Cellpic Sunday: On a country walk

A walk along a country lane yesterday yielded this spectacular cloudscape.

Cellpic Sunday 10 November 2024

Cellpic Sunday: Power Station Plumage

The long and – mostly – straight RN147 (Route Nationale) is one of France’s principal north-south corridors and unavoidable if you’re heading north from our neck of the woods towards the Channel ports, as we were earlier this week.

Heading north towards Poitiers, the road passes by a major power station, whose huge chimneys are visible from a long way off.

Cellpic Sunday 11 August 2024

Topsy Turvy

Here, I’m taking advantage of Cee’s rule that signs are always acceptable for her CWWC challenge.

This is the road that leads into the nearby village of Blond, on the morning of this year’s Christmas Fair.

Note that the sign is upside down. That’s because of an ongoing national campaign by young farmers, who are protesting that the profits from agriculture are too heavily skewed towards the conglomerates at the apex of the pyramid, rather than the actual producers themselves. Sounds legit.

CWWC 21 December 2023

Mind the sheep

The back road up through Chansigaud can be a handy short cut sometimes, depending on where we’re off to. Sometimes, though, the best-laid plans can be thwarted if the local farmer happens to be moving one of his flocks to a new pasture at the same time…

CWWC: features animals

The road to Montpoupon

CWWC 2 November 2023

Smell the roses

This is the road that runs through the Cotswold village of Hook Norton, not far from where our son and his family live.

And that’s our grand-daughter smelling the roses outside that spectacularly floribund house.

CWWC: any type of road

Halfway there

Heading west from our house, it’s about a mile to the nearest ‘main’ (everything is relative) road. This stretch of the glorified track is at about the halfway mark.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Roads

Wherever The Road Leads

Cee’s Black & White Challenge for this week is to show places to walk or hike. Out here in the French countryside the ‘proper’ roads are few and far between, but there are many mysterious-looking tracks, used only for farmers’ access, that are well worth exploring on a country walk.

In this case, I particularly liked the strong shadows of the trees across the path, which look almost like railway sleepers as they recede into the distance .

Cee’s Black & White Challenge: Places to walk or hike

Circulation Perturbée

Down here in la France profonde, the more common causes of circulation perturbée (traffic problems) – such as roadworks or a jack-knifed lorry – are just as likely to be supplemented by finding yourself on a country road  behind a local farmer in the process of moving his flock of sheep from one field to another.

The ubiquitous white van is the modern-day sheepdog.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: must end in ‘ock’

Muddy tracks

There are many ‘roads’ like this one around here – access tracks for agricultural equipment. You certainly wouldn’t want to try and get your shiny new roadster along here, or even your flash SUV, probably.

It has been a very wet winter here and the ground is very muddy, which accounts for the almost three-dimensional set of tractor tracks in this image.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Roads