3 feb

The seeing of churches bug has touched us again. Must have been the nice church we visited saturday, the one owned by the Scottish friends of Maureen, Julie’s cousin.
I picked up a Roman Route at the Tourist Information at Angouleme two weeks ago. There are about 50 Romanesqe churches in the area around Angouleme that are worthwhile visiting. In fact there are more 12th century churches around. But some of them are molested through the ages and hardly anything of the 12th century is recognizable.
The real problem with these churches is that they are closed. That is such a pity. The insides of old village churches have a charm that leave me humble and speechless when I see them. Julie thinks it has something to do with the “right” proportions. I suppose that is true.
We saw three churches today. On the tourist guide we had been warned that the church in Dignac would be closed, as it was, but the delicacy and soberness on the outside walls were well worth seeing, we thought.
Then we drove to Sers, and admired the mistletoe in the trees on the way. I suppose there must be a connection between the abundance of mistletoe and the supposedly amorous lives of the French. Imagine living under a poplar tree with lots of mistletoe and having to kiss your wife, or the neighbour’s wife you are visiting, any time you enter the house. I sympathize with Francois Hollande, of course, although I would have never worn that ridiculous helmet and would have preferred to bike. Thinking about it, nothing in this ridiculous episode was as ridiculous as that helmet.
The church in Sers, beautiful proportions, dedicated, not frivolous sculpting, was also closed, although it was advertised as being ‘ouvert tous les jours’. I don’t know what was special about this lundi, but it was obviously not one of the everyday days.
Luckily in Trouve we finally found a church that was open. Nice and dark inside. Not too large, small enough. The windows were not very old, but ok. The furniture could use a little bit of updating. The old benches were made for small butts, according to my mother-in-law. The newer seats were also meant for small buts, but some bigger ones had chosen to ignore that warning. It was stunning to count the amount of broken seats.
After showing our respects to Mary and Theresa, representing the temple of heavenly affairs, we visited the Carrefour supermarket, the temple of current affairs. We started with all the different varieties of salt on the market. However, we didn’t find the one that Claire had bought a few months ago in Barcelona, and on which Julie’s mom had set her mind.(Maldon sea salt – British, by the way) But there is plenty to enjoy in the French supermarket. Is there any country that would have a whole aisle of different yoghurts, although I was pretty discouraged not to find the wholesale version of the Danone vanille, which makes an excellent combination with the prunes bought at the vegetable market in the vicinity of Chassenat.
Which brings us back to the church bug. I am getting used to it. If one has to be infestinated, this is the bug to prefer.