59 fountains
Monday 29 July 2013
Today I aimed to join the cyclists and motorcyclists and take the bus up Mt. Ventoux. After waiting half an hour at the designated stop, I put out my thumb to hitch a lift. An older style camper truck pulled over. I was let in through the back door by a teenage girl, then greeted her younger sister who was still lying in bed, and a large, black, patient sort of dog. After a quick swapping of seats, I shared the table window with the mother, Sophie. Her English was very good and made the journey easy for me. The girls, Elise and Margot sat in front with Phillip. I was never told the dog's name but I was given their address in case I were ever in Angers.
The road is a steep 21k climb, ascending to 1912 metres and littered with cyclists of various nationalities pumping their way up this renowned Tour de France route. As we overtook them Elise and Margot would lean out the window and shout encouragements: "Allez allez ! Bon courage! Bravo!" and the sweaty, fixed stare of determination would momentarily soften into a smile as the two pretty muses passed by.
Hitching down was also very pleasant in a smart, air conditioned car with two elegant Parisian women who were here for le weekend. On the floor next to me were several pairs of stylish summer shoes in bright pink, lime and some soft shimmery colour, making me acutely aware of my clunky blue trainers and purple socks. The tail end of Mozart flute concerto lilted in the chilled air and all too soon they dropped me off at the restaurante by the entrance to the campsite. It is more of a watering-hole for cyclists, with racks of cyclist related Mt.Ventoux souvenirs, however across the road is the true watering-hole.
A large, grotto-esque pond, where the occasional cyclist paddles or washes the wheels of their bike, is fed by several jets of icy spring water from the source of Le Grosseau. This source had encouraged the Roman settlement at Malucene and was dedicated to the god Graselos. Little is known about him, however it is possible that the name comes the root gras -gift and elus- alms and could be interpreted as meaning 'giver of alms' or perhaps 'giver of health'.
People straddle the mossy rocks and lean over to fill their cupped hands, litre bottles or stock up with several 25 litre containers.
Around the pond, in the shade of mature holly, oak and pine trees, a boy throws a stick for a dog, women sit and chat, a man makes a watercolour of the view, couples picnic and, of course, there is boules.
Friday 26 July 2013
The heat and roar of it all.
Motorbikes and cicadas.
The base of Mt.Ventoux, a jagged white face between the plane trees, and higher up, the pines. Today, as I am a lightweight, I rest. 200 miles on a tight winding road through the Ardeche, where I am only aware of the heat, the curve and the lean of my bike on the tarmac, is a long way.
An accidental missed turning led me to Ispagnac, where in the tradition of the region, churches have doors on their south sides. However, here, at a church whose name I could not find, I entered through an arched garden wall and into the east end. For most people, perhaps, this is a "well, so what" detail.
For the ardent anorak-bearing church spotter, this was a hoppingly exciting moment.
The undressed stone was mud brown; the eight arched windows only let in localized shafts of hard light reminiscent of a La Tour painting. The floor plan of the church looked like a child's bird's eye view of a 1950's Cadillac car and I thought of all the things I have seen which I later decontextualized and made my own.
Motorbikes and cicadas.
The base of Mt.Ventoux, a jagged white face between the plane trees, and higher up, the pines. Today, as I am a lightweight, I rest. 200 miles on a tight winding road through the Ardeche, where I am only aware of the heat, the curve and the lean of my bike on the tarmac, is a long way.
An accidental missed turning led me to Ispagnac, where in the tradition of the region, churches have doors on their south sides. However, here, at a church whose name I could not find, I entered through an arched garden wall and into the east end. For most people, perhaps, this is a "well, so what" detail.
For the ardent anorak-bearing church spotter, this was a hoppingly exciting moment.
The undressed stone was mud brown; the eight arched windows only let in localized shafts of hard light reminiscent of a La Tour painting. The floor plan of the church looked like a child's bird's eye view of a 1950's Cadillac car and I thought of all the things I have seen which I later decontextualized and made my own.
Wednesday 24 July 2013
I 'm supposed to be hurrying to the base of Mt.Ventoux to meet a friend before he leaves on his holiday, but I couldn't control Louise when there was a left turn into the rocky ochre hills to Reilhac and its 12th century church. The morning had been spent in Sarlat la Caneda, which is no doubt a gracious medieval town, but in the heat, the vast selection of acrid sausages burnt my nostrils and the darling, but generally crying Dutch children, assaulted my ears. (Here I hasten to add that the Dutch parenting style was tolerant and kind.)
Therefore, I reasoned, I had earned my diversion. However, before I could stop at the church, I followed a lengthy detour down a deserted tarmac track towards the site of the Martyrs of Gabaudet. A simple, concrete block marker was placed on the island of a T junction. When the allies had landed at Dunkirk, a group of resistant fighters gathered at a farm house down this lane to plan their next moves. The Nazis knew there must be something happening in an area this remote so they combed the hills, found their quarry, and brutally opened fire on the 8th of June 1944. The farm buildings were razed, 42 people were killed or missing, and 71, including two women, were sent to Dachau and never returned.
Fifty metres before the lane was a well and water hole. One can only surmise that this is where these Resistance fighters collected their water, washed their clothes, watered any animals.
Back in Reilhac I visited the delightful jewel of a church. I chatted with a couple women who would have been children at the time of the attack but I could not bring myself to ask about it.
Therefore, I reasoned, I had earned my diversion. However, before I could stop at the church, I followed a lengthy detour down a deserted tarmac track towards the site of the Martyrs of Gabaudet. A simple, concrete block marker was placed on the island of a T junction. When the allies had landed at Dunkirk, a group of resistant fighters gathered at a farm house down this lane to plan their next moves. The Nazis knew there must be something happening in an area this remote so they combed the hills, found their quarry, and brutally opened fire on the 8th of June 1944. The farm buildings were razed, 42 people were killed or missing, and 71, including two women, were sent to Dachau and never returned.
Fifty metres before the lane was a well and water hole. One can only surmise that this is where these Resistance fighters collected their water, washed their clothes, watered any animals.
Back in Reilhac I visited the delightful jewel of a church. I chatted with a couple women who would have been children at the time of the attack but I could not bring myself to ask about it.
Traveling distorts time and memory.
The constant influx of the new keeps one alert, impressionable and in the moment.
I have a not very detailed, but allegedly indestructible
map and the sun to guide me in roughly the right direction, i.e. south east. I generally ignore the planned route and give in to the urge to search out the glimpsed church or bridge. In these few days I have seen so many rivers and churches that apses and side aisles flow and gurgle together in an architectural whirlpool. This traveling dementia is quite pleasurable because I have photos which might make sense of it later. Photos which the nice young man in the Apple Genius Bar will enable me to upload onto my blog, perhaps.
Fountains, however, still retain their individual character. Maybe because there is less to take into account.
The medieval fortress town of Clisson, enjoying a weekend of medieval costumed faire and themed piped music was a lucky find for me. The buxom wenches were laced up and belted, selling cakes and mead, barrel chested men perched falcons on their arm and shaggy headed babies in loose tunics and disposable nappies played in the dust. But it was not so lucky for the 18 Clissonaise who were brutally massacred and thrown down the well on the 8th of February 1794. Had they not been exhumed nearly 200 years later, again in a February, blithely throwing a coin onto their bones and making a wish might have been another one of those insensitive things we do out of ignorance.
It must be the natural housewife in me which attracts me to the lavoir. But I think it is more my natural inclination to play in water. What could be better than playing, chatting and getting the clothes clean as an incidental, in the summer time. Cracking the ice would be less fun. In Perigny the lavoir had schools of tiny black fish struggling against the current. When I touched the water a thunderclap shook the earth and hot drops of rain, large enough to fill a teaspoon, fell and steamed mingled with dust on the roads.
Thursday 18 July 2013
One could be precious about choosing
One could be precious about choosing one's first fountain and risk deliberate attempts to be clever or sensational.
To jump in, so to speak, and I did get my boots muddy and wet, I sought the fountain nearest to my Maison Rustique. A battered twenty cent piece I had found in the Casino supermarket car park made an ideal first wish coin.
St. Sebastian has always been a favourite. Years ago I read that he was, among other things, the patron saint for homosexuals. I've always admired his almost langourous acceptance of the arrows which pierce his beautiful young body.
Regardless, I doubt that the disaffected "whatever" attitude, as we would call it today, would have been possible in the psychological makeup of his time, or any other time, for that matter. *
Life after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden has been absurd and challenging and a faith in some Greater Plan has been essential.
In our zeitgeist, where "god is dead", "you only live once", "you're worth it", "just do it", are the cornerstones, a defeated resignation, a "whatever", seems to replace his optimism and trust.
And so it goes.
Whatever.
Sorry, I just had to say it.
* "Whatever" is obviously an English language expression who's meaning is determined by the tone of voice that is used.
It is a word now past it's heyday, but it is still used, and I hope used as an ironic reference to the youth culture of recent years.
(according to www.urbandictionary.com)-
To actually listen to a very good rendition of this particular tone of voice and to read further examples of the use of this word visit: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whatever
To jump in, so to speak, and I did get my boots muddy and wet, I sought the fountain nearest to my Maison Rustique. A battered twenty cent piece I had found in the Casino supermarket car park made an ideal first wish coin.
St. Sebastian has always been a favourite. Years ago I read that he was, among other things, the patron saint for homosexuals. I've always admired his almost langourous acceptance of the arrows which pierce his beautiful young body.
Life after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden has been absurd and challenging and a faith in some Greater Plan has been essential.
In our zeitgeist, where "god is dead", "you only live once", "you're worth it", "just do it", are the cornerstones, a defeated resignation, a "whatever", seems to replace his optimism and trust.
And so it goes.
Whatever.
Sorry, I just had to say it.
* "Whatever" is obviously an English language expression who's meaning is determined by the tone of voice that is used.
It is a word now past it's heyday, but it is still used, and I hope used as an ironic reference to the youth culture of recent years.
(according to www.urbandictionary.com)-
It was often used in an argument to admit that you are wrong without admitting it so the argument is over.
Man, whatever.
Or to indicate indifference to what a person is saying! Who cares! Get a Life!
Sunday 14 July 2013
Could I call myself a peregrinator? or a pilgrim? or a holiday maker?
The English, or so it appears to me, are suspicious of pilgrims and pilgrimages.
Perhaps it smacks of the incongruity of noble knights galloping off to the Holy Land, raping and pillaging in their search for the Holy Grail.
Over the years, when I have said to an English speaking person that I am making a pilgrimage, they hear me using that word metaphorically, a poetic indication of my love for such and such a place. They might add that they love the Dordogne and they've stayed in a gite for two weeks every summer for twenty years.
However, when I have said, in broken French, I am making a pellerinage, the response is very different. They respond with silence and much head nodding-for what can one say. I imagine we are thinking of the same reference points: bell towers, rose windows, porticos with carved saints, the still air of the dim interiors muffling the secular roar outside. But mostly the connection between these places, the roads and bridges, fields and woods, customs and local specialities.
" Qui multum peregrinantur raro sanctificantur".
(which Google Translates as "Who undertake many pilgrimages seldom become holy ".)
Thank you, Thomas a Kempis, you are probably right.
I will try to not let this worry me.
The English, or so it appears to me, are suspicious of pilgrims and pilgrimages.
Perhaps it smacks of the incongruity of noble knights galloping off to the Holy Land, raping and pillaging in their search for the Holy Grail.
Over the years, when I have said to an English speaking person that I am making a pilgrimage, they hear me using that word metaphorically, a poetic indication of my love for such and such a place. They might add that they love the Dordogne and they've stayed in a gite for two weeks every summer for twenty years.
However, when I have said, in broken French, I am making a pellerinage, the response is very different. They respond with silence and much head nodding-for what can one say. I imagine we are thinking of the same reference points: bell towers, rose windows, porticos with carved saints, the still air of the dim interiors muffling the secular roar outside. But mostly the connection between these places, the roads and bridges, fields and woods, customs and local specialities.
" Qui multum peregrinantur raro sanctificantur".
(which Google Translates as "Who undertake many pilgrimages seldom become holy ".)
Thank you, Thomas a Kempis, you are probably right.
I will try to not let this worry me.
Friday 12 July 2013
Technology is the opiate of the people.
We cling to its fickle righteousness and update its luminous
wisdom as if it were a panacea for all our ills.
However, water perseveres.
After a few days suffering ultimate frustration with technology, a computer savvy friend has managed to sort out the mysterious case of the mistaken blog identity.
Like the waters in Manon Des Sources it will all flow again quite freely upon the stoney ground. Surely.
Devon to Nice according to RAC Route Planner
Route 1.A26 15 hours 24 mins 1032.93 mi
Route 2.A71 16 hours 28 mins 1093.15 mi
Route 3.A71 16 hours 58 mins 1114.32 mi
my "projected" route -
5 days and that is only because I am rushing to get there.
The journey creates approx 96.27 kg of carbon emissions
To offset my emissions would cost me about £4. Which is absurd and about the price of four ice creams.
Tuesday 9 July 2013
There are so many saints who have been waiting throughout the centuries for their name sakes to pay them homage that it has undoubtedly given rise to the common expression "to have the patience of a saint". I have happily shared my feast day, the 5th of February, with St. Agatha. As a child I had known that she died a virgin martyr in 251 in Sicily. Although I wasn't entirely certain what a virgin was, I knew it was both admirable and dangerous.
St. Agatha is frequently depicted with her symbol- two breasts, presented like blancmange on a platter. Either I was oblivious or I buried the ramifications of this deep in my subconscious, for I still imagine them to be quivering milky jellies.
Last October, after navigating an extraordinarily complicated one way system, the crowds and North African market hawkers, I pressed my way into the expansive yet intimate Romanesque basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse. I blessed myself from the holy water fount and rustled in my water-proof trousers past side alters and banks of candles flickering in their red, blue or green glass holders.
And there she was.
St. Agatha is frequently depicted with her symbol- two breasts, presented like blancmange on a platter. Either I was oblivious or I buried the ramifications of this deep in my subconscious, for I still imagine them to be quivering milky jellies.
Last October, after navigating an extraordinarily complicated one way system, the crowds and North African market hawkers, I pressed my way into the expansive yet intimate Romanesque basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse. I blessed myself from the holy water fount and rustled in my water-proof trousers past side alters and banks of candles flickering in their red, blue or green glass holders.
And there she was.
Reliquary of St. Agatha
Monday 8 July 2013
a journey of a thousand miles begins with an idea.
this one is not a new idea. it is, in part, last year's idea.
now it is an evolving idea, which will be more interesting, at least to me, than something new and shiny which is still in its original box.
something which evolves is always growing and changing shape. there are a few fixed points making up a rough skeleton, and as the days pass, if i remain open and receptive, to my intuition as well as to what other people bring me, i might flesh out these bones with a certain amount of co-authorship humility and surprise.
childhood fountains were such ambiguous places. the slightly rank water, in its recycled and filtered loop,
smelling of wet cement and chlorine disguised mould, littered with magnified copper coins weighted down by unspoken hopes and wishes. worthless coins, winking and blinking in the sunlight, daring you to get your sleeves wet and steal them.
this one is not a new idea. it is, in part, last year's idea.
now it is an evolving idea, which will be more interesting, at least to me, than something new and shiny which is still in its original box.
something which evolves is always growing and changing shape. there are a few fixed points making up a rough skeleton, and as the days pass, if i remain open and receptive, to my intuition as well as to what other people bring me, i might flesh out these bones with a certain amount of co-authorship humility and surprise.
childhood fountains were such ambiguous places. the slightly rank water, in its recycled and filtered loop,
smelling of wet cement and chlorine disguised mould, littered with magnified copper coins weighted down by unspoken hopes and wishes. worthless coins, winking and blinking in the sunlight, daring you to get your sleeves wet and steal them.
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