Meeting place

This is what a village in the south of France looks like on a grey November morning when the tourists aren't here. People don't go out much when the sun isn't shining. A bit dull perhaps but a good, realistic start, I thought, to my contribution to the One Street project suggested by kendallishere. I've been taking photos of this village for more than ten years but more often concentrating on small details - street photography is something I'm not used to, but I may do more of it now while still including my usual details in the project. Kendall quotes Andy Goldsworthy saying that you have to live in a place for two generations to get to know it properly and my own decade or so seems like nothing in the history of a village that has been here at least since Roman times. Whenever I feel as though I'm getting to know it, one of my friends whose families have been here for centuries will say something that reminds me how new I am - kindly, of course!

My 'one street' will be the main road that goes through the village, the D13, which actually has two names for its two halves - avenue de Roujan and avenue de Faugères - with the central market place, and meeting place, to the left of the picture here. It looks more lively on market days and maybe tomorrow I'll be able to post a brighter image. The village has for centuries been the meeting place between the mountains to the north and the coastal plain and there has been a market here every Wednesday since 1180.

I'm excited about this project, mostly because I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes the other blippers who join. Thanks, Kendall, for starting it!

I didn't notice until I saw this image on the computer screen, but I was pleased to see a 'meeting' of modern and traditional communications in the top left corner, with the pigeon about to land near the satellite dish.

Edit: some draft lines to accompany the image:

A meeting place

Carrying a message from the past
perhaps, a pigeon, its wings outstretched,
comes in to land on terracotta
roof tiles beside the white moon
of a satellite dish. On the ground
new benches circle the plane tree
but the old men aren't here today to watch,
to ease workworn limbs, to rest their chins on hands
no longer used to prune and harvest
vineyards, run a café or drive
a tourist coach to Istanbul. They now grip
walking sticks instead. Their meeting will wait
for another warmer day in this place
where, each Wednesday for eight hundred years
and more, mountain people have come
with hams cured in the dry high air,
cheeses made from sheeps' milk, and chestnuts
gathered from steep autumn slopes.
And from the plain others came with wine
from limestone hills and softer lowlands,
oysters grown in salt lagoons, and fish
from the deeper sea. An exchange, a sharing,
carrying on and on

© TW