This is the door to Maria and Michael’s dwelling in St. André in southern France. They lived in an old winery they had converted. The front exterior was unchanged without indication of the delightful spaces they had designed inside. In addition to their own living space they carved out an apartment as well, which we rented for a couple of weeks so we could explore … Continue reading Door/10 – St. André
On the way from Carcassonne, where we had spent the day, to our apartment in St. Andre we diverted to Lagrasse, which is included in the list of Les plus beaux villages de France. Not to be confused with Grasse, Lagrasse is 19 mi southeast of Carcassonne in the valley of the River Orbieu. It is nestled in among the foot hills of the Pyrenees that are part of … Continue reading On the Way
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. ” – Robert Louis Stevenson Ailsa’s travel theme: Bountiful Continue reading Bountiful
The Cathars were a religious sect in the southern regions of France in the 12th and 13th centuries. They opposed what they perceived as the moral, spiritual and political corruption of the Catholic Church. As a result, Pope Innocent III launched a campaign against them that resulted in the death of about 20,000 men, women and children, Cathars and Catholics alike. The Cathars retreated … Continue reading Endurance
Mordreuc is a village on the River Rance in Brittany, France and in Mordreuc there is a jetty on the beach and on the jetty a visitor invariably finds … a seal basking in the sun. Apparently she comes daily and has been for several years. She’s even in the guide books. Look at that face! Is she not endearing? Google images … Continue reading The Seal of Mordreuc
Village of Dinan on the Rance River, Brittany Petrohue Falls, Chile On the back roads of Languedoc-Roussillon, southern France Ailsa’s travel theme is: Misty Continue reading Mist and Fog
An active sky can add movement and colour and drama to a photograph … and sometimes skies ARE the photograph, as the landscape pales in comparison to the dance of light and cloud that is happening above. This one taken in Normandy added such beauty to our autoroute drive.
Driving the Cape Breton Trail in Nova Scotia we saw some beautiful turbulent skies, this one at 4 Mile Beach at Aspey Bay.
While my daughter and husband sat up front chattering I was busy in the back snapping shots through the window at 100 km/hr of some tremendous skies over Alberta. Continue reading “Liquid mountains of the sky”
“I determined to gather together all things of beauty … that I could, and preserve them here, against the doom toward which the world is rushing.” “The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between … Continue reading Visual Quotation 32: Horizon
“Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?” – Walt Whitman Ese’s weekly Shoot and Quote: Desire Continue reading Visual Quotation 26
The Weekly Photo Challenge is: Unusual point of view Some I enjoyed: Kyle Colby Moments in your life Lens and Pens by Sally Continue reading Paris in a Glass
Pétanque is akin to boules, or horseshoes. There is a target ball and the object is to get as close to it as possible. Hollow metal balls are tossed at the target while standing inside a starting circle, both feet on the ground – the name pétanque is said to be derived from the Occitan word meaning “feet anchored”. The game is best played on … Continue reading Let the games begin
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us”. – Winston Churchill On the most northerly point of Brittany, on the peninsula of Plougrescant, is the Chapelle Saint-Gonéry, with its crooked belfry. The Chapelle is a historic monument – part twelfth-century Romanesque and part fifteenth century flamboyant. And another tilting shot … 16th Century timbered houses in Troyes, on the Seine river about 150 km southeast … Continue reading Visual Quotations 16
The weekly photo challenge is to try to convey a personal view of what we see when looking through our lens; to use light, line, composition and other elements to lead the viewer to our focus; to tell in a single frame the story we saw … photo credit for this one goes to my husband –
The astronomical clock in the Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter, England dates from 1484. In 1841 my great great-grandfather Richard Ingram Pentecost was a student at the Training School in the Precinct of the Close of St-Peter’s Cathedral in Exeter City, England, and so would have gazed upon this same clock.
Wikipedia informs that the fleur-de-lys ‘hand’ indicates the time (and the position of the sun in the sky); the silver ball and inner dial shows both the age of the moon and its phase; the upper dial, added in 1760, shows the minutes. There is a door below the clock with a round hole near its base. This was apparently cut in the early 17th century to allow entry for the Bishop’s cat to deter vermin that were attracted to the animal fat used to lubricate the clock mechanism.
The headstone with the cross marks the grave of my 3x great grandparents, Richard and Anne Pentecost.