village wander
by Rachael
Uzerches, France
Do you have an hour to come for a stroll?
I went alone this morning (although Grandpa VERY NEARLY came with me – “It’s a miserable business going alone”,” he said, and only very strong reassurance bordering on almost feeling rude at denying his offer of company would convince him that I was More Than Happy for the first spot of solitude in almost ten months).
It’s been three days since we arrived in the village of Uzerche – or maybe it is big enough to call a town. But it has a cosy feel, so I’ll remember it forever as a village, regardless of the facts! Jboy13 was smitten by it as well. For the first time on the trip he quietly declared, “I could live here.”
We arrived in the early evening, and knowing no better, followed the GPS, who beckoned us through the narrowest alleys. As we walked them yesterday, and as I retraced the steps again today, I wondered how we could possibly have got through without incident. But the photographic evidence proves we did.
The town village is a stone affair. Stone mixed with timber and a little painted plaster.
It seems to rise up out of the rocks it sits on. It’s solid, natural, quaint.
The variety of shades of stone is as vast as the brown fields we passed through on our way to get here. The doorways and shutters add a jet of colour – sometimes painted perhaps deep maroon or a shade of green that defies description, sometimes the colour of weathered timber, sometimes deep rich dark oiled timber. I stop to sniff a doorframe. It may have been in place for hundreds of years, but the forest smell lingers. The sun’s warmth grabs my cheek, radiating from the attached stone wall, all the stones cut in irregular shapes and sizes, but fit together with absolute craftsman-ish precision.
A little further up the semi-steep hill laughter wafts from an open window. This one:
I stand still again, mesmerised that the private lives of people are spilling out onto the street below. Their footsteps echo across the wooden floorboards. Their voices carry on the gentle breeze. Their laughter puts a smile on my face.
When you open your windows wide to embrace the cool air, when you have no front garden to separate you from the streetly goings-on, that constructed line between public and private blurs. There’s closeness in community.
Don’t you just love the variety? The quality? The beauty?
Beauty, yes there is beauty everywhere. I wonder who plants the “public” garden spaces. They look too tenderly cared for to be a council effort. They exude passion and their bright colours reflect the heat of this country. They look as loved as the many vegetable gardens – but it is a bit deceptive to call every patch of non-road-or-building a “vegetable” garden – while cabbages and lettuces and tomatoes and beans do sprout, so also do roses and hydrangeas and sunflowers and patches of colour I cannot name, all presided over by chickens and scarecrows and in one instance, an old berry brown man in speedos wielding secateurs. These personal garden spaces are filled with vegetables, but not devoted to nutrition alone. France seems to feed the soul as well as the stomach.
full points if you spotteed our girls – this pic was taken yesterday
Speaking of stomach, it’s about time we picked up some PAIN and headed home.
Home is at the old railway station carpark across the river from the village. It is home not only to us (and about thirty other motorhoming families/couples), but also to a recycling centre. Even that is done with beauty and creativity here:
Time on the road: none in vehicles
Distance covered: 0km
Tags: 2008/09, postcard: France, recreation, tradition, weather
rayres
Thanks for introducing us (in such a lyrical manner) to Uzerche. We pass a couple of Km south (through Vigeois) when going to visit Robert (Phil’s son) on the Dordogne/Charente border but now we’ll certainly visit this beautiful town. Towns in France employ their own gardeners (as did England before Thatcher!) and they take a real pride in their work.
ohk, here’s the plan.
in ten years time we rendezvous ici. here.
right here.
and i giggle out my window and wave to you and you vault across the cobbled street for something delectably french. oh, croissants. or pain au chocolat!!!!!
oui? X
Wow! BEAUTIFUL.