When I ran out of chestnut for the stair treads, I asked Mrs Snoutsworthy to go along with me to Goujounac to buy more wood at the Christian Seguy scierie. It was at the end of the day so I stowed our bikes in the back of the Kangoo since Goujounac is a fine place to start a randonnée from. And it was the most beautiful sunny day you could imagine.
At the sawmill we pondered one last time the range of water-based finishes available from the Blanchon brand lineup, settling at last on a water-based oil finish. It looks great on a sample piece I tried when we got home. It costs a fortune.
The planks lashed to the roof of the Kangoo, we found a farm lane where we could change into our bike clothes. We parked next to the halle in Goujounac, just across from the romanesque church. I made the 24 step pilgrimage to the tympan to pray for a safe and beautiful bike ride.
The village is incredibly peaceful at 4pm on a summery afternoon except for the semis on steroids that roar along the D 660 now and then. The streets of Goujounac are barely wide enough for these behemoths.
Conflict and angst exist perhaps under the surface, among townspeople, but they certainly mark its history. When the church and the tympan were built in the 1200s, the 100 Years War was raging and Goujounac was on the frontier between the two poles: from Montcabrier, the power of Paris and the king's butcher, Simon de Montfort, aided and abetted by the bishop of Cahors; on the other side, the counts of Toulouse and England. So much of what makes this region beautiful, the fortified churches and farms, often on hills, results from the paranoia and violence of the 100 Years War. And then, some decades later, the War of Religions between the Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants burned the church in 1590.
Conflict and angst exist perhaps under the surface, among townspeople, but they certainly mark its history. When the church and the tympan were built in the 1200s, the 100 Years War was raging and Goujounac was on the frontier between the two poles: from Montcabrier, the power of Paris and the king's butcher, Simon de Montfort, aided and abetted by the bishop of Cahors; on the other side, the counts of Toulouse and England. So much of what makes this region beautiful, the fortified churches and farms, often on hills, results from the paranoia and violence of the 100 Years War. And then, some decades later, the War of Religions between the Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants burned the church in 1590.
The tympan represents Christ and symbols of the four Evangelists.
The winged bull of St Luke
The lion of St Mark:
The eagle of St John:
The angel of St Mark.
The winged bull of St Luke
The lion of St Mark:
The eagle of St John:
The angel of St Mark.
I love the zoom on this camera since you wouldn't be able to see the facial expressions unless you had a long ladder and didn't mind risking being run over by a huge truck. Consider the faces of the angels floating over the Christ.
The blessing worked; the bike ride was ideal. We saw: some wonderful gardening, wisteria in bloom, lilacs coming on strong, still flowering fruit trees. Sheep, cattle, horses, donkeys. Hay and wheat. But mostly we wound our way through chataignieries, chestnut forests.
Chestnuts grow in complete disorder and it must drive the French farmers crazy. When they log these forests, they take everything and stack it neatly, from 12" logs for my staircase to stout posts for the ends of rows of grapevines to kindling to whips to make brooms from. All of it neatly stacked, some of the stacks bearing spray paint dots marking the top row to discourage pilfering.
