Talmont-sur-Gironde was founded in 1284 by Edward 1st of England (two years ago we visited a castle in Normandy built by Richard 3rd - one forgets how much of France used to be held by the English. It's a very small town (cited as having 100 occupants), and is totally pedestrianised which made it very pleasant to wander around. A little romanesque church dominates the town, and hollyhocks spring up all over the place.
As I said, this was our laziest holiday for a long time. We walked plenty - it was about a 2km (1.25 miles) walk along the beach into town, and we did that most days and twice a couple of days, and I swam most days. But we really only visited a couple of places, a small town about 10 km down the road, and another town where we went on Sunday morning hoping to find a car boot sale. I think it was probably rained off - I checked a couple of websites before we left the campsite, but there was no update and we decided to risk it. What we got instead was a lovely walk upstream along the river into the countryside, and then a walk downstream along the river into the centre of the town. But as it was raining all the time, I only have a couple of photos from there, and none of them made it into my Google album (Charentes Maritime, June 24) . We really enjoyed the fact that all along the length of the river there was a trail with reproductions of paintings by Gaston Balande, who was born in Madrid but grew up in Saujon. As it pretty much rained all that day, we also went to an exhibition in Royan, an interpretive centre of the architecture and heritage. There was a very informative video - the town must have been beautiful in its heyday in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it became popular as a seaside resort. But it was seriously bombed in WW2, destroying over 80% of the buildings, so it is now a very modern and (to our eyes) rather soulless town. There were some very interesting models of some of the classic buildings that survived and some of the major new ones, and a reproduction of a Seventies kitchen and sitting room which we enjoyed.
So I guess in this post I'll add a couple of Gaston Balande's paintings and a couple of photos from the interprative centre, and save the rest for two more posts. The next post will be the other town we visited - Talmont-sur-Gironde, listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France. It was founded in 1284 by Edward 1st of England - and the rest can wait till later in the week...
Picture trail along the river Seudre, paintings by Gastone Balande.
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Model of Japanese-style house in Royan
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I have more cards than I expected - I think because we only went on holidays for two weeks instead of our normal three.
It was also our laziest holiday in a LONG time, we stayed in one location just beside a beach. So most of my photos are sunsets, and they need some serious culling but I hope to get a few uploaded soon.
What I couldn't find was a single photo from last year to use as a blog header. I was starting to wonder if I had accidentally deleted a folder, but then I remembered that we came straight back from holidays to my aunt being in hospital, and July was a pretty hectic and exhausting month. Instead I used an older photo taken in Farmleigh.
I didn't post this card last Friday, as I thought I'd keep it to mark today. It's the first time since COVID that we've been home on our anniversary. Last year we planned to have our celebration dinner in the campsite restaurant the day we arrived - but it turned out to be closed on Mondays during the off-peak season. I bought a bottle of wine and three eggs in the shop when we checked in and discovered this, and we had an omelette after setting up camp. So we then planned to have our celebration meal on the last night before we moved on - but they had decided not to open on Tuesday either that week. We'd been out all afternoon after taking the big tent down, and had a long drive in heavy rain on very windy roads and didn't really feel like driving back into the nearby town to buy anything, so we made do with whatever was easy to find - I think it was crisps (chips), fruit and some biscuits. I was a bit annoyed because when I was paying for our stay, I asked did I need to book for the restaurant (we had needed to the previous year) and specifically mentioned that we wanted to eat there that evening as we would have packed everything up. And nothing was mentioned. There was still a chalkboard outside saying "open Tuesday to Sunday" - although when we went down to try to eat, there was a very small sign in the reception window - and we weren't the only people who had missed seeing it. At the time of writing this, I'm not sure that we'll be having a fancy meal this year either, as I have to work that day, and I'm also trying to run the fridge and perishables down before our holiday, but I did get this light-up card made for C.
Despite working several extra days, May has been a better month than most recent ones. Perhaps with the brighter evenings I've felt more like making something in the evening after dinner.
The header photo is from the Bambouseraie in the Cevennes last June. I was finding it hard to choose between that photo and one of a frog on a lily leaf, so perhaps I'll add the frog one at the end here. Choosing the dragonfly was dictated by my last card, where the dragonfly was created with fantasy film. The lizard and the card underneath it were both attempts at stencil rubbing with crayons.
Before it gets to be time for a May Favourites card post, I am badly behind with regular photos.
From the bird reserve:
There was a large assortment of bird houses installed in the trees. I'm not sure how many of them birds actually nest in , but they were certainly very picturesque, and no two the same.
There are a few more in the small album I uploaded from that visit - https://photos.app.goo.gl/vJ2abze7sbmw8Vb56
Mid month I went down to my sister for a weekend. She works a half day on Friday, so in the afternoon we went to visit a military fort which had recently re-opened. It was interesting - a large part of it is underground - partly because it was a safe environment for storing the gunpowder. A lot of the original floors were wood, for the same reason. The volunteer who led us through the tunnel part said that as far as they know, the horses bringing the gunpowder from Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills would have been unshod, to avoid the risk of sparks from shod hooves on the road, so they were then rested for a day or two before their return journey back to Ballincollig.
We had a great view across the bay to my sister's office, and also to Cobh, which was the last port before America for many trans-Atlantic ships including the Titanic and the Lusitania .
https://www.corkcoco.ie/en/visitor/camden-fort-meagher
I'll only add a few photos here, but again I have a full album from my weekend trip if you have time and interest. On the Saturday we took a picnic lunch to The Lough - a small lake right in the centre of suburban Cork. I've often heard of it as C and a good friend he visits often go walking there, but it's the first time I've been and it was such an unexpected sight.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PSa6TfN9fDmfsjAY6
My bad - here we are the 4th of May already and I've only just realised that I didn't update my header (now a mandarin duck from the Botanic Gardens last April) or share my favourite cards from April.
I had a blitz at using up bits and pieces from my desk, so several of the cards are using up "fragments that remain". The first herringbone card uses all sorts of mixed media backgrounds, gel prints, stencilling etc. I can throw scraps of patterned paper out without a backward glance, but tend to save all the offcuts from my own backgrounds. So when it came to the second herringbone card (a rainbow without a bow), I did actually have to cut all the strips I needed.
We took another trip to Farmleigh last Sunday, but it was a busy week and I haven't yet had time to do anything with the photos. Today, after a quick visit to my aunt's house, we went on the the bird reserve not too far from her. It was of course the wrong time of year to see much, but the sunshine and the sound of birdsong was so peaceful and relaxing. I'll try to get along with a few photos from there too.
