Weekly photo challenge: Escape

When I walked up over this hill in the early morning and looked back at the village, I was completely alone on a small part of the Mediterranean coast. No one knew where I was.

Port-Vendres from top of the hill

Turning round to see the sea, I looked down over this cove, and, on the far side, a fort and war ruins, French and German, that remain on the cape.

Cove between Port-Vendres and Collioure, France

Having escaped from civilisation for a brief hour, I walked down to take a closer look at the ruins and saw why this point had been chosen for a fort; it’s ideal for shooting and blowing up shipping way out on the horizon. No escape for them.

This is one of two arches through which cannons were pointed, with holes for thinner weapons. Unfortunately, with the arch and holes positioned as they are, it resembles a face.

Gun and cannon slots, Fort Mauresque, Vermilion Coast, France

It was horrible, seeing this war junk lying all along the cliff edges.

War junk, coastline between Collioure and Port-Vendres, France

What struck me was the ugliness of concrete, while the nineteenth-century stone fort has that element of beauty found in stone construction all around this region, whether it be houses, barriers, walls, steps or forts. Here’s some more ugly concrete, a piece of German war litter, a base for a revolving cannon.

Base of revolving German cannon, leftover from WWII, between Collioure and Port-Vendres, France

Fortunately, wars end, and life is good again.  But if you need to take a break from the troubles of ordinary peacetime life, I recommend this coastline where surprises make every day special.  I found this beautiful Bottlebrush tree, which I didn’t know grew outside of Australia,  growing on a hill with red roses, grapevines and palm trees, all overlooking the blue Mediterranean.

Bottlebrush, Mediterranean Sea

Ailsa’s travel photography challenge: The four elements

The four elements: earth, water, air, fire; that’s Ailsa’s photo challenge this week.

The photos below are from the Catalan coast, north and south of the French-Spanish border.

EARTH

House built onto rock, Port-Vendres, France

Sometimes the French completely tame and reshape nature, sometimes they work around it, acknowledging its beauty. Many buildings in this region are built on rock, incorporating it into the external and even internal walls. Why remove rock when it adds to the visual appeal?

WATER

Students casting stones into the sea, Cadaqués, Spain

Yesterday afternoon in Cadaqués on the north-east coast of Spain, we stopped to have a cup of tea in a café. Outside, students stopped on the beach on their way home after school with the idea of dismantling the rocky beach and casting the stones into the sea, an activity which amused them greatly. I wondered whether they do this every afternoon. This is truly a watery photo because it was drizzling and had been for most of the day.

AIR

Scarf in wind

Here on the Côte Vermeille it’s OFTEN windy. Squally. Scary at night. I shut the shutters.

FIRE

Candle for my family

This afternoon I lit the candle on the right for my family. The little candles that burn in churches every day are strangely warming despite the tall, open, often icy space.

Ailsa’s travel photo challenge: Beaches

Ailsa had trouble finding a free spot to park her towel on a Seattle beach this week since everyone had gone there to catch some rays. Sometimes on the beaches of south-east New South Wales we, too, have to look carefully for a nice piece of sand to plop onto without flattening the pointillist art of tiny crabs, the fine wet sand balls surrounding their homes.

Crab hole construction, south-east coast, NSW, Australia

This past week I found a couple of beaches here in France that were empty of people and crabs, despite lovely warm weather. I’d like to see the crabs that could roll this gravel into balls:

Small beach near Port-Vendres lighthouse, France

I was disappointed that I had to keep my shoes on, something I never do back home; it wasn’t only the gravel that bothered me (which might in fact be good for smoothing the feet), but the litter also put me off.  I’ve been told the authorities clean the beaches every day in summer, but it is yet spring…  On the other hand, it was something special to sit looking across the top of the flat Mediterranean Sea instead of down over the huge rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean.  I’ve often thought of those waves as an analogy for life, comforted by their continual rolling and crashing that no human disaster can prevent, but if I’d grown up here beside this waveless body of water, I would’ve looked at life differently.

France is beautiful, almost everywhere, but her beaches have not stolen my heart; it still belongs to the long, white, squeaky sand beaches, often deserted (except for crabs), around the Australian coastline.

Weekly photo challenge: Pattern

The pattern straight-twisted-straight-twisted has pleased the eye for centuries. This past week I saw it in the 12th-century cloister of the cathedral of Sainte Eulalie and Sainte Julie in Elne, France:

Cloister, Ste Eulalie & Ste Julie, Elne, France

And I saw a much more recent use of this pattern on a balcony railing overlooking Port-Vendres, a bit further south:

Balcony in Port-Vendres, France

East of Málaga’s photo challenge: Knobs and knockers (door furniture!)

Marianne proposes a search for interesting knobs and knockers on doors (http://eastofmalaga.net/2013/05/01/cbbh-photo-challenge-knobs-and-knockers/)

I’ve seen many in the past few days but the ones below were pretty special.

Doors, Cathédrale Sainte Eulalie et Sainte Julie, Elne, France

See the knobs?  Side doors, Cathédrale Sainte Eulalie et Sainte Julie, Elne, France

My door handle. It works.

Weekly photo challenge: From above

I’m presently staying in a French flat on the Mediterranean, at the top of 109 steps.  I’m seeing plenty From Above…

From one window I see the eight cats that live in the flat next door.  Some try to enter any window or door or hole in the wall of all the other flats.

Cat burglar

From my porch I look down into an old lady’s courtyard where the eight cats prowl and wander and climb in and out.  Look at the wall made from whatever bits of building material were at hand!

Courtyard with two cats

From my balcony I see the old lady’s roof, beautiful terracotta tiles, each one an individual.  (The peg was dropped by an earlier tenant.)

Roof tiles below my balcony, France

54 great opening lines: 47

First, in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on to a north-south axis.

The Spare Room, Helen Garner

*****

I heard this author talking about her book on radio and needed to know more.  If not for the radio interview, I wouldn’t have bought a book about life’s end.  But she was touching, leaving me wanting to find the book that day, buy it and read it.

There’ll be gaps in my posting for a while – I’ve moved, for a brief while, to France.  But I have access to shelves of books I wouldn’t normally read, and they might have some intriguing first lines!

54 great opening lines: 46

Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

*****

I bought this book in a grocery store after seeing the movie trailer but not the movie.  Couldn’t put it down.  Kathryn Stockett listens to the women employed as The Help and writes what she hears.  Brilliant.  I could just about hear the women myself as I read.

54 great opening lines: 45

Was she beautiful or not beautiful?

Daniel Deronda, George Eliot

*****

I am hooked by this simple question, even re-reading it today.  The rest of the book is not simple, it’s quite hard work.  But the opening question is brilliant.

54 great opening lines: 44

What actually woke him was the unearthly sound itself – a mournful shatter of frozen midnight falling to earth to pierce his heart and lodge there forever, never to move, never to melt – but he, being who he was, assumed it was his bladder.

The Crane Wife, Patrick Ness

*****

This morning my daughter-in-law, who works in a bookshop or two, offered me three novels new on the market.  I turned each one over and read the blurb;  this one tells me nothing about the book but says simply ‘Patrick Ness is an insanely beautiful writer’, which made us laugh and look for proof.  Then we read the opening line, which was poetically wet but not beautiful, but I’m now at the end of the chapter and have found that, so far, Ness does indeed write beautiful words.  I’ll hold my judgement on how insane the beauty is.

Update:  I’ve just finished this novel and found it almost unputdownable.  A sub-story weaving through it is a bit other-worldly for me, and towards the end there’s a particular drama which continues for some pages but which is not resolved.  Yet I have to agree that Patrick Ness is a gifted writer.