SHARING WITH ME

Feeling slightly dizzy from my day in Loches, I came back to the hotel, dumped my bag and went off to the Galerie d’Excellence for an  opening. (See "Australia in La Roche Posay") The given time was 6pm but I did as I would in Paris, arrived 15 minutes later. For most openings in Paris I have experienced over the years that if I do arrive at the precise hour, people are still rushing around trying to get organized. Here it was different. The organizer was finishing her speech about the artist. A sculptor, Sabine K. Originally a cabinet maker, in later years she has «returned to nature, the earth» and of course wood. This she finds in the region. Branches, bits of wood, dead wood, all kinds of wood which she shapes and polishes with infinite care. Her work is big or very small. There were two pieces I liked immensely. We could touch, even turn the wood around. I only wish that artifacts had not be placed on some of the work. For me they spoiled the natural beauty and elegance

Like all of us, I occasionally look at a horoscope but rarely ever read more than the first line or two. In a café at the beginning of the week I read that I was to fall in love with a stranger. I turned the page. But I did fall in love. I fell in love with a stranger. His name is «Le Sud de la Touraine» Or perhaps it should be HER name is the South of Touraine.... In order to avoid turning the wrong way, the Tourist office had armed me with a decent map and over coffee I studied how to get to Loches without taking a major road. The country side is beautiful. Rolling hills, flat plains covered in yellow flowers which are not sun flowers, but what are they ?  Fields which will burst into flower The yellow as the fields but a bush Forests which will burst into flower as Springtime graces their branches. A silver light  in the morning. Fairies are dancing next to the creeks and rivers. I sail along the roads - alone - but there is nowhere to stop as the roads turn in tight

So I got to Poitiers but wanted to go to Lorches. Will I ever learn how to read a map? 
 The drive though the woods was very pleasant. The drive into the centre of Poitiers was not. I was back into heavy traffic and I knew at once why I had giving up driving in Paris. Having found the main parking I left the car with a sigh of relief. Another church. Notre Dame on the main square. The Bureau Office decked me with a map and told me scornfully that there was no modern art in Poitiers...but I could «try the Beaux Arts» . She also indicated that there were a couple of galleries in the Main Street. The Galleries - all of two - were in the red light district alongside sex shops and sexy underwear. I wanted to take a photo of a Pro but I guess it was her Mac as if looks could kill.... was this interesting ? Well it's been seen before. The Beaux Arts The Beaux Arts didn’t open until 2pm which left me a lot of time to stroll around the city. The first time in 20 yea

As Michel was dreaming about Paris, Oh la la la  I was certainly getting very grouchy about what to go and see ...Driving around with no real objective is like Sunday walks to walk and not really go anywhere...There are a lot of interesting places to visit in this region. Poitiers and Tours being two major cities but will I have enough time to really explore if I leave at the end of a morning ? ...We shall see. There were a couple fo Chateaux which had possibilities and then I wanted to visit «Descartes» I am no Cartesian although find many of his theories very sound - especially about going to the end of something and proving it.... The first Chateau I took the wrong turning and then found I was looking at the Museum of Prehistory in Le Grand-Pressigny.  Although it was already 11-30 and museums as always  are closed in the «countryside» at 12-30, I knew, knowing my interest in bones and stones that it would not take me more than that to go around. 

Teeth, a Griffon f

I think Michel is feeling a little lonely in the desert and his thoughts return to  Paris ? I know how he feels...the desert for me has always been a space which I feel at home in - Australia, Tunisia, Algeria....but my thoughts are never far from Paris 

Is the Vienne department (in the Poitou-Charente, west of France) an attractive one? It’s certainly very flat but entering a small town or Bourg on the top of a very sharp hill there is a Castle in ruins, a dungeon, gates which protected the towns during many medieval wars and even later. Looking down at Chauvigny There is a reward in climbing up these very steep slopes usually with steps and more steps to get to the top, the views. Rivers, La Vienne, La Gartempe, La Creuse...and smaller streams.   At the beginning but the tiny tack is much further on.... I have covered over 200 or more kilometres in the south of the department. Today is a rest day as there is a 5 kilometer trek this afternoon. Since I have been in this part of the world I have started out on many of the tracks but not being able to read the signs, have usually retraced my steps after two hours in one direction...now armed with a trekking map, I can see that it was just as well. Most that I started out on,

This weekend has been a wonderful change. Not having driven for over three years I was a little nervous but «we» went off and I was flying. Of course on these roads the traffic is not Parisian. The first stop was Angles-sur-L’Anglin. A village which is described as «one of the most beautiful in France». On the outskirts a site called Roc-aux-Sorciers is an Upper Paleolithic rock shelter site dating to the mid-Magdalen  cultural period 14000 BC, made famous by its relief wall carvings. Translating that would be the « Witches Rock» which has nothing to do with the site itself. Berry is the next department and is supposed to be full of witches and weird happenings. I was there with my Mother and daughter many moons ago and effectively, the light made the surroundings very mysterious. I did not feel this at all on the site but I did feel it on a walk I did before going to visit the cave which has now been reproduced as the original site is very precarious and excavations are still