Sunday 21 October 2018

Cycling to see Les Frères Sisters at Chef Boutonne cinema

It's been ages since I had time to write a proper weekend roundup post so my apologies to those of you who've kept popping by to find out what we're up to and who have then clicked away again none the wiser!

We returned to Chef Boutonne a week ago where I was relieved to find that Horace does indeed fit just fine onto the parking space by our static (as Dave said he would, of course!). The weather was beautiful for most of our journey down through France, in contrast to that from the UK which saw our Poole-Cherbourg ferry cancelled at about half an hour's notice (having got up stupidly early in the morning too). So we zoomed(ish) from Poole to Folkestone, stayed overnight at a nice CS near the Channel Tunnel, and made our first journey under the sea on the train next day. I appreciated that we got to be in a double-height carriage as I imagine it would have been very claustrophobic in a car. However, the journey was certainly swift and, other than not knowing when to leave the holding area, pleasantly easy. I think we'd still use the ferries further west rather than drive all the way to Calais or Folkestone again, but if we find ourselves needing to cross in that eastern corner again, the Tunnel could be our choice.

Horace at Bec Hellouin aire 

It's felt like a busy week, although I am now struggling to remember quite what has taken up so much of each day! Travelling down, we stopped at our first free aire in Bec Hellouin which is a stunningly pretty village in Normandy. It's chocolate-box pretty, almost too pretty! The aire is basically just the car park behind the abbey and there were a couple of other motorhomes already parked up when we arrived.

Bec Hellouin 

If you don't know about aires, they are dedicated places for motorhomes and campervans to stop overnight. Most French towns and villages have at least one such place. If there's no facilities, they're usually free or there might be a small charge if water, waste facilities or electric hookup are available. The system makes finding an overnight place far easier than it used to be for us with a caravan when we had to find a proper campsite each night. The EU offers grants to places that want to set up aires so there are now hundreds across France, Germany, etc. One of our motorhoming intentions is to offset the additional costs by regularly taking advantage of aires - and this one was certainly a great choice. Peaceful and beautiful with only the Abbey bells to distract us in the morning (it was a Sunday!).

Bec Hellouin abbey 

Another intention now that we only have Horace to drive around, is to make greater use of our bicycles for short journeys. The motorhome obviously uses more diesel than our car did, plus it's not always convenient to park - although Dave is turning out to be an admirable parker! So I'm happy to say that we cycled to the shops earlier this week which, as it was our first cycle in ages, was somewhat painful! However we persevered and this evening we cycled into Chef Boutonne to go to the movies. Part of the library building doubles up as a cinema with comfortable tiered seats and a proper large screen. Today's film was an early evening screening of Les Frères Sisters in VO, based on the Patrick deWitt novel The Sisters Brothers. We'd both loved the book so wanted to see the film too. VO is Version Original meaning, in this case, English language dialogue with French subtitles. A good learning tool! It was a beautifully shot film with loads of gorgeous wide scenes of desolate wilderness. I couldn't actually remember much about the novel so have no idea how faithful this film is - Dave thinks there are differences. However it was fun to be able to visit a cinema again and then to jump back on our bikes to whizz home in time for a warming curry!

Chef Boutonne cinema 

Monday 8 October 2018

Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail

The Iron Road by Keir Smith 
Catching up with our home news first: our friend Marta is now the proud owner of our Bailey Orion caravan and we hope she will be as happy in it as we were. We're enjoying being in our Classic Hymer motorhome, despite a few teething troubles, and have decided to call it Horace because it sounds like a lion roaring if you don't change up from first gear fast enough when pulling away at traffic lights! I thought I remembered a lion called Horace, but Googling the phrase has failed to find anything so goodness only knows what I should have remembered!

We took Horace to his first art exhibition this week although he didn't actually get any further than the car park. Dave and I set of on foot to (mostly) admire the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail. This free Trail (It did cost £3 to park for up to 4 hours) is essentially a five mile woodland walk, sporadically interrupted by sixteen large outdoor artworks. Reading up on the website afterwards - because we didn't shell out for the map), some of the pieces have been in place for decades.

Horace waiting at the Sculpture Trail 

My favourite was an atmospheric work called Dead Wood by Carole Drake. It comprises of "five steel plates dug into the forest floor amongst a regiment of larch … they bear faint traces, memories of European forests devastated by war." I didn't get a good photo of this work and the one Through This Link doesn't really do justice to its spookiness.

Detail from
The Iron Road 
The Iron Road by Keir Smith is another that made quite an impression on me. "Twenty evenly spaced railway sleepers placed on the gentle curve of a disused railway line bring the spirit of the Forest’s industrial past to life." The sleepers themselves apparently originally were in the London Underground. Now they are each carved with different motifs such as the vase pictured. Other images include a smoking chimney and an open book.

My third highlight was Echo by Annie Cattrell. This piece is a replica of a section of the bank behind it. It's cleverly positioned so we could see details of tree roots in the sculpture and their natural inspiration. I would love to know how this one was created. Surely a mould of the bank would have disturbed it too much? I did try calling to try and get an audible echo too - of course! It didn't work particularly well.

Echo by Annie Cattrell 

I made an unexpected discovery tucked into an Echo crevice - a cute Bee Kind painted pebble from FODRocksUK. I haven't decided where to rehide it yet!


Here's some of the other sculptures: