Watercolour Postcard From Saint Savinien

A River Runs Through It

Oh - do we have eau! Saint Savinien carries the tag line - village between water and stone. Well dear me - there sure is water and luckily plenty of stone for folk to stand on. Although I have not seen a drop of rain myself, the natives assure me that it only stopped about an hour before I arrived. Not even a cloud has entered my sky but seemingly this has been one of the wettest ever winters. Last year was definitely the coldest ever. Oooh - I'm starting to sound like some old granny over the garden fence.

Relax - put your feet up. 

Nothing can hide the beauty of this place and a slight surplus of water merely adds to the quality of reflected light. It is oddly comforting for me to know that the only way to travel between the village of Taillebourg and the opposite bank of La Charente is by means of a causeway built by the Romans using hand tools, eye sight and pots of red wine. The tarmac road built by helmeted sober technoids with lasers and 4G connection to Head Office is under water and crumbled into pebbles. It  fully exonerates my Luddite follicles. 

Time to reflect.while reflecting on Time.

Which one is the real me?

The French were of course, never conquered by Les Romans. They were merely a band of heavily armed civil engineers who were allowed to stay on condition that they did some building work in exchange for the recipe for Moules Marinieres. Believe me, the Romans got a good deal.

 Oooh - last night we had the neighbours in for a sea food blow out. Today I feel like the last of the red hot mollusc mamas. If you've not tried harissa paste cuisine get some and get stuck in! I was gonna ask for advice on pruning my vines......but in the end I chickened out. I can't deal with information overload. Vine pruning is a kinda genetic gift from the jolly green Gallo-God. I got up and just had a chop. Usually I do Oscar's hair. He's getting a bit woody but still alive. 

Baguette in the flow of life  in search of a back story

When I was a young temp in London I once worked in the art world. I actually helped to organise a surrealist exhibition. It was a difficult job because the gallery owner thought he was a fish and only communicated in speech bubbles. I made up the last sentence because I've allowed a couple of glasses of Chablis to pass my lips. The memory entered my sozzled brain as I snapped a passing baguette. You know in any narrative there is the problem of back story....


Emma Thinx: Stop wine on empty stomachs. Prohibit stomachs.