theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
The weight of tradition
Posted on September 27, 2019
Go to any brocante or vide-grenier around these parts and you’ll find plenty of old farming utensils which would nowadays probably be classed as – and only useful for – ‘design pieces’. Almost inevitably,somewhere in the jumble will be an old set of weights – like these:
Thursday Doors: Le Dorat – Celebrating The Mondial
Posted on July 11, 2019
Last week I promised more doors from Le Dorat, but with a bit of a twist, so here we have it.
Last weekend, the nearby town (although it prefers to think of itself as a petit cité) of Le Dorat played host to the world sheep-shearing championships. It may well have passed you by, since France was also at the same time the venue of the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup, but it was a big thing round these parts, where the sheep comfortably outnumber the human population.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to the event itself, but a few weeks earlier I paid a visit to Le Dorat to take a look at some of the celebratory artwork that was appearing on shop windows and shop doors in anticipation.
To begin with, some double shopfronts, starting with the local kebab shop:
Rather more upmarket, there was the Traiteur (that’s a deli to the likes of us):
And I can’t recall what this was:
For the next two, you’ll just have to take my word that they are on doors – of, respectively, the bank and an insurance broker:
All very impressive, but it was nice to see that even some more traditional doors were getting into the spirit (even if only by association):
Thursday Doors 11 July 2019
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Road
Posted on June 11, 2019
Out here in the French countryside there are many roads like this: leading who knows where and accessible only by tractor.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Wheel
Posted on May 8, 2019
Frank’s theme for his Tuesday Photo Challenge this week is ‘wheel’.
Here in rural France, old cartwheels that are way past their sell-by date are a common sight. This one was spotted in the nearby village of Saint-Martial-sur-Isop, during the ‘Wool Festival’, which accounts for the natty headgear.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Our World
Posted on September 27, 2018
You may think that in this part of the world – deep in rural France – you’d never see a traffic jam.
Oh, but you do. Just wait until that big tractor pulls out right in front of you on a narrow road and proceeds to dawdle along at 15 miles an hour halfway to the next town.
Somehow, though, when it’s one of the local farmers moving some of his sheep from one field to another, it doesn’t seem so bad. There’s always time in our world.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Our World
The clogmaker
Posted on September 14, 2018
Less than a hundred years ago, the standard footwear of rural France was the wooden clog (part of our house used to be the local clogmaker’s workshop). Today, though, traditional clog-making is only seen at expositions of years gone by – as in this example, seen at the Christmas Fair in nearby Lesterps.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Field
Posted on July 31, 2018
we bought our house in France with two fields attached – about seven acres in total. The first time we saw them, this piece of agricultural ‘kit’ was parked up just inside the gate.
I believe it’s a mobile feed dispenser for sheep (our neighbour, who had a flock of sheep at the time, used the fields for grazing). Sadly, it was gone by the time we completed the purchase.
Perhaps it went to a museum although, given the notable dearth of sentimentality among those who actually have to live off the land, it could just as easily have been converted to firewood.
Thursday Doors: Nouic (2)
Posted on June 21, 2018
Another selection of doors from just down the road in the village of Nouic. These first two examples illustrate how a little bit of TLC can rejuvenate a not so much tired as absolutely knackered old building:
And while the doors are coming in sets of two, here’s another example:
Yet another set of two for your delectation (if you count the little green one on the left):
But tat’s always better, isn’t it?
Although I think this is my favourite from this week’s selection – a set of former pigsties:
Next week, just for a change, how about some gates?
Thursday Doors 21 June 2018
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Rise
Posted on May 8, 2018
“May the road rise up to meet you..”
– traditional Irish blessing
Walk a mile west along the track that runs through Tranquility Base and you’ll reach this ‘main’ road, heading north to Saint-Martial-sur-Isop and points beyond:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Awakening
Posted on April 12, 2018
There’s a bit of a story behind this particular image, posted in response to the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge ‘Awakening’.
In October 2004 we came to France with the express purpose of finding a house to buy. We stayed in a gîte – I can’t remember the exact location, but it was somewhere in the Vienne département – and I brought with me my first digital camera, a 3MP Olympus compact (really good lens, by the way).
One morning – upon awakening, you could say – I looked out of the bedroom window and saw the dawn mist in the shallow dip between the hamlet where we were staying and the local village.
Top Posts & Pages
