Tag Archives: art exhibition

Tuesday 12th June 2018 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days where no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve gone one pace forward but two paces backwards. It’s frustrating.

It didn’t help matters by being wide awake yet again at 05:20 this morning. I’m not sure why either because there was no noise about and I hadn’t wet the bed either.

Nevertheless, it was a much more sensible and respectable 06:30 when I crawled out from under the covers and faced the world.

After the usual morning routine and a relax, I started on the clothes ordering. That’s n°1 task.

My choice of clothing is really easy – it’s all black and yellow and comes mostly from a place in St Helens, UK where they embroider my own little logo onto the clothes. Stuff there is reasonably cheap, reliable, reasonable quality and it saves me having to worry about what to wear.

It’s been nearly six years since I last had a clothing order and what I’m wearing now, the polo shirts particularly, are looking their age. A bit baggy and faded. So high time that I had some new stuff. The older stuff will make their way to Canada and stay in Strider

All of that took much more time than it should because there was a continual series of interruptions. I can’t even remember what they are now

Apart from that, having had an unbelievable success the other day in resurrecting an old hard drive I had a go at resurrecting a dead laptop and two old external drives. But unfortunately lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place and I have been singularly unsuccessful in that respect.

Lunch was taken inside today seeing as it was a miserable overcast morning. But by the time that I went out for my evening walk it had brightened up and was quite pleasant.

art exhibition place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceThere’s a street fair here in the old town at the weekend where loads of artists will be exhibiting their works of art.

This involves quite a bit of preparation and they seem to be prettying up the Place Maurice Marland already with huge photos, although whatever might be impressive about these has totally passed me by, I have to say.

And I wonder what the wooden framework is for. I suppose that I’ll find out in due course.

Minette was waiting for me on her windowsill and let me pick her up for a stroke again this evening. I seem to be quite popular these days.

This afternoon though, as well as tackling the guitar, I’d had another session on that blog entry that I’m trying to update. I thought that I wasn’t making much progress but when I realise that so far I’ve written a world-record 3878 words and there’s still a long way to go, and what I have written has involved a lot of research, then maybe I have made more progress than I realise.

For tea tonight there was a little bit of Bombay potato left over from before I went away. I added a small tin of mushrooms to it and made some rice with vegetables. That made a decent meal.

but it wasn’t until I found myself drifting off just now that I realised that I’d gone all day up to that point without falling asleep. And with such an early start too. But I’m not going to crow. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, as I have said before.

I’ll go to bed shortly anyway and have a good sleep. I need to do some serious thinking tomorrow and concoct a cunning plan because ill as I am, I’m not going to let the grass grow under my feet.

And incidentally – have I had those two quotes from BUT and LeClerc yet?

Sunday 18th July 2010 – I have been severely critical …

“What, you, Eric? Shurely shome mishtake” – ed … about the way that people in North America treat their heritage. And not just on the odd occasion either. And not just in one country, as a matter of fact. However I do recognise that there are some people who are making a valiant effort.

I am ashamed to say that in my own neck of the woods the lack of interest in culture and heritage and all of this is just as apparent as it is in North America. And that is just what is on public view. There is much more that is going on behind closed (and locked doors) that the public never has the opportunity to see.

art exhibition fete des myrtilles st julien la geneste puy de dome franceI’ve been on my travels today and one of the places I visited was the Fete des Myrtilles at St Julien-la-Geneste.

There was an art exhibition taking place in the church and Marianne the local journalist was there to photograph it. She blagged her way into the church tower to take a photo of the exhibition and asked me whether I would like to go – she knows that I have an interest in boldly going where the hand of man has never set foot.

fete des myrtilles chemin de la croix st julien la geneste puy de dome franceAnd so up in the tower it was – and this was the sight that greeted me. I know that Medieval religious art is two-a-penny and not usually particularly good but that is no reason in my opinion to just chuck it in a corner out of the way where no-one is ever likely to go and just leave it there to fester, to let rats and mice make a nest for it and when in 100 years time everyone has forgotten all about it, quietly burn it somewhere in a lonely field.

According to Marianne it is something to do with the Chemin de la Croix which is something that means nothing to me but seems to be of some kind of significance. Marianne was pretty busy so I didn’t have time to ask her but I’m seeing her at a meeting tomorrow night and so I will interrogate her.

But it appals me how people can treat significant objects in this despicable fashion . Yes, I’m having another “Lancaster Bomber” moment, aren’t I?

church bells st julien la geneste puy de dome franceThings weren’t any better up in the top of the tower either. I took the opportunity to shin up the rickety wooden ladder and force the trapdoor so that I could go into the bell housing. And I bet no-one had been up there for fifty years either.

There were three bells in the belfry and the original pulling gear was all there, although it looked as if it had been disconnected for a hundred years.

church bells st julien la geneste puy de dome franceAnd so we had one bell which was electrically connected to chime the hours and half-hours, although Terry did ask me how they managed in view of the frequent power cuts that they have around here.

The second, which was slightly smaller, was still hanging but disconnected and the third, the smallest of the trio, had been taken down and just flung in a corner where it sat.

Of course, just as I stuck my head into the bell housing, the clock chimed half-past three.
“I bet Marianne did that on purpose” said Terry.
“I don’t know why you are complaining” said Marianne. “You should be grateful that it wasn’t twelve o’clock”.

It’s nice to have friends.

canadian piper bagpipes st julien la geneste puy de dome franceYou may remember that we were here a few years ago and were entertained by a guy from Canada who played the bagpipes and his friend who played the drums. They were back here again today, bringing their bagpipes and drums with them and they entertained the crowd for a short while.

Hardly a traditional French entertainment, you might think, but this is part of the beauty of living here. There are all kinds of people from all over the place living here and they have brought their cultures with them.

renault novaquatre st julien la geneste puy de dome franceThat wasn’t all of the excitement either. This car was parked up around the back of the church and so I went for a closer look, and it took me quite by surprise because it’s a comparatively rare car and I didn’t expect to see one here.

It’s a Renault Novaquatre, a model that was built for just a couple of years. Launched in the Autumn of 1937, it was never a popular car. Few were made and production ground to a halt in the summer of 1940 when the Renault factory was taken over by the Germans, and never restarted after the war.

Back home, I helped Lieneke with her gardening for a while and then Terry and Liz came round for the scaffolding. They invited me back for tea which was nice of them and as Liz had baked vegan ginger cake I gratefully accepted. I was even given a doggy bag!

But earlier in the day I’d been to the brocante at Le Quartier. I had had a good day there, spending a whole €10:50 on a map of the French railway system in 1962, a hold-down switch for my doorbell, a kind-of lance for weed control, a ladle for the composting toilet and – biggest prize of all – a heavy-duty electric paint sprayer. Jerome from Pionsat’s 3rd XI was there too and we had a good chat.

But I’m on the warpath again about these paintings.