Wednesday 26 August 2015

After the rain

Some nigella self-seeded into my pots of star-gazer lilies. I spotted how lovely it looked after a night of rain when I went out to put a wash on before work on Monday morning. The heron is also from Monday morning...





Monday 24 August 2015

France, an interlude

We headed from Brittany to the Auvergne, and had decided to break the journey in two and spend one night in the Loire valley on the way. Just as well - with the cold nights in Brittany, the tent was still quite wet with dew in the mornings and it was a while before it was dry enough to take down.
For our one-nighter in Azay-le-Rideau we used our little 3-man tent and did no more cooking than simply making coffee on the single-ring camping gas. We stayed in the municipal campsite right on the river, a lovely peaceful setting.
The castle is being restored and was swathed in wraps, but the town was lovely.












Sunday 23 August 2015

Brittany 7

Two evening walks - one the day before we went to Vannes, and one on our last night. I had sent a postcard which included a photo of La Tour Saint Vincent, and we hadn't come across it on any of our walks or drives, so we decided to look for it. It was a lovely walk which took us along the upper edge of the wheatfield and back down to the coast on the other side of the peninsula.
But...we reached a point where the painted waymarks had a low tide option (very short, we could see the tower), and the high tide option which we had to take and which was quite a bit longer.



the tidal mill, seen in evening light (Paluden)



Our last evening walk...









Saturday 22 August 2015

Brittany 6

And Vannes part 2 - mostly shop signs and detail photos from round the town.













Friday 21 August 2015

Brittany 5

Brittany 5 is Vannes part 1, since it was a photo-heavy outing.  We drove into Arradon and got the bus from there to Vannes, which was very quick and saved us having to try to find parking there. It was a somewhat overcast day, even cool at times, so it was quite good for walking around the town.



Castle grounds

Old laundry building, beside the castle


Toy shop - the bubble-blowing bear (below) is in front of it





The next two photos were both part of an exhibition called "Ephemeral Gardens". Hard to get a decent picture of the "green seating", because there was a railing around it, but it was quite fascinating. Sacks, with holes in them and different types of plants growing through, and then slatted seating a bit like a garden bench. It was a shame not to be able to sit on them. The exhibit in the second photo is titled "Scarlet Wave".