Choses vues : végétation

It's still January but one has:



The first scraggly forsythia, a nice line of primula, something fluffy...

on the way to Albas 2

Further along our way, we went through the enormous walnut grove that is part of the great estate called Mirandol which belongs to one of the great families around here, the LeGrands. The LeGrands also own a bunch of property in the town including an incredibly ugly former restaurant just on the town square. In addition, they have a million bright yellow canoes and kayaks stored at Mirandol on the outskirts of town as well as in a vacant lot they own in town where years and years of vines and weeds have entangled the canoes and their large carriers they are stacked in. The business used to include guided trips to Africa and all the canoes bear the name of the enterprise, Safaraid. Anyone's guess why they don't just get rid of them all.

Walnut orchards are common around here and include an experimental orchard run by the government in nearby Juillac. They are now sold on a world market and are subject to the vicissitudes of growers in South America, the taste of consumers in the US, etc. In the old days, say 1600 to 1920, walnuts were a really big deal in these parts. They were the primary source of oil for lamps. Much of the bread was made from walnut flour. You can see all kinds of armoires, fine entry doors, staircases etc made of this European Walnut which is in general far lighter in color than American Black Walnut.

on the way to Albas

There was a break in the rain so we walked to Albas the way Stephanie used to take all the time last year when we were renting the Creunier's gite and I was taking the car early to work on the house in Castelfranc. We hiked along the old railroad bed which has also become a bike path. That means you don't have to risk your life on the deathly D9 where perfectly nice French people drive like homocidal maniacs. And yes, there are fatal crashes. Our friends Clotilde and Yann couldnt get over how ridiculously cautious American drivers are, how the speed limits are incredibly slow. Of course, no self-respecting French cyclist would use a railroad bed;: that's just for the tourists. For whom likewise, numerous signs have sprouted: Partageons la route, share the road.



Well and good. But isn't it a little over the top to provide a miniature left turning lane complete with miniature bicycle stop sign?

the great road project

For weeks back in Vermont we heard about how the town of Castelfranc was in an uproar because a round-about was being built up Iron Bridge Street street, Rue Pont de Fer. As in Vermont, more and more truck traffic is congesting the streets of small towns, cutting them in two, gradually rotting the houses to either side. The highway running through Castelfranc used to be called the 911 but for some superstitious reason was changed to 811 about 9 years ago.

Anyway, during the construction, the town temporarily relocated the trash bins, les poubelles, to where they had been before we bought the house: right outside our kitchen window. We paid the piratical mayor a ransom of €1,500 to relocate them to the parking lot, so Francis got a kick out of sending us pictures of them back in our viewshed.

We also received a notice from the town about how stickers would be issued for windshields and the cops would check to make sure that through traffic stuck to specified routes and only residents were using the interior streets. Residents were encouraged to scowl at transgressors. This went on for more than two months and then....like a pregnant elephant grunting out a flea, the "roundabout" turned out to be nothing more than some tentative traffic calming, some marks on the intersection.

Promenade au-dessus de Castelfranc

The Tempest

Ferocious winds and some rain most of the day today. The rectilinear streets of this 13th century bastide town make for strange wind patterns. For instance, I watched as a burst of rain would fall, reach the gutter on the three story post office, flow down toward the downspout but then, at the edge of the building where the wind from the cross street was furious, be spewed out of the gutter as from the mouth of someone drinking beer who gets punched in the stomach. Sort of. I always compare these rational, straight streets to those of nearby Albas, a far more interesting town visually, an Escher drawing of a town, its streets at many different elevations, curving...I never know where I am. In Castelfranc I always know where I am.


Anyway we lost our power which killed our heat without which the damp 18" thick stone walls of this old house drive you into your down sleeping bag within a half hour. So we decided to go shopping in Cahors where the streets looked like the floor of a forest so many twigs and branches had blown down from the inevitable plane trees which line Blvd Gambetta. The corpses of umbrellas testify to the big winds.

The Lot River running high

Here's what the Lot looked like as I took a walk with Marie-Jeanne and Kiki along the old railway line. Transportation archaeology: in some places, you can see:
Chemin St Roch, the old pre-Roman road that used to connect Lyon on the Rhine with Bordeaux on the Atlantic;
The abandonned railway bed that ran from west of Fumel, I think, to Decazeville, and, closest to the river, under floodwater in many places today, the tow path. The river captain who used to live in our house rolled his wine barrels down these slopes onto barges bound for Bordeaux and England.


This is where the Le Vert, also roiling, comes into the Lot. Le Vert runs from up between the hills from Castelfranc, La Bastide du Vert, Rostassac, and eventually Catus.

Mrs Snoutsworthy is poring over her brief due in a few hours, Again the familiar weirdness that she can function from a foreign country exactly as at home. Same endless hours in front of the same laptop. The increasingly urgent flow of emails to clients as though they weren't separated by an invisible wall of a 6 hour time difference.

Pulmonary Embolism

It was sneaky of my body to assemble a blot clot in my right lung with material from my right calf when, all these years, I was told to worry about about cancer or car accidents. I've injecting myself in a roll of flab pinched up on my stomach. Twice a day with these precision-made, throw-away syringes for the past month or so. Its a shame to throw them away. Not to worry about anyone else getting stuck since a plastic guard flings out with the sound of a switchblade when you finish injecting. Every so often, they test my blood hoping the INR number will climb to between 2 and 3. Today the French lab sent me a letter with the magic numeral 2.5 on it. I emailed Dr. Vallois over in Prayssac and he said, stop the injections!

So now I have about 8 of these syringes left in my drawer. In Vermont, they cost $60 each; here in France, 8€ or about $10. I guess I'll save them to use as a prophylactic on the next plane ride.

I took a tryout bike ride already, during a hour or two when it wasn't raining, trying out the bike and my lungs. Both seem to work fine.