lundi 8 novembre 2004

Autumn has arrived... Where have all the flowers gone? Autumn has set in... it arrived a few weeks ago but the last days of intense brightness and contrast have gone and the shorter days feel damp with fog and drizzle. There's very little colour around... the turning leaves which, as autumnal tints, were vibrant yet delicate under sun and clear sky have turned to dour earthy hues and merge with the ground cover where they are now falling. Even the old flower seller in the small market square hasn't appeared for a couple of weeks... his secret rustic garden somewhere out of town is probably bare of blooms for cutting although he'll be turning the earth for new crops and tending his crop of wonderful leeks which will soon be ready for our winter soup pot. I don't know the flower seller's name... he's as deaf as a post and never stops talking. Because whatever I decide to say in casual chat has to be repeated two or three times louder and louder, so our uncoordinated conversation reaches the level where everyone across the square can probably hear except the man next to me. And yet everyone else can make themselves understood to him except me. Maybe he can lip read... or maybe everyone says the same thing week in week out and he's remembered what they used to talk about when his hearing was sound. However, he's got a very good memory... occasionally when I haven't been to the Saturday morning market he arrives at our door a few minutes walk away - during the time when his stall is still laid out in the square - and strides into the house to see Madam who has a bunch of flowers thrust towards her face. Trish has always liked flowers, plants, trees... anything that grows... she was a wonderful gardener before MS took hold of her limbs. So she becomes a "shrinking violet" when this deaf Frenchman who has to shout... reeking of garlic which he also sells by the string... greets her with deux bissous and a bunch of flowers... adding something which roughly translates into, "That will be four euros thank you very much!" You have to laugh, not just afterwards but as it's happening... for this is rural France and it sure is different, but ever so more friendly, than anywhere else I have lived. I've taken many photographs of our flower seller in the square... he's receptive to the camera to the point where it's almost impossible to take a candid snap of him... he either has an extra sense which knows when he's the focus of a camera and the photographer hiding behind it... or he sees me coming and knows what I'm likely to get up to. You see, it was established when I started snapping him and some of the other locals that a photo grabbed means a photo given. One or two must have an album full by now... but of this fellow they are all posed... he stands to attention with whatever produce he has to hand as soon as my camera is revealed. When he's finished here and disappears out of the door I have to follow... he's typical of many older Frenchmen in that he's lost his permis de conduire through drink-driving. But the French authorities don't stop the culprit from driving or pursuing a living... they're allowed to continue using the roads in two-stroke micro-cars which have a maximum speed of about 25 mph... and are thus probably more dangerous to other road users! The more up-market micro-cars are made by Ligier who, if memory serves me, were the manufacturers of Le Mans prototype sports cars in the 1980s... however, French flower selling friend has a Ligier... but he doesn't trust the 'and brake, so whilst parking on our gentle hill he jumps out and kicks a chock of wood under a wheel. But then because of the hill he can't get it out without driving off... so he fires up his Ligier, puts the pedal to the metal... and I grab the wood chock and chuck it through the window as he drives off. Like I said... it's certainly different here! I thought there was a nice association with tonight's blog images. The flower seller I've described enough... the silhouette image depicting a tumbler of similar flowers against a window were taken 30 years ago in a Welsh farmhouse where my first wife Roz and our three children lived for a while. The heavy condensation on the inside of the window was equal to the heavy rain on the outside... Wales and France are both very beautiful countries... but the weather here, even though autumn has set-in, is so much better for my spirit. 8:59:35 PM    comment []