Didn't it rain...

It wasn't so bad at first, spent the day creatively faffing, doing nice bits of snail mail, cooked a proper Sunday lunch, played with photos, it stopped long enough for a very quick walk with Mol.  But when it rains stair rods and blows a hoolie, and night falls I start searching around for things to worry about.

It was blowing from the north, unusually, so I couldn't worry about it driving through the cracks between the front windows.  Victor's cut his most dangerously leaning trees opposite down and anyway, it would have blown them down the other way.  Then I remembered my sunroof in the car leaks.  I realised this on Saturday, opened it, wiped around it and screwed it down extra tight, but surely on the morrow my car would be a fishtank... I looked up 'leaking sunroof' on Google, and Saxo came just a few down the list after Renault Clio.  I found the remarkable 'Saxperience' site, and was instantly cheered by the apparent fact that I have unwittingly acquired something of a cult motor, and by blokey banter on the forum about parts, big screwdrivers and silicone mastic.

So I dozed off at bedtime quite peacefully, only to be awoken by an almighty clatter of rain on the back velux, which in my state of threshold rapid eye movement, I was convinced was Molly falling down the stairs.  Which did happen once when we were staying in a gite with a steep open staircase.

Failing actual reasons to worry relating to my own life, I find I myself distressing myself about the poor wild little things that have to live outside in such weathers.  And what will the robin do then, poor thing?  Even the plants and flowers do not escape my anxiety.

But then I woke to a bright new morning, 'the sun came dancing through the leaves', and it was as perfect and vivid as it can only be when it has been rinsed and wrung and rainwashed.  Even the roses in the garden were still intact.

I went to the post office and posted my snail mail, including a card to Mikku, who, despite a little pot belly and oversized feet on his thin, knob-kneed legs, now in his latest photo, has as bright and keen and jolly a smile as you'll never see on many a better-fed child, and who probably doesn't have windows to leak or stairs to fall down, and certainly doesn't have to worry about a leaking sunroof.

Then we went to the plan d'eau, and it had that full, fat clear look that water only does that's been generously fed and freshened by a whole lot of rain.

And the robins were singing in the way that songbirds do when it seems as though their throats have been watered and their voices are fuller.  Monday was a bright, new shiny day.

Oh, and the sunroof hadn't leaked either.

Bittersweet

I have been collecting bittersweet,

because its droplets of blood-scarlet berries

glow in nightshaded places,

                                       and (I've heard)
when stored just right, their poison makes
a tincture that can heal, so bitter can grow sweet...

~~~

(Bittersweet, woody nightshade, solanum dulcamara.

 Probably this should really be considered a first draft.  Exigencies of daily posting require get it out there anyway.)

Reedmace - an englyn

The frail aged reedmace at the pool's edge

velvet heads, beards of lace,

keepers of a threshold place

offer winter parting grace.

~~~

(See here for definition of englyn.  As always, on closer research, there is more to it than one initially supposed.  Lovers of the syllable count, give it a go, the Japanese don't have a monopoly.)

Lovely Laura

Thanks for all your nice comments on the last one, which I'll get back to.  For now though, I seem to have run out of day, which is an opportunity to feature a picture of Laura eating an ice cream in Moncontour, 

and to urge you wholeheartedly to go and visit her blog, linked above, to see her beautiful, luminous, movement-filled drawings and paintings from her stay in Brittany.  She's posted her work from her trip here in September over her last six posts, and it really is a feast for the eyes and the heart.

Knowing Laura from Laurelines, I mostly had an impression of her, a very bright one, from her dazzling work as an artist,  but when you meet someone for real, even briefly, all kinds of other areas of the picture are filled in.  She's also elegant, well-travelled, sharp as a tack and mischievous, with a wicked giggle.  She was staying near Josselin, but came up to meet us for lunch and a wander in Moncontour.  She flattered and teased Tom, made adoring noises towards Molly and generally charmed us to pieces.

I don't know if she'll mind having her picture here, I hope not.  Now go and see her pictures!

Le Légué. Tea at L'eau Rouge.

So we wandered on, and said hello to some of the other inhabitants of the port, who, like us, were profiting from the last warm rays of the last of the October sun,

and at the last leggy flowerings of  window boxes and planters.  It must be a fairly civilised place where these can be put out looking directly onto pavements.  The general absence of casual vandalism here still surprises and heartens me ( yes, there is graffiti tagging, and there are inner city riots and car burning and thuggish demonstrating farmers and all manner of other dreadful things, but the pointless and wilful petty breaking up of other people's property still seems relatively rare).

and we looked at the Dutch potter's place,

and noted one of the less elevated eateries,

then it occurred to me that we were suffering from mid-afternoon wilt.  And that the reason for this was the congenital British affliction of needing a cup of tea.  At the same moment, my eyes alighted on the shocking pink facade of L'eau Rouge.

The doors of its glazed porch were open to the sun and the breeze, and its low tables and straw chairs looked most inviting.  Behind the counter were dozens of tins of different teas, and stacked up on its oiled wooden floors were crates and boxes of wine.  This, I thought, is one cool place.  I have obviously stumbled upon a hub of bourgeois bohemianism, I've heard about this kind of thing...

A conclusion I have lately drawn, is that, in the countries where something is a staple, in general the inhabitants like it straight, not messed about with.  Where it's bit of a novelty, or somewhat recherché, there is aften a vogue for all kinds of mannered varieties of it.  In fact this is probably a totally specious hypothesis, based entirely on what we have observed about the respective French and British attitudes to coffee and tea.  J's cousin who was visiting from London lately went into a cafe with her, and when J asked her what she'd like, she said she'd just have a medium latte.  I don't think you will, said J, you'll have a grand crême and be thankful.  Iso's mum embarrassed her daughter and nearly got into a fight with a cafe owner in Lamballe when she asked for a cappucino and also received a grand crême, which she she insisted on pointing out was not what she asked for.  Really, wanting your coffee whitened at all is considered fairly outré here.  Similarly, on the whole, Brits, though we may care to specify Indian or China, perhaps prefering Darjeeling or Earl Grey, or Lapsang if you're really precious and weird, really just like a cup of tea.  French tea-lovers however, indulge in all kind of outlandish and frankly often disgusting infusions - tea with caramel, vanilla, mango?  Go on with you...

However, the selection at L'eau Rouge did intrigue me.  We compromised, Tom had a 'brunch blend' of Assam, Ceylon and something else, and I went for a rarefied leaf from Nepal, which was said to resemble Darjeeling but to be even finer.

They came in the most delightful glass pots with integral infusers.  They looked so delicate that we weren't remotely inclined to be philistine and proud and ask for milk.  And rightly, the teas was utterly delicious, smooth and flavourful.

We were also offered a friandise, in this case a spoonful of apple compote sprinkled with brown sugar, which went very well.

Molly had a white china bowl of water, served on a nice clean floorcloth, which she drank from appreciatively, then settled down on the parquet and behaved herself like a lamb, partly I think because of the open airiness of the place, which meant she could look around and not feel hemmed in and bored.

It was really rather expensive, but such a delightful relaxing experience, it was well worth it and quite rounded off our afternoon.  We didn't look at any of the books, embarking on Goethe's Faust in French was perhaps more than one pot of tea's worth.  Apparently, they have open house for philosophical chitchat every Friday too...

St Brieuc, Port le Légué.

This is the river mouth and old port area of St Brieuc, which is our departmental town.  Of all the department capitals of Brittany, St Brieuc is probably the least well known and least glamorous.  But it can grow on you.

The port has a varied history, at different times timber from the Baltic, linen from the interior, shale and marle, building stuff, fishing vessels, all kinds of things passed through it, and there are people from all over the world whose families have been established there for ages.  I don't know a huge amount about it.  Sometime in the sixties I think, they built a massive flyover to carry the route nationale.  It towers over the port settlement, but makes surprisingly little noise.  It give one the sense of being in some land of the giants, and somehow makes me think of a Terry Gilliam animation.

Le Légué is coming up in the world.  There are some chic restaurants, art galleries and a few trendy shops, and they've tried to establish it as a yachting marina.  But it's still a working port, its topography and tidal movements are not suited to day tripping and large pleasure craft, so happily, it will never be a resort of the very rich in their floating gin palaces.  The sailing craft that moor up there are mostly quite modest, the arty folk that are establishing themselves there seem a down-to-earth and homely bunch, and plenty of people look like they've always been there.  There's an industrious feel about it; it insists on being itself, though it's happy to scrub up nicely.

Last week, we ended up there, rather by hazard.  We'd had a late-ish night feeding some friends (the lateness more to do with our finishing off the wine and lounging about after the washing-up, too lazy to go to bed, than the riotousness of the assembly), and when we got up, Tom said 'Let's go out.  If we stay home we'll fritter the day.  Lunch at the Green Cafe.'

Uncertain whether I wanted a meal out after the night before, but knowing I needed one or two things, and inclined to take advantage of my often stay-at-home other half's cheerful impulse, we went, and actually chipolatas and chips were rather good comfort food.  Instead of the usual paper menus as placemats at the Green Cafe, there were flyers advertising a themed week on the subject of the Arctic, down at le Le Rosengart, a restaurant and conference centre very tastefully converted from an former boatbuilding building at the port (the building on the left of the river in the picture).  The film and lectures we weren't really up for, but there was an exhibition of photographs, so off we went.

The photos, large black and white blow-ups of Greenland were only really a quick browse.  Some were stunning, but there was a slight element of romantic ethnography about Inuit life, in particular the hunting of polar bears, which made us a bit uncomfortable.  I know tribal people in harsh environments have to hunt... but anyway.

So we wandered on. And indulged in one of our favourite activities, looking at boats.

And boaty things,

many of which were blue.

The Scotch Queen is a very old herring fishing boat, which has had all kinds of interesting advetures.  She's here as a kind of museum piece now.

And then we looked at buildings and other oddments, and had a most delicious tea experience.

But I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

No larger than the nail on my little finger, miniature works of amber shellac, hanging on the dry brown stems of the summer's foxgloves.  Is there anybody in there?

~~~

The same day Qarrtsiluni said they'd still take my photos in and around the chapel, if I didn't mind making a new commentary, and if my admirably loyal readers didn't mind being directed to yet more on the same subject, an elderly local historian, who I'd completely forgotten I'd contacted, having sent an e-mail off into the ether of his general direction some days ago, mailed me back with an enormous attachment, reams and reams of French in tiny Marigold font, with everything ever known on the history, archaeology and toponymy of Tredaniel and its environs.  I thought I wouldn't be able to read it without getting some form of mad-eye, but before I knew it I was totally absorbed.  Thus passed much of my afternoon.  Though having finished my assignment on the effective teaching of English vocabulary, I felt I could live dangerously and indulge my passions.  I curled in my cool blue room, and wrote about cool bright air.

~~~

Then bad news from an old friend and fellow blogger, which leaves me troubled for her.

~~~

The rain it raineth every day now, and my Toussaint holiday is nearly over.  I've done some of the things I intended to.  Molly lazes her days away and gets up too early in the mornings.  Tomorrow the weather forecast says will be better, so we'll head off to Dinan, a holiday outing we'd been promising ourselves.  With curry.

Lucky

By the plan d'eau, a particular stand of sycamores which turn unusually varied and bright in their colours, with some dogwoods and others, reflected in the lightly moving water.  Hitting the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' enhancement button in Picasa, 'Lucky' seemed to mean adding shades of lilac and turquoise.  I can't say I mind.

Yes, I'm still doing the quick and easy babyish thing with Picasa, rather than bending my mind to Photoshop.  Though a while back I discovered the 'liquefy' effect in the latter.  It's good fun, but it's nice when nature does the liquefying for you too.

Turning round the summer and winter clothes today; I've put it off long enough, though the pullovers look itchy and hot and uninviting. Tom's assembling the new ceramic storage heaters, so we should be warmer this winter, though we've still not had a fire.  They often say round here that the weather turns abrubtly at Toussaint, and it did.  But we have been lucky; October's been so kind and golden.

For Toussaint, revisiting the Seven Saints.

' The great advantage of the saints was that they actually existed in the material world.   Some of them can still be seen in churches, where they have a dual audience: a parishioner or a pilgrim communicating with a real being, and a tourist looking at an example of religious art.  A saint was not a theological concept or an artisitic representation.  The statue or the figurine was the saint.'

(Graham Robb 'The Discovery of France', ch 7, 'Fairies, Virgins, Gods and Priests')

Robb's book is one that has impressed me perhaps more than any I've read this year.  Revelation is an overused word, but it is what it is; it unveils things I have struggled or been unable to see about the country I live in, provides a key to things hitherto closed.  A highly accomplished scholar of France and French literature, he spent four years cycling the length and breadth of the country researching aspects of its social history the depth of which are astonishing.  It causes me by turns to gasp, laugh aloud and, occasionally to weep, in part at the sufferings and hardship described, but also with regret at the passing of a world so rich and strange. In all, it caused me to wonder, and his writing is inspired, full of affect without giving any cause to doubt his accuracy and academic authenticity .  It's difficult to avoid quoting vast tracts of it here, or getting into the territory of reviewing it, but the discipline of daily blogging means best keep within parameters... There's a good NYT review here.

I was reading it when, back in August, I set off to revisit the Seven Saints chapel at Trédaniel, about which I have written before, with a view to finding some images for the current Qarrtsiluni theme of 'Words of Power'.  It was just after Assumption, when places dedicated to the Virgin Mary get a bit of special extra fuss, and imagine my surprise when I found that, not only was the chapel full of flowers and candles, but the Saints were back!

They are not the originals, which were stolen many years ago, nor the faithful copies which replaced them, which were also stolen rather more recently, but very carefully made new wooden copies.  They aren't at all bad, in my view, keeping and even perhaps strengthening the essential naivity of the originals, while bringing in a consistency of scale and palette of colours , and a simplicity of line which those rather lacked.  I've been meaning to find out who made them, and how they went about it, but so far haven't done so.  I am slack about keeping up with local press, and on-line information is hard to come by.

I admired the new arrivals, only regretting that the little roughly carved wooden dog who had led the blind St Hervé, and who had survived the theft, had somehow or other disappeared in the clean-up.

 I wondered afresh at the enigmatic angel with the book in granite relief,

and enjoyed the Virgin's starry blue gown, the baby Jesus' flannel nighty, and the Little Breton's red coat.

And in my search for Words of Power, I looked at the votives, plaques in marble, the oldest of which dates from the late 19th century, but the majority of which were from the 20th century, and even one or two from the 21st.

Robb points out that the veneration of local saints, which I've tended wrongly to think of as particularly Breton or Celtic, was truly a pagan thing, in the word's original sense of being of the pays, the local region, these spirits are rooted to the spot, earthbound.  Many local legend told of fruitless attempts to relocate images and statues, which magically became too heavy to move.  And their powers were practically and materially helpful to the people who invoked them by means of practical and material actions. There are hilarious stories of statues having bits of their anatomy rubbed and scraped away to effect the relevent remedies, and equally, of their being punished, thrown in rivers, thrashed, and dragged through nettles when they failed to deliver the goods.  People's relationships with the sacred was nothing if not down to earth. Their names were also construed to appertain to their powers, so St Clair was (who is believed once to have been among the saints in the chapel at Trédaniel) was supposed to help people's bad sight, St Pissoux to fix with urinary troubles, and the feast of All Saints, Toussaint, which is today, was said to be the time to pray to cure a cough, as it sounds like the verb tousser, to cough.

'These beliefs' Robb says, 'thrived on the established church like mistletoe on an oak'. Even the figure in St Bernadette's vision at Lourdes was described by her as 'uo petito damisela',  (she didn't speak French as we recognise it), dressed in white with flowers round her feet, which had a special meaning, not the holy Virgin she was eventually interpreted as, but a fairy, a not-always-benign nature spirit.  However, as he says, 'the vital point was not the metaphysical status of the being but her actions and sympathies'.

(St Mamert, who specialises in disorders of the stomach, especially in curing troubled babies of their colic, holds his exposed entrails carefully between his hands, all the while smiling beatifically.)

I braved the adders, and took the path down through the woods to the fountain, the holy well that probably predates the chapel as a place of healing.  A fallen tree, long since assimilated into the landscape and ivy-covered, forms a low arch in front of it.

 

A lop-armed crucifix, with the typical gingerbread-man granite Jesus, stands before the stone basins built around the spring,

where people have thrown in other votive offerings, as they always do.  The wishing well tradition derives from something much older.

I was followed by a foursome of Parisians, who had alighted, wearing slightly pastiche clothing, chiffon skirts and light trousers, from an open-top retro sports car.  They asked me what I knew of the place, and I tried to tell them as much as I was able.  It seemed to me slightly ironic, an agnostic expat Englishwoman with an interest in the quaint and folklorique and a bunch of dressed-up Parisian sophisticates earnestly comparing notes at a ruined and deserted place of former peasant  belief (and 'peasant' too, comes from the same root as 'pagan'...).

They skipped back up the path, and left the place to us.  As I was leaving, I saw another homespun votive, mysterious and poignant, written in marker pen on the ivy stems clasping the fallen tree trunk,

'Cécile, we miss you.'

~

The lasting changes to the world of saints and fairies came when people were no longer exposed to the frightening, isolated little worlds where unknown creatures lived complex lives of their own.  The great symbol of secularized France is not the operating theatre or the ballot box but the vast megalithic alignments of autoroutes that bypass towns and villages and offer just an occasional glimpse of a cathedral spire fleeing across the landscape.  New, high-speed roads erased the pagan spirits by removing knowledge of the spaces where they lived.  The spaces themselves are still there, and when the small road on the map turns into a track and the sky defies the weather forecast, it takes an act of faith to believe that their sacred inhabitants never existed.

(Graham Robb, 'The Discovery of France'.  Read it.)

~~~

Qarrtsiluni kindly accepted two of the photos I took; I have used slightly different ones here.  I'll post when they are published there.

Blogger's new post editor is really good once you get used to it.  You can upload all your pictures in a stream, keep them in reserve and just pop them into the text when you want, change their size and position sur place, delete and replace them. No more HTML headaches for me!  And it has a preview button that really works, and an undo/redo function... Go check on settings if you don't have it and change it.  Well worth the bother.