Sunday walk

I went for a new walk on Sunday. I won't say hike; it was just a stroll around the hill that's between my house and the really big hill where local hero Vercingetorix got the best of Ceasar and the Romans.
It's crisscrossed with trails and the odd bit of fencing that shows somebody's rights to this or that bit. Sheep droppings everywhere.

Happy to know I wouldn't be shot by hunters. Probably. I did spy plenty of spent casings scattered around.The view from the far side.
Spring seems to be coming to the far side of the hill, too. Surprising, since it's just a bit colder up a hundred meters.

There was plenty to see in the way of abandoned stuff. This shed seems to be useful still.

These tires and assorted groups of their bretheren were very slowly merging with the ground. I am fascinated by old junk and can fill my memory card with photos of it. An old mattress, boots, a car seat, junk you wonder what it was... but it got to be kind of depressing. Like this hill is more a diffuse junkyard than anything else. There were a dozen small vineyards gone to ruin (I'll go back for those in a month or two, to see what's still growing), patches of refuse, and ruts from the roaming motorbikes all over. Not much else.

At the beginning of the walk I reflected on what a neighbor said about digging in his yard. He's found several artifacts from the age of Vercingetorix (that would be 2000 years or so), and even the burial site of a chieftan - now housed in the Museum downtown. Wherever you turn it's history under the ground. That junk I'm seeing scattered around, in a thousand years will be archeological treasures!

Oh, here's another tree thinks it's spring.

I wish it were true!

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Friday Photo Shoot Out: Black

This week's FSO theme is Black and Orange. I haven't had time to get the orange photos I want yet, and they will be a separate post (though not if it rains tomorrow).

The Auvergne region is littered with old volcanos. Nothing active, but they do provide a distinctive building material. Most of our official buildings are made of the black stone from a nearby quarry, but today I'll show you just one, a church that's tucked away on a little-used street just a few blocks from the train station.

I would have taken a really nice perspective shot, but it started to rain properly and that was enough for me!

Orange tomorrow, promise!

Other shootouts are here.

Friday Photo Shoot Out: Transitions

This week's Shootout theme is Transitions, chosen by Redlan. So naturally, I have an update on the construction zone all around me. They're working on it! Only yesterday this stairway went somewhere. Just to give you an idea, that shot is just five steps from the front door of the lab.
Out the back door of the lab we had this several months ago. We used to have trees!

Which progressed to this. Now if I step out our back door I'm in the construction zone. I'll get yelled at if I do that before the work crew knocks off for the day.

And has now been cleaned up to this nearly ready radiotherapy wing. Our blue-grey annex building in the back will someday be destroyed, but so far there's no money to make new lab space for us, so I doubt the destruction will happen on schedule.

I don't know what it is about my not being able to take a level picture! Maybe my brain is tilted.

The front of the hospital used to have a parking lot. This is an early phase of construction.
Some progress.

And what it looks like this afternoon.

I'll keep you posted as the work goes on.

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To join the Shootout, or just see what everyone else is up to, click here.

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Friday Photo Shoot Out: the Dark Side

Welcome to the Friday Shootout. It's the Dark Side today.

One of the things I'd like to change about my town is the vacant lots.
This one is right downtown; it's the old bus station, closed for about five years now. At first, there were signs on the front saying that a new University Library and Cultural Center was coming soon, in a renovated interieur. Those signs are gone now.

Hard economic times have closed a lot of the smaller businesses in town. Being next to a closed shop makes your shop more vulnerable, too, so areas of blight tend to spread.
I hope the city and the region, if not the whole nation, come up with some sort of plan to help small business stay in business. For my part, I shop small whenever I can, preferring to pay a (limited, I admit) premium at these more personal and unique places than contribute to the big box stores on the edge of town.

For a bit of dark side in a literal sense, this is a highly volcanic region, and the specialty local stone is an excellent black basalt. Most buildings of Importance are made of it, like City Hall, and here the Cathedral. Situated on a hill, from a distance the cathedral with its twin spires looks like a big black rabbit.

Right next to the cathedral is this new statue.

Urban II and the First Crusade.
Preached to great acclaim at the end of the 11th century in Clermont, the first Crusade aimed to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. Urban never transcribed his speech, though later chroniclers and his own letters indicated that this directive was the Will of God, and participants would be forgiven their sins and assured a place in heaven. The infidels were said to be subhuman and evil. The crusaders did succeed in taking Jerusalem, just before Urban’s death in 1099. For many participants, especially the peasants who made up the vast majority of crusaders, the movement was as much a chance for riches and glory, as it was a holy mission doing the work of God.
I guess such ideas were acceptable at the time. In fact, any offensive war that's going to succeed needs to paint the adversary as 'other', 'alien', 'vermin'. This makes it okay to kill, rape, and enslave.

That's enough depressing stuff for one blog post. It is kind of pretty as a work of art.

And, naturally, my favorite dark cat!

For other takes on the theme, click here!
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Back in Clermont

Saturday's entertainment is driving an hour to St. Etienne to buy an armoire for my bedroom. Closets are still a modern curiosity for the French. It'll be nice to be able to hand my clothes in my room at last, like a normal person.

It does in fact take the whole day. Vacation-speed getting going, the long drive, lunch among the screaming kids (Ikea is apparently a Weekend Destination for families), picking out my modular components, discovering that there is No Way they will all fit in our teeny Renault 107, arranging delivery, and getting home. The 107 is black, making it of the Bandersnatch Kind, and as we know, Bandersnatch is quite capable of amazing amounts of intake, so why not the car??
The Logistics Guy really really wants to rent me a van. But at 18€ an hour, figure 4 hours paperwork to paperwork, gas, freeway tolls, and all, and I save about 20 for my pains. Forget that. Really forget it when it comes out that I'm not having everything delivered (the baggies of hardware and the half-dozen rats we can handle), and I come out ahead.
Only, I won't be home next week. This week, ok. But they can't get it to me that fast. Next week is their week, and the delivery company guarantees delivery in 2 weeks or less. I'd be making them break their promise.
But I want week 3. Week 3 is golden.

Non, non, week 2 is a promesse.

You know week 2 doesn't work for me. But wait, the delivery people are going to call me to set up a date, aren't they? They don't just show up at random in the 2-week window, do they? So if it's in the first week, great, if it's in the second I'll just not be answering the phone. They'll have no choice but to go for week 3. They can't just keep the stuff.

Uh....

Finally somebody with a little more authority steps in, and we all agree that I will be called on Dec 1st to arrange delivery. Sheesh! an hour for that!

It would have been so cool to spend the evening putting it together. And then moving my stuff in. Hanging my shirts. Sweaters on the shelves. Sigh. Some day soon.

Sunday: Murol castle

Another dark grey, cold day. There's snow above 500 meters, though not a lot. That's just the way it is in November this year. On a few hillsides the birch trees still have golden leaves, making glowing bright spots among the dark pines and brown oaks if ever the sun comes out.

Taking the small roads we arrive just at noon. Murol is open all year round; I checked before leaving, but now that November 12 is passed, only after 2pm.

Hey look - an open restaurant. How convenient.

Good country food, too, and cider. Our bottle of cider looks like it has spent a good long time in a cellar, but it's good stuff.

Murol was your classic medieval wreck when I moved to Clermont 12 years ago. Today it's most of the way through the planned restoration. Most of the structural work is done; now they're on to some of the interior and part of the roof. Without much yet in the way of decoration, they too concentrate on the combative aspects of the time. There are a few other touches: spinning and knitting in a bedroom, pots and implements in the kitchen, skins on the floor. It's a nice visit.

I have to work during the week, which actually works out pretty well. Darrell gets lots of rest while I stay busy. He gets his fill of cat petting and lounging around; I'm not driven crazy with idleness.

We eat in (bread of the day, salad, shredded duck, cheese) or out (my favorite Indian and Italian), and once we decide to make rabbit. I leave Darrell a note for the butcher: 1/2 lapin, coupé. At the first butcher shop, the guy reads the note, says no followed by a long string of French. No is enough, so D takes his note back and goes on. The second guy just takes the note, takes a dressed rabbit over to the butcher's bandsaw, and cuts it lengthwise before chopping 8 parts with a cleaver. 1/2 lapin, coupé. Bone splinters everywhere.

At home we decide the head and giblets are catfood, and marinate the rest in herbs and red wine. Excellent rabbit for all, to be eaten cautiously.

It's a quiet week enjoying each other's company and watching season 2 of "24" on dvd. Jack Bauer is God. Obviously.

For extra entertainment, we pose the collection of rats and decorate the ficus with them. Christmas ornaments and tinsel are so ordinary. Another evening we visit the hardware store and their collection of locks and fun keys. Darrell emptied my box of 46 house keys and could not find locks for them all. However, he lusts after one old padlock on the door to the under-the-house. Would I trade him for a new one?

OK.

So I come home the next day and my short screwdriver is all bent and sad. That lock had been there for some years undisturbed, but he got the better of it.

Preparing our return to Paris I arrange with Marc to feed the cats daily. Usually I set up the anticatescape device just as I'm leaving, but it seems like a good idea to set it up early, the night before, while the cats are not yet desperate to get out or aware that there is any kind of imminent departure. That way, when Natalie insists on a 6 am sortie I can open the door and she'll rush out into the vestibule, but her escape route from there will be blocked by the cardboard. Ha ha! She might paw at the door, but the bedroom is far enough away not to notice. Then I'll let her in at 8.

Sure enough, at 6 Natalie really really really wants out. And at 8 here she comes in again - wriggling her way through the gap where she bent the sturdy cardboard out of her way.

Ah.

Well, I'll not tell Marc about this little flaw in the anticatescape device. I'll just reinforce it here with these bricks and rely on the presence of a bulky stranger to intimidate Natalie long enough to shoo her back indoors.

Cats all in, fed, watered, litter sifted. Luggage in the car, umbrella out. Tank filled, car returned, and to the station with 40 minutes for croissants and more coffee. We are capable of endless coffee. Next stop Paris.