Dreaming Of Ancient Stones . . .

Someone was asking recently how do I find some of the places I've found over the years, where abandoned cars lie rotting in the woods, where falling down houses await a patient and loving observer. One secret is that I have a terrible penchant for going up dirt tracks that lead into the woods or into mysterious looking glens and glades and copses and forests. Like Robert Frost, give me a road less travelled, and there's a good chance I'll take it, just to see where it goes . . .
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So on a trip into the Dordogne region of France, when I spotted a tiny little side road, I slammed on the brakes, backed up, and pulled in, driving a ways, then getting out and walking . . . for it is when walking in strange places that magic lightning bolts strike. This tiny stone chapel, probably about 600 to 700 years old, was one such lightning bolt. Found totally by chance the first time there, I went back a couple of years later to visit again, going back up the totally obscure back road to get there, taking my guitar the second time. In fact, the acoustic qualities inside this dirt-floored chapel were just out of this world. Sort of like singing in the shower, but far better. The acoustic guitar took on tonal qualities I'd never heard in it before. Magic was in the air. . .
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Funny, this image is immediately adjacent on a strip of negatives from 1995 to the image of the two Peugeot 204s (see post just a couple down the page here) that were hiding in the woods just a short distance by foot from this chapel. And god only knows what called me to go further up the dirt road in the woods there from the chapel to the place where those Jabberwocky cars were lurking. . . something about a dirt road I can't resist . . .
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This stone structure was also in that same neck of the woods, and can most certainly join the ranks of what I've referred to in quite a few earlier posts as my Dream Houses. Imagine the potential this beauty has . . . just needs a little glass in the windows and perhaps a few other sacrifices to creature comforts inside, shovel out the goat droppings and so forth. . .
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What charms me also about this Dream House is how the non-symetric shape mimics quite closely one of the first Dream Houses I posted back last October 14th, a wood shack in the Maine woods. (Which post you could find if so inclined by going down sidebar to the index, and clicking on the Dream House label, and then going down to the second to the last post on the second page. . . a post that did not receive a single comment, which is not surprising, as for the first few months of this blogging journey, none of the posts received any comments. Is that par for the course in your experience also ?) In any case, if you need a place to sleep tonight, I'll light the candles, turn back the sheets, and fill the big clawfoot tub with steaming water from the cast iron kettle over the fire for you . . . here in this rustic property . . .
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