Round and About - Pressignac

I visited Pressignac almost a year ago now, on one of my trips back from  Limoges airport, having dropped Nigel off for his return to the UK to work.  Thank goodness these trips are now at an end!!

The town of Pressignac is quite close to Chassenon where there are many Roman remains see HERE. It's situated in an elevated position and well served by watercourses, presumably the factors which caused the village to be established originally. The countryside bears the signs of the  meteorite which crashed in this area 200 million years ago. A nearby hamlet marks the position of the exact centre of the 20km (12 mile) diameter crater which it created. See the post on nearby Exideuil HERE.

The population of Pressignac is currently around 400, and in common with other country towns and villages, the population has been falling in recent years.  

On arrival in the little village, the very first thing that I came across was a beautiful carving.  I assume that it is one of the carvings done by  Canadian wood carvers, who visit this the Charente each year- see HERE.

The carved workman was situated next to the local Mairie, as you can see below. The building looked much newer than the remainder of the village, but it could have been restored. Anyway, the French do like to maintain their public buildings!

I walked on down a small road, which gave me a view of the church

and directly in front of me was the war memorial.  Every little (or large) village in France seem to have one, as so many country people gave their lives in the Great Wars.

Walking on a little further, I came the church, Eglise Saint-Martin.

The church was built in the 12th century using local materials, chiefly granite and stone  formed in the meteorite strike.  The architecture is influenced by the style of the abbey at nearby Lesterps, into which diocese this church falls.  Fortifications and other features dating from the 14th and 17th centuries can also be seen.

a small side door

on entering the opened door, I was left open mouthed at this beautiful vaulted ceiling. I am always amazed how they managed to build such beauty in years gone by, without the equipment that we have today.

To the side was the old font

The altar,

and at the sides these beautiful artistic features

.

Walking back outside, the first thing that took my eye were the three timber poles. No, don't ask me what they are for, as I have no idea!  Maybe to tie your horse up to, the smaller the horse, the lower you go down the rail!  Perhaps it is just to stop you parking there, or perhaps left there temporarily for some restoration work!

To the left was this map for walkers which may be of some interest. Walking is quite important in country French life and walking trails are well organised, each trail having a reference number and all recorded on large scale maps on sale at stationers.

On walking around a little more, I spotted several more views.  I loved these beautifully kept gardens and the village was spotless.

A view down the main street heading out of the village

A little further out of town on the other side, these two barns were for sale. They looked to be in good condition, so would make great  conversions for housing.

On again, this barn was home to a small animal trailer, and all the owner's prizes were attached to the outside wall for all to see. They were obviously very proud of their winnings.

 All the prizes, and many were firsts, were won at local shows during the 1970's.  The winning animals are not mentioned on the shields, but my guess from the size of their trailer, is that the animals in question were sheep!!

Retracing my steps, more lovely buildings were in view and you can see how well looked after most of them are. Note the large grape vine on the barn! Many country people make their own wine.

A sign from the past on this derelict building

and back at the car, I saw across the road what I presume to be the remains of an old well.

Just as I was about to leave, I looked over the hedge, and there was the town's little graveyard, with the usual lavish family vaults.

with many memorials, this one of the First World War.

I hope that you enjoyed your walk with me around this lovely little village on a warm sunny day. 

For further information see http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressignac, thanks for this is to Jean-Baptiste BERLAND who has kindly given me the link to his write up.

To all of my followers who celebrate Easter, I wish you a very Happy Easter and a relaxing weekend.

Wood Carvers

The wood carvers were back again in Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure this year.  Either I missed them last year, or they had a year's break.  I have not seen any new carvings around the town, so I suspect that they took a year off.   For  photos from previous years, take a look under 'labels' and 'wood carving'.

As I said in earlier blogs, the team of wood carvers come from Canada.  They are amazing to watch and they work with chain saws, hammers and chisels and finally they sand everything smooth by hand.  The end products are eventually treated with sealer and placed in and around the town for all to see.  I made four visits down to the town this year, so I could take photos as work on the various sculptures progressed. Note all photos can be enlarged with a single click.

There were in fact 5 logs in this group; two were out of shot over on the right. The wood is cedar and the smell while they are working is very strong.  You can see they had just begun when I took this photo.

This are the same three logs as above and you can see how much work had been done on them by the middle of the week. The fourth log was modern art, and at this stage I had still not decided if it was my style or not!

This face was very distinctive already.

Without the sketch, I think I would still have been wondering

This one I thought may be an angel but you will soon see how wrong I was!

The eagle is starting to take shape on the third visit

and the 'angel' was now very definitely an owl with another face appearing below

I was still not sure about the modern art, but thought it was time you took a look! I have also realised that somehow I missed photos of the fifth log until the end!

The face was improving by the minute.

 

My last visit and they were still working on the finishing touches. Note the moustache is in fact a fish.  There were two of them, one on each side.

The owl from the front

and from the back, suddenly  a turtle appeared.

The eagle, if you look carefully, has a fish in its talons

The carving I had previously missed, has a horses head above a mushroom, with a snail climbing up the right hand side. On the top of the mushroom is a ladybird.

The final touches to the modern art

and a final summation of the week's work.

Round and About and TDF - Part 92

I am still using pictures from my collection, but I hope this will be rectified when Nigel arrives on Tuesday with a camera for me to use.

Each summer in Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure, a team of wood carvers arrives from Canada for a week. It is amazing to watch these craftsmen and women at work, not only with hammer and chisel, but chain saws as well! I have put  some of the carvings in past posts; see my labels. It's amazing what one log of wood can be turned into.  At the end of the week of carving, the sculptures are then treated with preservative and positioned at different sites around the town for residents and visitors to enjoy.

This was a collection that had been finished the previous day. I did not have the camera with me while the carvers were at work.  (I did not have a blog then, and the camera did not travel everywhere with me!!)

TDF NEWS.

TDF - Thursday 8 July 2010 - Stage 5 - Épernay to Montargis 187.5 km The stage featured two category four (fairly minor) climbs in the first 36.5km and three intermediate sprints (at 27.5km, 126.5km and 169.5km). It was an extremely hot day with temperatures well over 30°C. (88°F). The temperature was 35/36°C in the Seine-et-Marne department where the stage ran - hot and  windless!

While I have been mentioning riders wearing the yellow jersey, there are also 3 other jersey colours of importance; the following will give those not familiar with the race a little more information:-

The yellow jersey represents the race leader.

The green jersey represents the leader of the points competition - points are won at intermediate sprints and for stage wins; these are often won by sprinters when the finish area is flat.

The polka dot jersey designates the race's finest climber. (King of the Mountains) - judged from points won by reaching the top of each climb first second or third.

The white jersey designates the highest-ranked rider in the overall competition, age 25 years or younger on the first of January of the year of the race.

The stage win went to Mark Cavendish (British, but in fact a Manxman- from the Isle of Man), I nearly shouted myself hoarse in the final seconds, once I knew Robbie Hunter of South Africa was not going to take it!

1. CAVENDISH Mark (Eng)

2. CIOLEK Gerald (Ger)

3. HAGEN Edvald Boasson (Nor)

Fabian Cancellara still holds the yellow jersey and no other positions have changed. For those of you who are not keen cyclists, you may be surprised that these positions have not changed. The reason; it is impossible for 190 riders to all cross the line simultaneously, so the Tour operates a rule that all the riders in the race's main peloton are given the same finish time as the first rider. But if a split forms and the gap is larger than one second, the next group gets the time of the first rider of that group. Overall, it saves a mad rush for the line and in most cases it's too difficult to allocate separate times. Once the tour gets into the mountains we should then see a number of changes in the main positions.

09 July - stage 6 - Montargis - Gueugnon 227.5 km- this is the longest stage of the tour. It is relatively flat, so I would expect  overall positions to stay much the same.

June/ July 2009 Part 25

15 June 2009
My friends from South Africa, Cathy and Steve, were due to arrive today after spending two days watching the Le Mans 24 hour car race. They were travelling the scenic route from Le Mans and only arrived at 11h45, in time to relax with a drink before sampling my courgette and chard quiche for lunch. I might add that it was raining again on their arrival, but it did clear up ready for us to take a short walk around the hamlet later, ending up at Jean and Nicole’s for a drink. I cooked paella for dinner that went down very well and as we were all quite tired we had a fairly early night.

16 June 2009

We went into Angouleme in the morning and headed for the daily covered market on top of the hill. We bought oysters for Steve and me and mussels for Cathy, who is not an oyster fan. We strolled around Angouleme old town and returned home for French bread, cheese and a glass of wine for lunch. In the afternoon, we took a trip up to the Resistance Memorial and then we drove over to the lake at Cherves Chatelars. The Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure National Cemetery and Memorial (Nécropole nationale et mémorial de Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure) was erected shortly after WWII to the memory of soldiers killed in action and of the 1,465 martyrs of the Resistance.

On our return home Steve had a quick lesson from me on how to open oysters and after the first couple he was opening them like an expert. I cleaned the mussels and we all sat down to a magical sea food dinner served with salad from the garden.

17 June 2009

Sadly Steve and Cathy had a plane to catch in Paris to go to the UK, so they were on the road by 05h30 to make sure they were there in time. It was such a short visit and it was great to see them again but I hope that they will come again in the not too distant future to stay for a longer time.

The weather today was beautiful so I managed to catch up on all the washing and spent quite a lot of time working in the garden

18 June/ 7 July 2009
On the 18th I went into Chasseneuil on my bike and then did a circuit of 22 kms home. As I cycled past Jean and Nicole I saw them in the garden and stopped to have a coffee. I later sprayed all the potato plants and tomatoes for blight; after getting blight on these crops last year, I am watching over them carefully this year.

On the 20th I cycled into the market in Chasseneuil; it was quite chilly and the wind was cool, so I just bought a couple of things and returned home. I cut the grass on my return and David came round with a petrol edge trimmer and cut around all the grass edges, under the hedge and around the trees. In the evening, I went down to look at the Chasseneuil night market, but there was not really a lot there, so I only bought a few saucisses. Vitrac had a fireworks display in the evening and although I had plenty of clothes on, it was still very cold. It started late and I was standing with several shivering neighbours. The display was really quite good and I eventually got home just on midnight.

The next few weeks were spent doing very much run of the mill work around the house and garden with the odd visitor dropping in from time to time. I did cycle a couple of times including one trip to see David at work which was a 40km (hilly) round trip.




On the 27th there was a charity fete in Chasseneuil in aid of a cancer charity and I had offered to work on the book stall. Luckily the weather was good and it was a pleasant day, with quite a number of customers. The people who ran the fete had previously put out a quiz which we paid €1 to enter. With quite a bit of help from friends I somehow managed to get all the answers but one correct and ended up as the winner. I only learnt afterwards that the winner has to set up next years quiz and provide a prize. Maybe I would not have tried so hard if I had known!!

I took many pictures of David’s ‘old’ house and set up a website for him to help him sell the property. The site received many hits and it was not long before a sale was concluded. We were both more than happy with the result. I have met the new owners, but as they only moved in just after I returned to the UK for winter, I have not really got to know them properly yet.

The garden was thriving and I had more than enough to eat and the freezer was filling up fast. In between gardening, the Tour de France had started on 4 July, so quite a bit of time was spent watching it on the TV. Nigel arrived on 7 July and we got back from the airport in time to watch a very exciting time trial.