architect visits

With several failed attempts to engage an architect, I now have a good ‘un, or so he seems for now.  We’ve had two productive discussions in his offices and a very useful visit to site.  He was impressed with the location and am very proud with the fact that he thinks my plans should fit in very well with what remains of the old farm.  We tiddled about with a few details inside and even moved the house  by a few metres, from it’s initial location.  I think it’ll be a much better arrangement now.

For his visit I had cleared the front of the old house of all the brambles and mess of collapsed walls and detritus that has gathered over the last thirty or so years.  The building looks a bit more proud than it has done up till now, and definitely worth keeping, even if it is going to become a workshop rather than a home.  There is a concrete path running along its length which will marry in well with the proposed covered terrace and has set levels for the whole project.

Not much treasure yet, just some lovely old bottles and a couple of pan lids.  The rest is tiles, mainly broken, which is no surprise, along with roots of brambles, brambles and more roots.  Stupidly or otherwise I am taking the time to sort the rubble as I go.  The tile fragments will be ideal hardcore for later use or even rough track grade for more solid access around the site.  The beams, rafters and other timbers are fairly rotten to date, but still coming in useful for raised bed construction and any excess will be put to one side for future projects.  I’m still waiting for some decent bits to construct a frame for a fruiting arbour.

in need of attention

beardy man clearing brambles in french farmers uniform

my first treasure

concrete.  a bit of a rarety here

all clean and tidy

The ruin is going to be saved in part.  The walls are going to come down to the height of the window sills on the first floor then a structure is going to be erected within the footprint of the building which will support a new roof.  The walls will be left intact but will not be expected to bear the weight of the new roof.  Facing due south, an excellent place for a few/plenty of solar panels. 

another sort of garden

As I neared Calais, my route passed through war country, the old battlefield zone of World Wars I and II.  Here my gardens changed somewhat, to gardens of remembrance.  I hadn’t planned to stop and visit such important monuments this trip and certainly wasn’t prepared for the impact they had.

Tears welled in my eyes when I caught sight of the headstones.  I sat on the steps and cried and cried before walking the gardens, tears arriving again and again.  I was amazed by the force of emotion as I thought that I had been prepared for what I was about to see.  Thousands of headstones in neat rows of light grey stone.  Each one a dead soldier, or as I was to discover as I read some of the inscriptions later on, sometimes up to four soldiers per grave.  All men, nearly all young, in their teens and twenties, sent to war,  as far as we are told, for the greater good of the western world.  

I had learned of the wars at school and then frequently through day to day life, as I imagine we all do.  The book ‘Birdsong’ graphically illustrated the brutality, futility and carnage of the First World War in graphic detail.  A captivating and moving book that I unfortunately took to read on holiday, it kept me in a sombre mood for the duration of the read and has left lasting impressions of how dire the war was for everyone involved.

Both cemeteries that I visited were relatively small compared to some of the war memorials of Normandy, but overwhelming none the less.  When the war machine was murdering thousands upon thousands of men a day at times it is hard to imagine the numbers.  Here, the sheer scale of loss becomes imaginable, very real and close.  These were only the British dead too, there must be millions of French, returned to their home towns and villages, where possible, to rest in peace plus those of the German armies, also repatriated and laid to rest for their loved ones to remember. I know nothing of the plight of the German dead, whose numbers were colossal too.

It moves me now, close to tears, just writing this piece and thinking of the loss.  Look at the photos, for every stone a son, a brother, a nephew, a father, a friend.  Loved by all who knew them and never seen again.  Just gone, a hole in a family, a missing member of a team, a best friend gone for ever, imagine that, for each and every stone, here and then again for all the other cemeteries and in towns and villages across europe and, in fact, most countries of the world.

It leads me to think of the cost of war? the impact on our families and societies? the loss of kindred folk, of natural human resources, of the destruction of trust and hatred that it brings.  Who are we as a supposedly clever, logical and highly evolved species to bring this on ourselves again and again?  We obviously aren’t yet capable of finding peaceful solutions as wars continue with alarming frequency and ferocity around our planet.  I have no solutions, it just leads me to think.......

Etaples Military Cemetery

about a quarter of the graves

in perfect symmetry

Terlincthun British Cemetery

not even a name between the four brave souls who rest here

a smaller site but just as moving

impressed by an impressionist

Overloaded with such an intense visit I plotted my night time stop over and drove off into the evening.  A cross country route towards one of the main arterial routes heading north towards Calais, there was one campsite within easy reach and with the thought of a hot shower and static facilities decided it was the place to go.  The receptionist booked me in for the exorbitant fee of 7,50 euros and asked if I wanted a map of Giverny, the home of Monet, that was just down the road.  House and gardens open, I was there by chance, so an opportunity not to be missed.  So I ate, had a luxuriating, long, hot shower, an early night, having decided to hit the next spot early before the rush of tourists arrived.  How wrong I was.

I parked up at 8:45 thinking that I could stroll round the village for a while before getting into the gardens when they opened at 9:30, all quiet and calm with no rush or bother, but the car parks were filling up, there were at least a dozen coaches spilling their passengers out onto the tarmac and a sea of campervans already parked up from the previous night.  I had no idea how large a tourist attraction that this place was.  The whole village was a show piece, galleries, coffee shops and restaurants, museums, artists in residence, there didn’t appear to be many houses or places for locals to live any more.  It was all spotless and beautifully kept and it was obvious why, the thousands of tourists that arrive each and every day must bring an enormous wealth to the place.

I queued and paid just after 9:30, hoping to have beaten the rush.  Prearranged groups, however, arrived by a separate entrance and had already flooded the gardens.  Everywhere I looked there were people amongst the plantings, the hum of chatter and the constant clicking of camera shutters as millions of digital images attempted to capture the magic of the gardens.  It took me a while to get, a mass of colours, a jumble of forms, formal pathways and flower borders crammed with more vibrancy than seemed possible.  I didn’t know where to look or how to see what was going on, on top of that the people, it was all rather too much.  Then it began to sink in.  Monet, the impressionist painter,  squint and blur the boundaries and his paintings come to life, so I did the same to the gardens and with some success.  I had tried to see it all, too much, to bright, too bold, when in fact, a softening blur was needed to take away the crisp edges and definition of individual features, rendering the mass a whole.  

The water lily gardens were completely different.  Calm, composed and much gentler on the eye.  The famous bridge, painted an almost luminous green, never free of people, patiently waiting for their chance to be photographed in such an iconic spot.  It was impossible to take a photo without  capturing at least part of someone in the frame, close ups were about the only exception, though even then there was a chance.  One can only imagine how packed the place becomes in peak season, after a couple of hours I had to abort mission and head out into the village for a little calm.  I managed a quick tour of the house on the way, “No photos, NO videos, No touching.”  “One way only”..... , well I said it was quick, I didn’t dwell longer than necessary to get an overview of each room,  just moved along with the throng, at slow plod.  It was fascinating, but as most of the attractions are art, it’ll be easier to see them on line or in a book, at my leisure at some later date than stay with the crowds.  I had had enough of the crowds and wanted to get some space.  The contrast between  two consecutive garden visits couldn’t have been greater.  Both amazing but in very different ways.