Having got through a rather 'grey' time I was reminded that I needed to put a little more colour into this blog; look at the sky, see the flowers. Hence this post is about enjoying life & perseverance and what better way to nurture the soul than a little holiday.
So we spent a week on holiday from our holiday home in France, en route to our holiday home in England, still with me? In short, we are never sure which is our 'home', so why not alternate and why not go on holiday in between?
We packed up the camper van and set off north east following the Loire on a sunshine adventure enjoying the scenery & the culture. I say packed up because, our son, who stayed with us in France for a couple of weeks in April, had purchased an assortment of items to resell in England. These we added to & hence it all proved rather more than we had anticipated. To say we carried two chateaus and a pyramid might sound extreme, but even in Playmobile terms they are quite a bulk. Add to that an assortment of cast iron hardware, fire dogs & antiques, made the camper van both heavy & restricted.
The consequence was that we couldn't make up the full bed in the lower part of the van so had to use the pop up lid sleeping space. Designed to sleep two in the roof space, though I think two children or very small adults, the restriction meant we opted for a double decker approach with husband on the upper deck & myself in a two thirds bed at van level.. A real feat of logistics and gymnastics at bed time reminded me of something a Scots friend said recently, ' If you're not living on the edge your taking up too much space'. Now think he was referring to life & living to the full, but it certainly was true each night as we manoeuvred into bed, particularly when fit of the giggles overtakes you or you forget something & have to start again.
We'd also bought a number of small gifts for the family, which also had to be accommodated in the living / sleeping area/ mostly these were not a problem but the garlic (much loved by our daughter& much cheaper in France) was a step to far. Now you've heard of sleeping with wolves, even sleeping with the enemy, but sleeping with garlic right next to your head when temperatures were in the mid twenties, now that's another issue!
But for a real test of creativity,perseverance and adaptability the two main venues we wanted to visit were Amboise and Guedelon. The former is a pretty town on the Loire river & was the last home of Leonardo Di Vinci, the artist, scientist, inventor & amazingly creative thinker. The old Amboise is a noble walled town of great age with white stone buildings towering above the river and narrow streets with small shops, the buildings of which cannot have changed in centuries. Its a place of heat and business; heat from the sun which always seems to bless it & busy with people, now tourists but in times past traders and visiting gentry. The colours here are not the only reason the great artist & inventor came here, he followed his patron who provided a house here, but the light is quite special & the blues of sky & river wonderful.
Guedelon is the site of a medieval castle that is being built from scratch using authentic medieval methods, skills & all local materials.We had seen a TV living history programme about this enterprise, which is already 15 years into construction and were intrigued to see it in reality.
To say we were blown away is a massive understatement, it was incredible. The scale of the work, the number of the trades & skills, the back up and the dedication of these mem & women is amazing. Everything uses the technology of that time, the only concession being to basic health & safety in terms of hard hats (disguised under leather or straw) and steel capped boots, but so well used over the years that even they blended into the scene.
From giant twelve foot man wheels used to power the winches to lift the huge stones (bit like a huge hamster wheel) to safety mesh made from hand twisted wax string & hardened all the tools & all the equipment was real. No Disney look alike with people in costumes, no, these folk lived & breathed the life, working every day; hewing wood, carving stone, digging clay & throwing pots, making tiles, blacksmithing nails & tools and all by 12th Century standards. We were spell bound, so much dedication, enthusiasm and perseverance beyond belief. Fifteen years in & a predicted forty plus more to completion, before you have a brand new medieval château. And everything on the site comes from the surrounding forest, quarry, soil and all the colours are or the burnt ochre range. From deep reds & browns, through oranges & yellows to pale creams, every colour is of the earth; the over riding impression is terracotta.
So here are my colours in this jigsaw of my life & journey with & through cancer. they are the clean air crisp white & blue of Amboise and the deep red & oranges of Guedelon and both signify people who have hope & belief beyond the known or even possible.There are no certainties in life but if you can see the uncertainties as opportunities and the mishaps as time to be inventive, then the journey just takes on a whole new hue.
And where did we end our holiday, well at Le Touquet Paris Plage, on the northern coast; a flamboyant, pretentious but fun French seaside venue with white sand & blue sea.A friend told me to look for those thin places where the sky meets the earth, they're special! Well I found mine staring at the curvature of our beautiful blue planet and into the smiling eyes of my loving husband.
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