Away to Orleans

I had tickets from Paris to Tours for the weekend, but then just happened to turn the tv on and catch the last minute of a what-to-do-this-weekend report. There's a Loire River festival in Orleans!
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Quick change of destination.
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The late September is delightful. Sunny and warm, not hot; cool but not too cold after sundown. Perfect for a stroll around the old city in the evening.

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Everybody is outside. Crowds! The cathedral is illuminated, and the old bell tower, and other special sights in the distance.

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Wandering around seeing the restaurants fill up to bursting makes me hungry, and I'm seduced by a daily special for coconut curry salmon at a Thai place, but alas, there is none left. After some indifferent coconut curry scallops I walk down to the riverfront, where the crowd is even thicker and more excited. Bands are playing. The street is lined with vendors and open-air restaurants, people are moving up and down the street and the quay, where all the boats are moored for the night.
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At 10 there's a "spectacle" on the water. A badly amplified accordionist plays in a spotlight on a sandbar. Giant ballons lit from inside and from colored spots parade up & down. Three giant white terns regally flap their balloon wings. A woman with a very large balloon strapped on her back sweeps long orange wing-fins gracefully through the air, swimming above the water.
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The music starts up again at 11, but I'm an early riser, so I wander back toward my hotel. Since I specifically wanted to remain close to the station because of Monday's early train, I wasn't as picky for a hotel as I may have been. One was full on Saturday, one was too expensive. The third looked okay, if a little careworn, so I took it. Wifi and breakfast included, and they were out of shower-only rooms so I scored a bathtub.

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But.

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It may say "no smoking" on the door, but it must be a very recent change. And there's apparently not a lick of insulation anywhere. Upstairs is inhabited by elephants. The plumbing is an auditory work of modern art.

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More tomorrow (and mostly all photos).

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Friday Photo Shoot Out: My favorite place to photograph

My favorite place for pictures is my hometown, San Diego.
Here are a few of the many many many...

I've posted early because Friday early I'm on the road until Tuesday morning, so internet access will be spotty and I may not get around to see your posts this time. I'll try!

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change everywhere

In the spirit of nothing staying the same, this is going on right outside my office window.

Monday Poetry: My Hometown

My Hometown
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White concrete sidewalk
leading to friends' houses
Hard white sky
over the long, long summer, the ocean glittering to the west
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The front door faces the city
school, duties, paper routes
Safeway and Thrifty at the rundown strip mall
where a triple scoop ice cream cost a quarter
but the grey-haired woman behind the counter would get mad at your caprice if you wanted your orange sherbet between the two scoops of chocolate
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The back door faces the country
the cat-eating chaparral
the jets from Miramar and the little biplanes from Montgomery Field
The country became little league fields
but my city-hound dog could still flush rabbits of an afternoon
The little league fields became a police substation
as the sidewalks slowly broke up under the force of tree roots.
and the houses full of young families became filled with grey-haired folk who'd lived there thirty years
and Thrifty stopped selling ice cream in cones.
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It isn’t the same hometown today
But it shouldn’t be the same
Just as I shouldn’t be the same
We have both moved on.

Friday Photo Shoot Out: Domesticated Animals

Here's one.
Another one.
And a third one. Those kinds of domestic animals are just all over my house.

Just out of town there are plenty of domestic animals hanging around in the fields.

Scottish cows with a view of the sea.

A good old Auvergnat bovine.

Lots of bovines. People around here love pork products too, but somehow you never see pigs around.

A dovecote. There are no longer pigeons in these little huts, though that used to be the ordinary way of keeping them. In parts of the country there's something of a competition to have the cutest and most well-preserved dovecotes. There's even a guide to them!

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I might miss next week's Shoot Out because of work, but I'll try. Might post on Thursday. And I apologise if I'm not able to get around to all of the Shooters' posts today (or in fact for the next month!): it's just crazy time here. 6 trips to Paris in 4 weeks, plus teaching whenever I'm not away...

Ciao!

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