A musical Jura

Richard has been a family friend for many years, indeed in discussing this one night we came to conclusion that we had first met 36 years ago, at a boatyard in Kent! And since amongst his many talents he plays a fair guitar whenever he can, and with having a Music Room to hand it seemed like a good opportunity to join him there. And since my concertina had travelled with us from Scotland it was ready for another good squeeze. I also like to think that the presence in the room of a wild boar, Un Sanglier, as the French would say, actually improved our performance, but who knows. 

The sunshine continues, bringing out the colours in everything, especially this rather gaily coloured church spire.

It seems hard to believe that since we left Scotland we have had no more than two days of rain and this was many days ago, whilst we were travelling south through France. The only other shower we got falling on us was of sand, which did nothing to improve Martin's fine looks. It may have been blown up from a Saharan storm, we'll never know for sure, but most of what is now sticking to Martin's paintwork will probably be taken back home with us - we won't be rushing to wash it off, sorry mate.

We do, however, still carry all those logs around with us - or so many  people must think. In order to hold our bedding in place in the back of the van we have a cloth stretched across the rear so that when we open the large rear door, things won't come rolling out.

And because Kate had a convenient remnant of material left over from some other project, we used this, despite it having a pattern on it representing a stack of logs, viewed from on end. The effect of this simple piece of practicality is that when viewed from the rear it appears that the van is full of logs. This is clearly what the customs officers thought back in Harwich when they were carrying out their inspection prior to loading onto the ferry and it explains the strange looks they gave us and their insistence in having us open up the rear so they could inspect the timber for themselves. Readers may judge for themselves how our log-filled van compares with a genuine logpile.

The village we are staying in, St-Maurice-Crillat, with its handful of inhabitants, lies in the foothills of the French/Swiss Alps, the nearest large city being Geneva, but between here and there are some pretty big mountains.

Clearly though there is considerable leakage from across the border in Switzerland, of culture, architectural styles and behaviour. Many houses here have overhanging roofs with tiles that have spikes on them to hold the snow on rather than let it slide off and cause damage. Then there are the cows. Let loose into pasture only when the grass has recovered enough from the winter chill, every animal has a bell around its neck, a bell which may have been passed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Each villager could own no more than seven beasts, that was the rule, which was reckoned to be what the land would support.

We're also in département No.39, apparently something one businessman is very proud of, going completely overboard by choosing this as the theme for his shop.