Still in France - I wish!

Next morning I woke to a bright sunny day - the first sun I had seen in it seems like months!Work on Ian's house is ongoing, and that first morning he told me I would meet Roy, who is working on the roof of the cottage next door. During the morning there had been a few people walking by and as we sat breakfasting in the kitchen with the French doors wide open, we would greet them with a "Bonjour Monsieur!" (not many Madames passing by!) and Ian would sometimes leap out to shake hands and have a bit of conversation, during which I was also introduced! Afterwards as we were getting ready to go exploring I was already out there with the camera, so when a man walked up the road towards the house, thinking I was frightfully clever, I wished him a cheery "Bonjour Monsieur!" " 'Allo!" he replied, though it sounded more like Allow! This was Roy from deepest darkest London with an accent to match! He and Ian exchanged a few words about the roof, during which the word 'ooks featured. Apparently Roy had run out of them! The terracotta roof tiles come in two different shaped pieces. First there is the canal which is about a foot long (30cm, if you prefer) and then there's the semi tubular length - can't remember its name - also about a foot long. The canals are laid in rows up the slope of the roof, overlapping each other, while the others lie one side in one canal and the other side in the next, also overlapping. These are shaped with a little notch out of the sides of one end so the next ones won't slip, but invariably some do after a while, so Roy was fixing them on with 'ooks so they wouldn't slide! (You can click on the photo to see them more clearly if you need to know the workings of French roof tiles that badly!!!!!)

We left him to it and headed off in the car to Confolens, the nearest town. Each day we took a drive out from Ian's in a different direction. It was usually late morning/early afternoon before we left, and we didn't travel too far, but what a lot there is to see on his doorstep as it were! First of all we stopped in the village for a look around and spied Mimi painting on her balcony. This is the view as seen from Mimi's and Francois' house! (We were invited in for a small pinot - glass of wine - and given the guided tour). From Ian's you enter the village on the little road passing the church. To be honest we weren't in the village very much at all so I didn't get to see the inside of the church. (Next time!) Then there was a small square on our left, the right of the photo where the trees are, with Lionel's shop/bar opposite, up a few steps to a raised pavement. Mimi and Francois live just off the main road - the house with the blue painted balcony (2nd left in the next photo) with Steve and Vicky next door to their right, in what was the old bar and function room where local dances were once held. Further down the road, the other way and almost opposite the adjacent side of the square is the "Mairie", the Mayor's offices, flying the French flag along with the European Union one. There are several other wooden-shuttered houses along the main road all of which appealed to me, so I began to get quite snap-happy, though now I couldn't tell you where each house was situated! Never really having been to France before, everything looked so different and I loved the lace curtains, the shutters, the French windows, and the pots of geraniums and verbena outside on window sills and balconies, the vines growing across the fronts of the houses...... It is all so pretty even if some of the buildings look a bit shabby, in need of a few coats of paint and a bit of TLC (tender loving care). I actually liked them that way, though a friend says it's just a romantic tourist's view! Huh!

So, off to Confolens, a very pretty town on the river Vienne at its confluence with the Goire! We parked on the opposite side of the Vienne and looked over to the town. I don't need to describe the view. See for yourself! Isn't it gorgeous - with its riverside terraces behind the old buildings!

A couple of Ian's new friends bought a house on this side of the bridge and are doing it up - to the left of the trees - and when the house with the balcony next door also became available, they bought that too to do up and let out to holiday visitors. They were working on it when we arrived but took a short break to show us round, first their own and then the guest one! Wow! The features of these old houses - huge open fireplaces, ancient great wooden lintels and beams, stone carving round doors........ to die for! The "piece de resistance" though, was the garden stretching down to the riverbank with a small 15th century tower building amongst the trees, and then the back terrace balcony, with its view across the river! Who wouldn't be charmed by it all?!

A small detour to look at the fountain just along from the old bridge then crossing the bridge itself it was only a short walk through narrow streets to the market square, with its hotel de ville (town hall) and post office, glass sided market hall, shops and cafes, and then

along the river to the cauld or weir where opposite had been an old mill.

Then on to the old entrance to the town, near where the Goire meets the Vienne, through more narrow streets, and past old and interesting buildings,

till we finally reached the old bridge again.

Our day still wasn't over though. We took a drive alongside the Vienne to the hamlet of St Germain to look at a ruined castle on the top of the hill, dominating the houses and river below. It must have been an enormous castle in its day, but the two towers here and the wing connecting them, are the best preserved parts. There would have been a large square courtyard with a tower at each corner, and buildings connecting each along the four sides.

Now if this was in Britain, the National Trust or some similar institution would have taken it over, have signs all over the place to tell what was what and where, and would charge the earth to enter and look around! Not here! You just walk right in and explore - for nothing. Free! Gratuit! It was quite hard to imagine how this wing would have been laid out so a notice or two wouldn't have gone amiss, but hey, imagination is a wonderful thing!

By this time it was quite late in the afternoon and the sun was low so with one more photo taken we left to head home.

Now let me tell you that these are only a few of the pics I shot that day!!!!! See what Ian means when he says I could take photos for Scotland!

The next few days were just as interesting, and it is a hard job to choose which photos go in and what are missed out!

Hope you're still with me at the end of day one and will accompany me on the next few days too!

Talk again soon!