Château on fire?

I thought that they were just marks on the postcard but it seems that something (smoke? ectoplasm?) is coming out of the window....

Bordeaux revisited

Yesterday was an auction day, so we set off for the station just before 5 o’clock in the morning. We had an excellent day. We managed to avoid the rain, we had a great lunch and we managed to get the cards we wanted for a good price.

We usually go to the same restaurant which has changed hands but is still as good.

The auction house

During our wait at the station in the evening, we listened to the piano music. It was beautiful; a medley of different types of music, which continued for all of the time we were within earshot.

The train wasn’t too crowded on the way home and armed with my Kindle, the time flew by. I slept so well last night.

One day we’ll stay over so that we can play the tourist. Bordeaux is such a beautiful city.

Postcards and Pianos

We had a long but pleasant day on Friday when we went to Bordeaux for an auction. A long day as our alarm went off early as our train was before 6 o’clock. We always allow plenty of time – especially if we have an early start.

Bordeaux was just as wet and cold as La Rochelle for a change, but we brightened up when we saw lots of very good postcards at the viewing. Rob and I plan our strategy over lunch and then go back for the auction.

We were pleased with our bids and afterwards installed ourselves at the bar at the station to look at them while we waited for the train home. We drank hot chocolate to warm us up!

I’ve written before about the shopping area in the station at Bordeaux. There is also a piano. I’m not sure if the French railways have installed pianos in all of the stations, but I know that there is one in La Rochelle too. Anyone can play. I’ve tried to find the young man who was playing in November and also on Friday evening when we were there. He was brilliant.

Here is a quick piano tour of France which includes Bordeaux and La Rochelle!

Postcards, Beaujolias Nouveau and Hyacinths

I was going to update sooner but life seems to keep on getting in the way.

 The day after Dom’s big day, the alarm went off at 3.30 am as we had the 6 o’clock train to Bordeaux to catch. I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be and we managed to dodge any showers thrown our way. We hadn’t been back to Bordeaux for over a year. Auction time, and there were some postcards that we were interested in. We had an excellent day, despite discovering that our favourite restaurant had closed. The station at Bordeaux seems to have had a facelift too. A new bar has opened and some very interesting shops to explore, which was a good thing as we had to wait nearly two hours for our train home.

 Olivier came home for a few days mid-month. We didn’t really see that much of him. It’s so good to know that he’s enjoying what he’s doing now and seems to be appreciated by his co workers. He might be able to move to a bank closer to Rennes next year, which could save him a lot of money in rent and transport costs. Though I won’t be able to say; “my son who lives in a chateau” anymore.

I sorted out the Christmas decorations. They are ready for the beginning of December. I even found the Advent calenders!

We had a lot of rain at the beginning of November – very serious flooding in the south, but we were okay here – just a soggy garden. The last three days have been mild and sunny; I’m waiting for the bubble to burst. This afternoon I did some gardening and planted some hyacinth bulbs.

The Beaujolais Nouveau this year is very good

A lot can happen in a month

Still battling away with the postcards. We’re using changing the images to review our descriptions and information which has changed a lot in the last 8 years. Every cloud has a silver lining.

In the last month I've had a new crown on a tooth which has been uncomfortable for years. I learnt that gold and metal crowns aren't supposed to go together but as I've been coping with gold and steel crowns side by side for nearly 30 years it was worth the risk of putting another steel crown in. no problems. There can be a risk of ‘electric’ shocks and discomfort as well as a metallic taste.

We voted for a new mayor. Went to the meetings and made some new friends. Our old mayor has retired – he has a farm to run.

Dom stayed for a couple of nights as she had a course to attend in La Rochelle. We hadn't seen her or J-M for quite a while. We exchanged Christmas presents on 25th March!

The Doctor that looks after the veins on my legs retired on April 1st (no joke!). I would never have believed she was old enough to retire. I saw the new Doctor a couple of days ago. She’s very nice – her technique is different so it will be interesting to see the results after a few sessions.

Our Doctor will be retiring in July, not sure that a village as small as ours will find a replacement. Again, I didn't think that he was old enough to retire…

By the end of this year Dom will be Doctor Dom!

We've had the most gorgeous weather over the past few days. Lots of daisies popping up and flowers and blossom… blue skies.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

This post will appear on more than one of my blogs.

For quite a long time now we framed the scans of our postcards sold on ebay.  It made them stand out and we thought, looked more professional.  We were told that we would have to stop doing this about a year ago; so we stopped.  Now we have to take the remaining frame from cards online.  Several thousand need to be changed before ‘the spring’.  I’m going as fast as I can (re-scanning about 30 a day) but I won’t get them all.  I know that ebay can ‘disappear’ announcements. 

There is a service provided that can make the changes for you, but we can’t afford it. 

So for a while I won’t be blogging or visiting or surfing much.

From this:

To this:

Which do you prefer?

Teeth and bones etc.

My shoulder still hurts and is very slowly getting better.

About 10 days ago I started to get toothache, really bad toothache, despite the pain killers I was taking for my shoulder. Of course these things always happen when you have to wait over the weekend. In desperation I used some mouthwash which had been prescribed for Rob when he was having dental problems. I thought that my head was going to explode! Fortunately, it calmed down after about 10 minutes and my tooth started to feel a little better. I now have a new dentist and he seems awfully young. He x-rayed my tooth and there was no problem with the tooth. After looking round the rest of my teeth he announced that I have several gum abscesses – I had no idea! For the time being I have mouthwash to use 3 times a day and when I clean my teeth in the evening I use bicarbonate of soda and peroxide which I make into a paste, it has a horrible salty taste. I have a tiny brush for between my teeth. At the end of the week the dentist will x-ray the other side of my mouth and give my teeth a good clean. It’s nearly two years since I last visited a dentist. I won’t leave it so long next time.

 I had my bone density scan last week. All done within half an hour. Apparently my bones are better than most people’s my age. It was nice to see the smiles on the faces of the doctors when they saw the results. I went to have my eyes tested too. My vision is a little better! New glasses should arrive this week.

Rob and I went to an auction last week on the train. The journey there was very agreeable but the train was very crowded in the evening. We spent the day in the only place in France where it wasn’t raining! We got some lovely postcards, a present for J-M’s birthday which was in July and a custom made wooden box for transporting postcards. One of the boxes of cards was from the USA, some are very interesting so I will be posting the best on Time and Oft as I scan them.

Just time travelling around

Today, I’ve tip-toed through the reading room of a library in Frankfurt, admired an electoral candidate from 1911 and seen a stage coach arrive on a mountain path. Next I will be taking a tour around the steel works and factories where the first locomotive was made in France.

What have you been doing?

Happy Easter

Take this freshly laid egg
 On this beautiful, long awaited day! 

This “freshly laid egg” is now 96 years old – Happy Easter anyway.

 Seashells, my short story for Easter

Bordeaux

Friday morning found us leaving the house at the crack of dawn (if not before) to catch the train to Bordeaux. We were off to an auction. The first auction we’ve been to that hadn’t been organized by our expert. It was lovely to watch the sunrise over the fields as we made our way South. Bordeaux has an efficient tram system which was really easy to use. The only problem we had was how to get the tickets read by the machine. A fellow passenger soon showed us how.

 The auction house is along the docks. Like a lot of cities these areas have been re-built and we were surprised to find rather good discount shops and lots of restaurants and bars as well as a pleasant place to stroll along the river. The auction house was rather large and imposing but the people there were really friendly and we viewed all of the lots we wanted to see and a few more. We really were spoilt for choice. After the viewing all we needed to do was choose ourselves a pleasant riverside restaurant for lunch in the sunshine. This is the life! (Though we had to go through our notes and decide what not to bid on).

 The auction was very well run and moved along very quickly, no time to doze off. We got most of what we wanted and managed to catch an earlier train home. It really was a good day, the journey went smoothly and the weather was great.

Happy New Year!

"Happy new year and lots of little children" I only wish you those if you really want them.  Have a safe and happy new year's eve.

First lady carpenter

I imagine that this postcard dates before 1910.  The young lady was called Juliette Caron, she was born in 1882 and was the only lady carpenter in France. She was working on the barracks at Montluçon when this picture was taken. The back of the postcard tells us more;

"The lady carpenter works these days at the machine depot.  Dad has seen her.. she works well they say.  She works hard and doesn't mind people watching her"

Two auctions and a lot of washing

Last week landed us with two auctions.  At the beginning of the week we were in Chinon.  The weather was cold but sunny and we even had time to explore the town a little.  This time we stayed in a new hotel/motel which was situated within walking distance of the auction house.  We bought some interesting postcards, some of which will appear on Time and Oft in the near future.  We returned home on Tuesday morning, hoping to visit the 17th century town of Richelieu on the way.  It was raining so hard we just stopped for a cup of coffee.  On arriving home we unloaded, unpacked, re-packed our bags.

Wednesday morning we set off for Limoges.  The weather wasn't so kind and we didn't really have much time to explore - again!  There is an excellent restaurant opposite the hotel where we stayed, so we ate without getting too soaked. Another successful auction for us, though a little chaotic as the experts were holding 6 auctions plus viewings over two days.  The drive home on Friday was difficult because of the bad weather.

When we arrived home there was a message from Olivier saying that he would be home on Saturday.  Since he arrived I've been washing and drying clothes non-stop.  He assures me that he does go to the launderette on the campus - I wonder how often? I hate the smell of his KFC uniform.  Reminds me of when Rob came off his bike and broke his elbow.  He slipped on some grease accidentally left in the road in front of a restaurant, his clothes were ruined and had that same awful smell.

Where did you get that hat?

 I took this photo with my phone before I realised that I wasn't supposed to.

We went to an auction last Friday.  The viewing was very short so we spent the remainder of the morning at the shop museum.  It was very interesting.  The museum was started from a private collection  that became too large. If ever you're in Charente Maritime it is well worth a visit.

We bought a very interesting album at the auction as well as some other cards.  No doubt I'll be putting some of them up on my postcard blog, Time and Oft. 

Two more auctions to come before the end of the year.

Limoges

Last week saw Rob and I headed for Limoges for an auction. I had never visited Limoges before so I was looking forward to visiting the city. Unfortunately, we needed to spend our time viewing postcards before the auction as there were so many to see. Limoges seems to be spread out so we saw some beautiful buildings on the way to the Auction house, even if we didn’t know what they were. We were in a hotel close to the station which is magnificently lit up at night. There was an excellent restaurant opposite the hotel where we ate in the evenings. Not bad for a business trip.

Time traveller II

This postcard was sent in 1915. German Officers, now prisoners of war, are being escorted separately from their men. I did some research and discovered that sunglasses weren’t worn in the 20th century until 1929. Though forms of ‘sunglasses’ have been worn for many centuries. Can you see the man wearing them? As far as I can see the card has not been tampered with.

Is he another Time Traveller?

All aboard the Transbordeur

Last Friday Rob and I went for a day out and spent some of the time visiting the transbordeur de Martrou (Transporter Bridge) near Rochefort sur Mer. The bridge was built in 1900 by Ferdinand Arnodin, who built several in his time. The bridge at Rochefort is the only one left working in France, The rest were destroyed in WW2. Passengers and vehicles were pulled across on a platform, driven by steam. I was amazed at how quiet and smooth the trip was, although no longer powered in the same way.




Since I’ve been selling vintage postcards I’ve learnt to appreciate bridges. Look at the beautiful patterns of the girders. Mr Arnodin, who didn’t learn to read and write until he was nine because he used to play truant, loved solving problems.

The bridge was in use until 1967 and also appeared in the film 'The young Girls of Rochefort' (new link) released the same year (If you watch till the end you'll see how the bridge works). Now after being restored and made safe since the 1990s, tourists can cross back and forth, visit a very interesting exhibition about the bridge and explore the surrounding countryside.

Another week skids by on the ice rink of time

After getting wet and frozen on a visit to the next town for an auction. last weekend was spent in the company of Dom and J-M. Dom has decided that she wants to study more about artificial intelligence – does the name Susan Calvin ring a bell?

On Wednesday I did something really stupid. I couldn’t get online. I was really pulling my hair out. Fortunately Rob had a half day and when he got home and couldn’t get online either. He telephoned one of his colleagues who is geeky. He told Rob to try pulling out the plug and putting it back in again. It worked – why didn’t I think of that? We’re still suffering from very poor internet connection, nothing to do with that though

Yesterday was the day that we woke up to snow. No school for the children and no buses. It was nice to walk through the village and, because of the snow, to see everyone enjoying themselves. It started to thaw out pretty quickly and now we have nasty frozen, half melted snow.

A lucky escape

Rob and I had planned to got to an auction in Chinon on Monday. This involved travelling the day before and staying overnight n a hotel. Just like we did last year in September. As we’d be going by train we knew that once there, we would be relying on the once a day bus service to get to the auction house on the outskirts of town. When the catalogue came it soon became apparent that by the time they got to any of the bids we might be interested it we’d have left to catch the bus.

For the last two days we’ve had storms and rain, especially on our coast. We’re so glad we didn’t go, we’d have been stuck in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go in the cold wind and rain.

You can't win them all

Today was a little different. Rob had a message yesterday from a friend who keeps an eye on the auction house in town. There were a few boxes of postcards coming up this afternoon. We spent the day in town and had a good look around – like tourists. We had a lovely lunch in the little square (triangle really) by the magic tree (meeting place of all young people with guitars and funny cigarettes for many years until they took the low wall away). I had toasted goat’s cheese salad with walnuts, apple, goat’s cheese, etc. and Rob had salmon tartar (but I didn’t tell him that the salmon was raw) which he really enjoyed. We went to the auction and waited patiently for our lots to come up… we were outbid. That’s life.

We also found the house which had been the home of this lady. Rob took a picture with his super iPhone and will forward it to me tomorrow.