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Sunday a week ago, which would have been the 26th of June, la Grenouille and I decided to get out for a bike ride; stretch the legs and clear the cobwebs from between the ears. There is no shortage of places to ride around here, there are miles of forest in every direction with trails running every which way, some of which lead to rather interesting places. Before we'd hardly gotten started we found that there was a polo match in progress at the Polo Club of Chantilly, which is actually adjacent to the village of Apremont, just north of Chantilly. Now I can't say that I belong to the class of people that owns horses in order to race them at the Prix de Diane or to show them off at polo matches, and most certainly never will, but as with the hats recently at the horse races, I found myself watching with some fascination and even a touch of admiration; the horses were magnificent beasts, and I can only imagine that riding them while trying to chase a small white ball around a large field and whack the ball along with a slender stick is no mean feat. The following pictures were the result of a few minutes of observation there, before we rode off back into the woods. The flags here in this first image are at the entrace to the Polo Club of Chantilly.
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Even the cars driven to the polo fields had horses on them. (I have to admit, I was feeling better on my bicycle than I would have in been in one these gas guzzling ostentatious monstrosities. The epitome of planetary irresponsibility...but some are obviously oblivious to the fact that the human race is consuming oil at an accelerating and dizzying rate. "After us, the deluge...")
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In the nearby forest campfires and barbecues were forbidden. This sign is on the small road from Apremont to Aumont-en-Halatte, where we continued our ride.
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While riding through Aumont-en-Halatte we stumbled on this sign for the Henri Barbusse Museum, which I'd never even heard of before in the region, though we've been in the area for the past 14 years now. Henri Barbusse was best known perhaps for his account of his experiences in World War One, having enlisted at the age of 41 in 1914, serving actively until 1916. His book was titled "Le Feu" (Fire), I'm going to have to track down a copy, and also go back and visit the museum some time when it's open.
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This flower appears here for no apparent reason, other than it was growing just under the museum sign.
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Same for this deceased moth : it just happened to appear at my feet while walking in the cemetery in Aumont-en-Halatte. So I took a picture, for whatever it may be worth in the greater scheme of things. Something similar happened in Lynne's life in Canada the other day at about the same time, as you can see in this posting at Décolleté Glimpses, a charming blog if there ever was one. Except her moth was a much bigger moth, a behemoth, as she put it so aptly. Synchronicity.
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