The End of Summer . . .

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Slipping in here very late at the end of James Reflections Weekend, I didn't want to miss it, but as the Grenouille and our tadpoles got back from vacation this weekend, we had plenty of catching up to do. So here are a few more photos taken inside that lovely old house out in Brittany written about a couple of posts down here. Reflections illuminated by light that may have been bouncing around in there for two hundred years now. Where does the light go finally ? What is light ??? Particles ? Waves ? Magic ?
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Mirrors within mirrors caught by a photographer's dark lens . . .
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And looking out the windows of that home, perhaps even reflected in the windowpanes, are various views of water dotted with boats, or rarely, on a hot day in August, a beach dotted with the colors of people on vacation, doing all the things that people do . . .
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If there was a piece of music that I might include here with these images, it would be this, especially for the line in it where he sings :
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"In my heart there's an image
Like looking through glass
Could be looking at me
Could be looking right past
I don't like it when
I can't tell which is true
But I wouldn't trade the world
For that picture of you"
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Bruce Cockburn ; A Bone In My Ear . . .
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For No Apparent Reason . . .

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It will soon be two years ago
That this blogging adventure started
An adventure with no discernible beginning
And an even less discernible end
Two years have flown by
Like gulls gliding over salt water
A blog for no apparent reason
Just because
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In two years the counter has topped 45000 visits
Is that good or bad or indifferent ?
The followers widget has been stuck
At just under 400 for weeks or months now
Who will be number 400 ?
Does it matter, one way or another ?
It hasn't gone viral yet I guess
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But by the grace of whatever deities
May or may not exist in the blogosphere
A few good people have wandered up to this doorstep
And peered in through the broken shutters
The broken shutters with peeling paint
On the dream house in which this blog survives
Where a cat lies snoring peacefully, wheezing
While a full moon floats without effort above all
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For no apparent reason
Perhaps the adventure shall continue a while yet
If you so decree it
Another year or two or three ?
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And for no apparent reason
I wanted to share these brambles
Bearing fruits not yet ripe and delicate flowers
With you
Simply because . . .
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Again for you, just because
These twisted stems of wildflowers
Surviving in the face of stiff sea breezes . . .
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While out on a bit of a ramble in Brittany on Friday the 13th, I chanced upon this odd sign on the side of a well weathered building, where a real live painter had stopped halfway up the wall.
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So imagine my surprise when the very next day, Saturday the 14th, out on the island of Ouessant, while bicycling about, I stumbled on this scene, and could do naught else but steal a photograph. Isn't fate odd sometimes ?
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And on a stony beach, also on Friday the 13th, these stones where someone had been painting a boat caught my eye, as no pains had been taken to spread canvas out around the boat in progress to protect the beach. What would Jackson Pollock have said ??? So, I offer you these stones, for no apparent reason, perhaps just to say, thanks for stopping by, you are the best blog buddies I could have ever imagined.
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Reflections in an Old House . . .

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Somewhere toward the far western end of France, where Britanny juts out into the north Atlantic, in a small village by the sea stands an old house, which has been in an old family for generations. I got married in that village, our wedding night was spent in this house. For the past 18 years we've been coming here for summer and other vacations. It has a good feel about it. Everything is old and weathered. Were it to leave the family, it would break quite a few hearts. But we fear that may well be what will happen one day, due to nightmarish inheritance laws in France. No one among the children concerned has the wherewithal to buy out the others, and no one is going to be able to maintain the place and pay the annual taxes. So it will go on the auction block. Some rich Parisian or Versaillais or British family will buy it, and for us it will become a memory, rather than a reality. Unless a miracle happens. And I don't bet much on miracles happening.
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With James Reflections Weekend in mind, I did this short study in reflections in our floating home, hovering on a bridge between dreams and disappearances.
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UFO Sighting . . .

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While clear out on the island of Ouessant last Saturday, walking along by the lighthouse museum, suddenly, with an incredibly vibrant searing and tearing apart of the skies above us, a large green and black UFO came hurtling and sizzling down from the heavens, then put on the brakes with a gut-wrenching whoooosh, and softly settled to earth, landing just inches from us. Naturally, I couldn't help but step back to take a picture of it, and here is the proof of it.
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And this is what he saw . . . as he heard the aliens tapping inside their eggshell . . . After having travelled halfway across the known universe over the past twenty million years, the spaceship was naturally a bit rusty.
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A Little Light Magic . . .

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As you may have gathered, this is the summer of running. Running, but trying to find a few peaceful moments even so. I know many of you are having busy summers also, it is not always easy to find time for blogging, but sooner or later we return inevitably to the blogs, this rich ecosystem of friendship and creativity. I really can't tell you how much all your comments and company mean to me. I hope soon to be back to coming 'round regularly to visit your sites where over the past two years I've been finding so much vitality and sustenance. In the meanwhile, I'm off to work now, after a short week away. Gotta run. . . But will leave you with another shot of Mont St Michel from the other evening, on the day I drove out to Brittany a week ago. Yesterday I came back home from Brittany, and again stopped at Mont St Michel; this time in the afternoon, to go in and visit the island, which I haven't done since about 25 years ago. More on that soon.
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It Must Be the Pollen Again . . .

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While out on a little bit of a ramble this afternoon along Brittany's northwestern coast, I stumbled on this window in a churchyard which I couldn't resist a quick shot of for Reflections Weekend. Hope you enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend yourself full of fine reflections !
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And here's the whole window . . .
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Mellow Yellow . . .

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Oh no . . . despite his claims to the contrary, that this is not a blog about flower photos, it looks like Owen has been out sniffing pollen again, and it's gone to his head . . .
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Reflecting on Reflections . . .

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It's funny how things stick in one's mind. Since discovering James' Reflections Weekends, I've consciously and unconsciously started noticing far more reflections than I ever did before, and thinking that this or that one would be perfect for a Reflections Weekend entry. So while driving out to Brittany on Friday, and having been tempted to make a small detour to see one of my favorite places in France along the way, le Mont Saint Michel, when the following reflections presented themselves in a small tidal pool, Reflections Weekend came straight to mind and I snapped away, to share them with you here for whatever they are worth. I couldn't help thinking how lucky I am to live here in France, to have such sights nearby; a privilege in fact. And a privilege to have you who may be reading this out there in the blogosphere, sharing the light projected by the magic lantern, and casting your own reflections.
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Ass You Like It . . .

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Am running now, out to Brittany for a spot of vacation, decompression, breathing slowly. . . so I gotta get my Ass out of here, and head on down the road for a while. But I'll be back. While visiting the Chateau de Chantilly the other day, I saw a nice Ass in a window, and couldn't resist taking a photo of it, because it made me smile while remembering the absolutely unbelievably beautiful Ass that Stickup Artist shared with us recently. So this first Ass is my photo from a Chateau window, a rather high class, perhaps pompous, Ass if ever there was one, living the Chateau life. Stickup Artist's Ass is a more mundane, desert living kind of Ass. Personally, I'll take the desert life over the chateau life any day. But now I really gotta run . . .
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The all-time most wonderful ass I think I ever saw however is Stickup Artist's Ass which she posted not long ago, and I'm posting it here without having asked her permission, but I'm hoping, hoping, hoping, that she will laugh with pleasure when she sees that her Ass has travelled all the way to France, and not ask me to kick her Ass off my page here. I reproduce it here as a pure homage to her incredible talents as a graphic artist and photographer, and strongly encourage you all to get your ass over to her place to check out not only her Ass, but her herons, and mountains, and oceans, and moonscapes, and deserts, and signs, and her pure magic. Thank you Stickup for the fabulous voyage you are taking us on. Gotta run now, or my Ass is grass . . . (so again, the below Ass is Stickup Artist's amazing creation)

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Experiencing Technical Difficulties . . .

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Sometimes Life, and Work (especially Work) conspire to make finding time for blogging difficult. The world is full of gargoyles. Monsters. Demons. Nightmares. And maybe, just maybe, happy endings. Hopefully.
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A thousand thank you's to Roxana for helping me (us) to look at light differently. She gives lessons in the discovery of previously unknown qualities of light. Stepping off into new dimensions. Rooms full of magical light.
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With creatures like this watching over our shoulders, no wonder people become superstitious. And just don't look into his eyes.
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Of Wild Boars and Wild Fruits . . .

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I openly admit, I was bad yesterday.
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Instead of going straight to work, on a fine summer Sunday afternoon, as I should have; I took a detour. I drove right by work, and went on down the highway into Paris.
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And in Paris, I indulged myself terribly. I had my camera. I parked the car. The next three hours were spent wandering in the Montmartre Cemetery, where people like Dalida and Zola are buried. (More on that soon.)
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And then, before going back out of Paris, and to work, I walked for half an hour in the streets near the Montmartre Cemetery, in front of the famous Moulin Rouge, and so forth. (See the windmill blades in the first photo here? That's the Moulin Rouge... "moulin", if you recall, is "mill", or "windmill" in French.)
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I also learned yesterday, that even in Paris one must be careful, because as is the case in many rural areas in France, there are wild boars loose. They can be dangerous if you bother them. They have sharp tusks. They make unintelligible grunting and squealing noises. Some of them have four legs.
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But, what I really wanted to share with you here, because that is what blogging is all about, sharing, was the fruit shop I stumbled on.
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Oh, those curvacious bananas ! Beautifully firm looking pineapples, and succulent grapes overflowing their crates like something from a Roman empire mosaic . . . Ripe strawberries and tangerines. Visions of watermelon juices running down my chin !
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And in case the weather gets too hot, thank goodness for the ice cream cooler there !
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PS . . . So imagine my amusement when just before I started composing this post, I read a response to a comment I had left last night over at the inimitable Lynne Louciao's Décolleté Glimpses. This is what Lynne had to say (!) :
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"Owen,
I've figured out why your straightjackets are so popular. It's because they're French straightjackets. All those peek-a-boo holes and black lace and velvet straps. Ooh-la-la. And the pair of attached fish net stockings make them look just that much naughtier. Just that much. Just enough to bamboozle the lunatic hordes into ordering more, more, ever more. Yes, the vision came to me as I was sitting here all bleary eyed and milk-of-amnesiaed, wafting about in this arty-farty existensial creative angst of the post-midnight hour. Seeing multiple comments by my imaginary brother floating before the burned out sockets of my zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
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Thanks for that Lynne ! ! ! You made my day ! ! ! I swear, you should open up a mind-reading shop !
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