Manual Dexterity

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Many years ago we visited an area of France called La Brenne which is noted for its breeding population of Purple Herons. Still using the excellent but very slow (50 ASA) Fuji Velvia film in those days, and not having enough lens, though we saw Purple Herons I failed to capture a decent picture of one. The trip also preceded my interest in dragonflies though I did get a rather poor picture of a dragonfly which I recently suspected to be a White-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum albistylum). The White-tailed Skimmer doesn’t occur at home and is difficult to distinguish from the Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum) so, this trip, I’ve been keeping a close watch on all suspects in the hope of securing a decent photograph to replace my earlier poor effort.

Whilst I quite like my camera, there are situations in which I find it frustratingly annoying. Its most irritating behaviour is when the autofocus logic steadfastly refuses to focus on an admittedly very narrow subject such as a damselfly. Even though the damselfly is closer, it frequently insists on focussing on the background instead. It just doesn’t seem to “see” something as thin as a damselfly. It serves as regular reminder of a comment I once heard made by Andy Rouse, a professional wildlife photographer now using Nikon equipment, that “even a Canon could focus on that”. Interesting!

Its other frustrating feature is the manual exposure exposure setting which, other than for flash shots, I never use. Naturally, any decent camera would include a manual exposure facility but what’s frustrating about it is that I seem to manage inadvertently to set my camera to manual exposure mode on occasion. I can only imagine that it happens when putting the camera away or taking it out of its rucksack. User error!

IMG_0168_Overexposure Whilst at Figeac, I was tracking a suspect which did, indeed, turn out to be a White-tailed Skimmer. After cruising up and down the bank for a while it finally settled on some grass causing Franco to leap hastily into action and fire off two quick shots before it once again took to the wing. I was thrilled – my long-awaited decent shot of a White-tailed Skimmer. My delight was short lived as I noticed the camera had been set on manual exposure and the image was hopelessly overexposed. I’ve got to show you this un-doctored version to give you a laugh. It could be somewhat recovered by post-processing but would never be great with the burned-out areas. I was livid!

IMG_0389_White-tailed_Skimmer Mercifully fortune offered me a second chance recently. We were just about to pack in and go shopping when I spotted another suspect zooming back and forth along a lake shore. I knew what to look for now and was pretty sure it was a White-tailed Skimmer. It settled on a rock. I checked the camera  [Ed: novel idea, Franco!]. It remained settled and I clicked off a few shots. I checked the image and all looked good. Relief!

IMG_0233_Black-tailed_Skimmer_2 For those keen on puzzles and just for a bit of fun, here’s another recent picture of a very similar Black-tailed Skimmer also sitting on a rock, though at a different angle. In an exam, this could form the basis of one of those “compare and contrast” type questions, couldn’t it?

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Damsels in Distress

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In an attempt to avoid our local breezy, cool, overcast weather this morning, we went to investigate a new-to-us stretch of La Rigole, the cleverly constructed small canal that feeds the Canal du Midi with water from les Montagnes Noires. We’ve been Odonata hunting in its upper reaches but the valley looked like the best possibility for an improvement in conditions today. We arrived at a small man-made lake constructed in a bend in La Rigole. During the time it had taken us to make our circuitous way there, the skies had largely cleared and the sun was out. So were the damselflies and dragonflies.

IMG_0377_Copulation_wheels In more southerly latitudes, it’s always worth looking more closely at blue-coloured damselflies since there are several species that look superficially similar but which might be subtly different and add to one’s photographic collection. Francine wandered off to retrieve a different lens as I dutifully began watching a small collection of blues flitting about a couple (literally) of plant stems protruding from the water. Since the main activity of damselflies when the sun is shining is sex, occasional tandem pairs of damsels arrived and alighted on the stems to form their copulation wheel.

IMG_0356_Ovipositing_White-legs After the copulation wheel, it’s time for a spot of ovipositing in the water. This pair of White-tailed damselflies (Platycnemis pennipes) very kindly demonstrated the most usually seen type of damselfly ovipositing behaviour: using vegetation as support, the male guards the female as she dips her abdomen beneath the surface to lay eggs. I know that, in some species, the female becomes almost submerged as she oviposits.

IMG_0940_Drowning_damsels Almost! I watched a pair of damselflies alight on one of the plant stems and begin shuffling downwards until only the female’s head and thorax remained above the surface. So far so good. I continued watching in something approaching disbelief as the male released his hold on the female and she continued shuffling down the stem until she was completely submerged. Being completely gobsmacked took over as I watched her continue down the stem until she was out of sight in relatively clear water. By now Francine had returned and was watching with equal fascination as other pairs, all the same species, repeated this sequence, so it obviously was not an aberration. Francine had a good angle and grabbed this very clear shot including a completely submerged female.

The species involved in this submerging behaviour is the Goblet-marked Damselfly (Erythromma lindenii). These are the ones in the synchronized copulation wheels, above. We didn’t witness the resurfacing of any of the submerged females. Since my field guide makes no mention of this, I’ll have to try to do some research to see what I can find out about the life-cycle of the Goblet-marked Damselfly and see if this is a terminal act in an all-too-brief adult existence.

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Express Delivery

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IMG_0876_Lakeside_pitch We are not normally given to reserving pitches on campsites in France. In fact, in close to 30 years, we simply hadn’t ever done so. That was largely because we never really knew where we would end up or when. Since falling in love with one particular site at Fanjeaux a few years ago, though, we’ve tended to know that we’d end up there for the last part of our trip. Since they have just four ridiculously good lakeside pitches, this year we decided to reserve one ahead of time from 12th June. A view like this from Guillaume’s windows may help to explain why.

Our rare advanced knowledge came in handy when, on the first night of our trip, Guillaume’s incontinence reared its ugly head once again. After some debate, since we knew a future address to which they could ship spares, we opted to contact the Caravan Club’s Red Pennant service which located a replacement Whale Smartflo UV0814 water pump for us. The pump was dispatched on 31st May. We warned our future hosts to expect it and they offered to email us when it arrived.

So, two things were supposed to arrive at Fanjeaux on or before 12th June: us and the pump. On Friday 10th June, Nadine sent us the long-awaited email saying the pump had finally been delivered. I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately felt more relaxed about our holiday. Assuming I had correctly diagnosed Guillaume’s problem, my only remaining puzzle should be fitting the darn thing.

Having finished our stay around Albi and Castres, we completed the short (60 mls/85 kms) hop to Fanjeaux on Sunday morning to be warmly welcomed by Luc and Nadine. Our welcome included cups of coffee and a hefty package across which was stamped in large letters, “Express Delivery”. Admittedly, the 10 days said package had taken to arrive included a 4-day weekend in France (Ascension) but I didn’t regard the remaining six days as particularly express. However, it was here.

We completed Guillaume’s installation on Sunday, renewed our acquaintance with some other Fanjeaux addicts, and, on Monday morning before the temperature rose too much, I set about removing the old leaky pump and installing its replacement. No matter what one has in one’s toolkit from previous repairs, one never has everything needed for the latest little difficulty. I discovered that the existing electrical connector was not reusable. Fortunately, even though it was yet another public holiday (Pentecost), the local supermarché was open and I found what I needed to complete the installation.

DSCN0033_Water_Pump DSCN0034_Water_Pump Just for added interest, in order to access one of the four screws that fix the pump in place, I had to remove the bed/seat support slats but eventually the plumbing joints were broken and remade, the electrical connector was cut off and replaced, and it was time for the heart-in-mouth big test. Fill the water container, switch on the pump and open a tap. The pump burst into life and Guillaume appeared to have a water system again. Furthermore, after waiting a decent length of time to spot any potential leaks, Guillaume appeared to remain dry and continent. Here’s the old ripped-out pump and the new replacement in situ to the right of that large, grey thing which is the hot water tank.

I never thought I’d say this but it’s wonderful to be able to do the washing-up again!

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Castres and Lautrec

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Now we come to the second reason why we chose to stop for a few days at Réalmont. The first was Albi, about 20kms/12mls to the north. The second is Castres, lying a similar distance to the south. The weather has been a little unsettled since we arrived but today, Saturday, looked more promising and it’s market day in Castres.

IMG_0763_Castres_market IMG_0768_Castres_marketFollowing a now familiar pattern, Castres is known for two things. Hoorah! I confess that’s a personal opinion rather than something I read somewhere. The first and the reason we were happy to visit Castres on a Saturday morning, is its market. We’ve been relatively impoverished thus far, market-wise, and it was good to get a second dose of France’s wonderful street market culture. A little sun, some colourful market stall umbrellas and some colourful locals are a good start point but markets are notoriously difficult to photograph. All too often, the picture is full of shoppers rather than of the market itself. We quite like these two, especially the lady leaning on the cheese stall counter seemingly staring longingly at the wares. As a confirmed cheese-aholic, I know exactly how she might feel.

IMG_0754_Castres_waterfrontThe other notable part of Castres, as depicted on many postcards, is a rather colourful stretch of buildings fronting the river Agout which flows through the centre. Clearly the tourist office didn’t plan Castres very well since, to get the best out of it, you need to visit in the morning for the market but later in the afternoon to get the sun on the buildings, which face north-west. We didn’t. Still, albeit contre-jour, here’s a shot to give you the idea.

IMG_0791_Lautrec_millBetween Réalmont and Castres lies the old village of Lautrec, presumably the one of Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa fame. Breaking with tradition, Lautrec appears to be known largely for an intriguing windmill. The fascinating feature of this, IMHO, is the way in which the sails are adjusted according to the wind strength. Each sail has two sheets of material supported on wooden vanes. The sheets seem to be manually twisted to reduce the surface area, then tied off onto the vanes when the miller judges that he’s got it right. Simples!!

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Bunting Hunting

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Small birds are tricky to photograph. Something the size of, say, a Golden Eagle gives a photographer a fighting chance, especially if it sits still, stares at you and says, “aren’t I pretty – why not take my portrait?” [Ed: Dream on, I think.] Even with a relatively powerful lens (mine’s a 400mm), you have to get damn close to a modestly small bird  to make the picture worthwhile.

One example of a problematic small bird might be a Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlus). “That’s a curious example to choose”, I hear you mutter. True enough, except that a Cirl Bunting happened to be flying around our campsite at Réalmont catching insects. Every now and then it would alight on the fence behind our pitch, either on the post or the wire, with a beak full of ex-insect. It was a male and, since we didn’t see a female, we assumed the male was engaged in feeding his mate while she was incubating eggs.

Normally, not being equipped with a wildlife hide, close approach would prove impossible. However, our pitch at the campsite was surrounded by some neatly trimmed, dense hedges complete with the occasional gap through them. When my target was on the fence, the hedges hid my approach and I was able to get to within 4m/12ft or so. What a perfect hide substitute. I found that by lying prone on the ground I was less likely to scare the little chap away. Sneaking out from behind a hedge with my camera raised like a rifle made me feel a little like Mel Gibson in yet another Lethal Weapon movie [Ed: much less attractive, of course] but eventually I was able to bag a useful set of Cirl Bunting shots. Mel would have been bagging the bad guys. 😉

IMG_0205_Cirl_Bunting Quite a colourful little character, don’t you think?

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Albi

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One of the reasons we are where we are, if you see what I mean, is to see Albi. Albi lies 20kms/12mls north of us and, since today the skies cleared a little to leave a patchwork of dark grey, light grey and blue, now seemed to be the time for our visit. There is a cycle track, a voie verte, running most of the way but, with the weather remaining threatening and the cycle track falling short by 3kms/2mls and dumping the unfortunate cyclist onto busy Albi roads, we elected to drive.

IMG_0748_Albi Driving into a sizeable French town is always a bit stressful. The main stress is the worry about parking. Finding somewhere both convenient and legal to abandon one’s car can be awkward for strangers unfamiliar with the variable local rules. Fortunately we lucked out and found a space governed by an horodateur [parking meter] almost immediately before what appeared to be the the main square. Even this cause a little head-scratching: we think it was free between 12:00 noon and 2:00 PM but charges applied before and after the lunch two hours. How wonderfully French to not spoil lunch with a parking charge.

Like Figeac, Albi is noted for two things. What is it with two on this trip?

Firstly, Albi is the birthplace of the artist – wait for it – Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, better known just as Toulouse-Lautrec, unsurprisingly. He was an aristocrat descended from the counts of Toulouse and Lautrec, and the viscounts of Montfa. (The two different spellings, Monfa/Montfa, come from Wikipedia, not me.) Albi possesses a museum housing “the most comprehensive collection” of the artist’s works. [The Rough Guide] Moving swiftly on …

The second thing for which Albi is noted is its Gothic cathedral. I wouldn’t know it was Gothic, you understand, but apparently it is. Albi is a very pink city, most of its buildings being constructed from a pink brick. Surprisingly, the cathedral is no exception; it, too, is constructed from modestly sized pink bricks, not unlike modern house bricks. Think about that for a moment. Have you ever seen a cathedral built of anything other than large lumps of stone?

IMG_0727_Albi IMG_0731_AlbiThe cathedral was begun in 1280, is built of brick and is absolutely massive. It is huge. It’s utterly enormous. The Rough Guide uses words like impressive and imposing to describe this staggeringly large edifice. Think gigantic and pink and you begin to get the idea. I’m going to add my own, potentially controversial, adjective to the mix: ugly. There is absolutely nothing that could remotely be described as elegant about this cathedral. Some of the angles where planes meet round towers, and all made of brick, don’t forget, made me think there was no plan, as such. “I’ve got a few bricks left over, boss.” “Oh, alright, slap a 45° ramp up just there [points] between the wall and the tower.” To my mind it looks as though someone has dumped the rusting hulk of a retired super-tanker into the centre of Albi. This really is one humongous, style-free, slab of a building. It’s sheer size does make it very impressive and imposing, though.

IMG_0737_AlbiAs a confirmed Darwinist, I never cease to be amazed at how mankind could invest so much money, time and effort on such an unlikely myth. At the same time, I’m rather glad that mankind did because I think the world would be all the poorer without such spectacles at which to go, “ooh, aah!” and, just occasionally, “yikes, that’s ugly!” Chartres cathedral was much more impressive and appealing, in my book.

The only way to get anything approaching an undistorted picture (distortion courtesy of my very wide-angle lens) would be from a distance but we failed to find the correct vantage point. It exists, though, ‘cos we’ve seen it depicted on postcards. Photoshop may help, later. 🙂

Despite what I consider to be an extremely ugly building, I rather like Albi. It seemed like a very pleasant, not-too-large town with a pleasing rather than suffocating amount of bustle.

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Alarm Cocks

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We know a few folks back at home who either are keeping or have kept chickens. For basically urban folks, it seems a slightly odd decision to me, perhaps because several weeks frequently pass without our using a single egg and/or because I could never manually dispose of a chicken that had reached the end of its “useful” life. In  my situation, a trip to Waitrose for the occasional half dozen eggs or oven-ready free ranger suffices admirably.

One doesn’t have to travel far from French towns before much of life switches into the slow lane and becomes decidedly rural, though. Witness all the large plots of land in the Marais Poitevin given over to vegetable production; plots of land that require significant investment in domestic versions of industrial irrigation equipment (petrol-driven water pumps and canons) and rotivators to obviate the need for back-breaking digging work. Those folks must be self-sufficient vegetable-wise which, I’ve just thought, may go some way to explaining the lack of street markets in that area.

There’s another manifestation here just outside Réalmont. The chicken-keeping habit is rife in rural France where, at about 6:00 AM this morning, I was awoken by several alarm cocks going off. From the variously strangled tones and relative volumes, I lay trying to count the individuals and came to the conclusion that probably four were involved in our local, less than tuneful addition to the dawn chorus. I’ve never thought of it before but I see now that Cockerels crowing really is a part of the dawn chorus. I just about heard a Blackcap singing together with a Golden Oriole trying to whistle its short but melodious tune from a nearby poplar tree but the combined cockerel cacophony [Ed: how’s that for alliteration?] had them both licked.

And while we’re at it, why does our language say that Cockerels crow? We have a bird called a Crow which surely should be said to crow, if anything does, but Crows caw. What a curious thing language is. Just a thought.

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Fin de la Sécheresse?

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Sécheresse nf dryness; drought.

A new French word this year for us. Near the beginning of our trip up in Luché-Pringé, France was already suffering from a lack of water. Two glorious weeks later, things were getting worse and the drought had spread to most of the French departements. It looks as though it may have come to an end. We’ve faired quite well in Figeac at which we were frequently surrounded by threatening clouds whilst enjoying a good amount of sunshine ourselves. We began referring to “the Figeac hole in the clouds”. Doubtless, it was just coincidence, though. Then, in what seemed like a dismal repeat of last June, we heard that poor old Draguignan in Provence had once again suffered floods. June seems to be becoming a bad time to visit Provence.

Today we travelled about 120kms/80mls from Figeac to Réalmont, half way between Albi and Castres. With the skies darkening all the time, we were frequently driving through light rain. Since arriving at 2:00 PM, it has been raining steadily and almost continuously. Along with the now unsettled weather in the mountain regions, I’d say the French water stocks will be being topped up.

Nobody really wants a drought and this is the first day of rain that we’ve had in 3½ weeks so we can’t complain. It’s amazing, though, how quickly rain gets very old and tiresome when one enjoys an outdoor lifestyle. On a day as dismal as this, I have been very grateful that I was not in a tent. I remember rain and canvas being an unpleasant combination. Even with an out of commission water system, Guillaume is relatively comfortable, especially now that we have re-pitched with no overhanging trees.  Basic camping rule: trees continue to drip on roofs and are bad news when trying to sleep. Duh!

IMG_0161_Hoplia_caerulea Since nothing much has happened today other than a journey that felt tiring over twisting, hilly, bumpy roads largely in rain, here is a little gem that we spotted lurking about in the grass on our recent tour of the Célé valley. I use the word “gem” advisedly. There is no plain English term for this spectacular character who, I believe, rejoices in the scientific name of Hoplia caerulea. He is a member of the scarab/cockchafer family but my book leaves me unclear whether he is a scarab or a cockchafer. As I recall, the Egyptians were quite fond of scarabs and, given the stunning blue colour of this character, I can see why. Jewels pale into insignificance.

With my tourist hat on, I hope it stops raining overnight.

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Not a Lot

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Since we’ve found ourselves a comfortable campsite in an area that has a few things to investigate, we’ve decided to stay for another couple of nights to see out the manic four day weekend. Also, the slightly disturbing weather maps in Aujourd’hui (our French newspaper) indicate that we have a period of inverted weather whereby the south of France fares worse than the north so, for the moment at least, there seems little point going further down.

Figeac lies on the river Célé. Flowing roughly south west from Figeac through the vallée de la Célé, it eventually flows into the better known river Lot which, in turn, flows through Cahors. In a previous existence, we’d spent a little time investigating the Lot vallye and, other than St. Circq-Lapopie, had wondered why. In this life time, led by the Rough Guide on Francine’s technologically advanced Kindle, we set off to investigate the vallée de la Célé before our forecast rain arrived.

IMG_0678_Espagnac-Sainte-Eulalie First stop was the hamlet of Espagnac Sainte Eulalie where there were two surprising things. The first was mentioned in The Rough Guide: “an octagonal lantern crowning the belfry of the church”. The second, not pictured and definitely not in The Rough Guide, was an improbably large French motor caravan which had somehow been driven through the narrow street (there was only one) into the diminutive square of the hamlet where it had been “parked” across a 10% slope at a sea-faring angle healing over to starboard, with its back end blocking half the square.

IMG_0697_Marcilhac-sur-Cele IMG_0705_Marcilhac Marcilhac-sur-Célé, our next stop, provided a picturesque photo opportunity against the side of the valley together with a much more endearing French scene: three children fishing knee-deep in the Célé, armed, in the case of the young girl, with little more than a bamboo pole. Not being one to gravitate towards children, even I found this reasonably charming.

We began our return journey through the intriguingly named Cajarc [we keep transposing this into Carjac) which was, for me, the most attractive place on our day trip – a seemingly charming, typically French small town with folks enjoying street cafes, bars and restaurants. Is this mentioned in The Rough Guide? No, of course not. As with most tourist guides, The Rough Guide concerns itself mostly with things such as museums, churches and mediæval architecture.

‘T was lunch time as we began our return leg along the Lot valley and we were keeping our eyes peeled for a decent picnic site beside the river. There were none. Once again, the Lot seemed to us to be a bigger but essentially dull river that could deliver so much more than it does. St. Cirq-Lapopie is certainly worth an eyeball but that’s about it.

Having failed to find a picnic spot, our picnic was back chez nous with Guillaume.

We’ve had a little rain but poor ol’ France needs more – preferably after we’ve gone.

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Tarnished Silver

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After a morning of chores on our last full day at Figeac, Francine planned an afternoon excursion up into the hills to visit Peyrusse-le-Roc, an old silver mining settlement. Whilst not hair-raising, the 20kms journey was, shall we say, “interesting” in the narrow road took several S-bend turns under single carriageway railway bridges, very effectively blinding one to any oncoming traffic that there might be. Happily, we made it unscathed with some use of the horn to warn of our approach.

IMG_0722_Peyrusse-le-Roc IMG_0721_Peyrusse-le-Roc Peyrusse-le-Roc comes in two halves. Slightly lower down the slopes lie the remains of the old mediæval village abandoned around 1700. The Rough Guide says that this old village is gradually being excavated and restored. Above the old village and atop the hill lies a newer village which, we found out when we arrived, also appears to be subject to some serious restoration work. The main square is a complete construction site sporting barriers and raised kerb stones in place of anything resembling any road surfaces, and the Mairie, just off the square, is hidden behind a large pile of gravel as though it, too, is still being worked on by the builders. I suspect the gravel is actually destined for the square but the effect is one of complete chaos.

IMG_0718_Peyrusse-le-Roc IMG_0720_Peyrusse-le-RocFrancine wandered down one of the narrow, steep alleyways following a sign to a “mediæval garden”, whatever one of those is. Having struggled up a steep incline to get from the car park to the village, I was darned if I was going to follow to see a few old plants, only to have to climb back up again before descending once again to our car. In staying behind, I missed a little French humour. On the exit from the mediæval garden was a sign saying, “Retour au XXIme siècle” [Return to the 21st century]. Clearly, the sign had been there at least 11 years because it obviously used to read “… XXeme…” and what it should now have said was “… XXIeme …” but, in a new millennium economy drive, the “I” had simply been added over the first “e” of “eme”. No matter, it was fun anyway. Maybe when they’ve finished restoring the village they’ll be able to afford a new sign.

Our advice concerning Peyrusse-le-Roc is, don’t bother until it’s finished.

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