives the image an other-worldly atmosphere.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Heritage
Posted on May 18, 2017
We live in a very rural part of France, where agriculture remains a crucial element of the local economy.
As most farms remain family businesses, they are typically much smaller than the vast agri-industrial enterprises to be found elsewhere. Modern methods are used, of course (nobody uses a pair of horses for tilling any more, apart from at the annual ploughing competition), but there is still plenty of heritage, in the sense of evidence of the way things used to be done.
In particular, there is the open-air museum of rural life at nearby Montrol-Sénard, which includes this barn, still containing old cattle byres. There were some just like these in our own barn when we bought it, but they were too far gone and disappeared during the restoration process.
Macro Moments Week 26: Chardon Marie
Posted on January 11, 2017
We’ve all seen Milk Thistle extract in health shops – it’s supposed to be good for the liver – but it’s much less common to see the actual plant that it’s extracted from. As the name suggests, it’s a variety of thistle (the French name is Chardon Marie) that grows to quite a height. This one was a good seven feet tall.
I found this example, which had obviously just released its seeds, in a herb garden in the nearby village of Montrol-Sénard.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ2.8 lens at 58mm. 1/000 at ƒ5.6 ISO 250. Cropped and edited in Lightroom.
Tuesdays of Texture: Clogs
Posted on October 19, 2016
This image from the workshop of the local clogmaker in nearby Montrol-Sénard, a living museum of rural life, certainly displays some very interesting textures.
It resonates particularly for me, because what is now the entrance hall of our home was once the atelier of the local sabotier.
Although we have had it done up a bit:
Top Posts & Pages
theonlyD800inthehameau 