theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
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:
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
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:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Local
Posted on October 15, 2016
It really can’t get much more local for me than this, because I took this photograph through my own front window.
That’s my neighbour Albert, keeping a watchful eye on one of his last few ewes as she takes her lamb from the barn over to the pasture, which is on the other side of the road that you can see at the top of the picture.
Sad to say, Albert died earlier this year. You can just see his faithful dog, Arielle, behind him. That’s about as far apart as they ever were: Arielle pined away and died about two weeks after Albert.
Thursday Doors: Nohant
Posted on October 13, 2016
After last week’s post on the doors to be found at the house of George Sand, we now turn to some of the doors in the village of Nohant, in whose centre that mansion is to be found. In putting together this post, it struck me that the further away you find yourself from the big house the tattier the doors become.
Thus, right opposite the gates of the house is the village church, with this neat little side door:
And on the other side of the church is this well-kept front door:
The sign over the door is interesting, not to say intriguing when you look at it in close-up:
The date is 1888, ‘siège sociale‘ means headquarters and Berry is what the region was called before the country was organised into départements. The article on the right looks suspiciously like a set of bagpipes and the one on the left could be some kind of accordion, but it’s the word ‘gâs’ that’s got me stumped. It’s obviously plural (because it goes with ‘les‘), but I can’t find ‘gâ‘ in any dictionary, although ‘gas‘ (singular) is translated as ‘lad’ or ‘guy’. Perhaps it’s a patois word.
On the opposite side of what, for want of a better expression, you could call the village green, is this house which is clearly in good decorative order, as an estate agent might put it:
After that, though, things start to get a bit rough around the edges, as in this rusty gate:
And by the time we reach the edge of the village, things are much more typical of what you would expect to find in rural France:
Thursday Doors 13 October 2016
Tuesdays of Texture: Rust
Posted on October 11, 2016
These rusting chains and hoops hang over the disused well in the centre of the nearby village of Bonnefont. At a guess, the hoops once held together wooden buckets, which were lowered on the chains to collect water.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgia
Posted on October 1, 2016
Nostalgia? It ain’t what it used to be, is it?
The obvious temptation is to respond to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge by pulling something quaint or sentimental out of the archives. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but as a counterpoint to the rose-tinted glow of memory I thought I would post this less cosy image.
The ‘living museum’ that is the nearby village of Montrol-Sénard has many features that portray a romanticised version of local life a hundred and more years ago. However, it also has this perhaps rather more realistic illustration of the way things were.
It’s a bedroom for a farm worker: a small, rough-made bed, a lumpy, dirty straw mattress and a pair of clogs (note the straw lining: no expensive luxuries like socks). When you see an example of the verité like this it’s possible to understand why the locals seem remarkably unsentimental about their comparatively recent history.
Thursday Doors: Mortemart
Posted on August 18, 2016
Mortemart, about a twenty-minute drive from here at Tranquility Base, is listed as being among the most beautiful villages in France, according to the association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. It’s all a matter of individual taste, of course, and personally I don’t think it’s a patch on Montrol-Sénard, which is another five minutes up the road and has made many appearances on this blog, and not just on the theme of doors.
However, it does have a few interesting doors, including this one, my particular favourite. Who can resist a ‘two-tone’ example that also boasts a ‘door within a door’?
or a long disused one like this:
Or even this more prosaic example:
Thursday Doors 18 August 2016
Thursday Doors: Le Dorat
Posted on August 11, 2016
With a name like that, this town about thirtty minutes drive from here is surely crying out to be included in Thursday Doors.
Le Dorat is probably best known for its medieval church: the Collegiale, whose stonework is mightily impressive:
…and not just on the outside:
There remain some other relics of earlier times, including a good section of fortified wall, as well as this impressive towered main gate:
Outside the old and very compact centre of the town, however, there are plenty of examples of more recent and typical rural architecture:
Thursday Doors 11 August 2016
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