Imoville

Large luscious oak forest with one apple tree in blossom. Must have been love.

autoroutes

For much of today I have walked down minor roads that run parallel to autoroutes. The cars and lorries speeding past, me dawdling along. I remembered Autonauts of the Cosmoroutes, one of my favorite books. It matteroffactly documents Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlops' trip down down the important autoroute from Paris to Marseilles. The Autoroute du Sud. Carol and Julio treat the whole thing as a grand challenge. An expedition. They stop over, sleeping in their van, at every service station, even if they are only a few kilometers from the last. Treating the motorway and the services as a long thin country that they had come across. Adventurers in a foreign land. Never leaving the motorway the journey took them weeks. They got into all sorts of administrative bother, partly because they were inviting friends to visit, with gourmet meals and partly because they were hippies and it was the early eighties.

Thank you Angus.

Sweet n Sour

Disconcertingly, expresso with sugar supplied by Saxo. Too pedantic, or is branding the way language has always renewed it's energy? 

The big world

Larks, apple blossom, buzzards : tongues in aspic, normandy cider, chunks  of raw rabbit. Dead bat on the road, made me jump.

Pissoir

Trying to escape Rouen I stumbled upon these public toilets dedicated to Marcel Duchamp. He was born in the city. Whilst I was taking this picture the whole area was glutted by a coach party of US
tourists fresh off the bus. Walking, talking and snapping merrily away at gee. what an amazing building. I think Marcel would have appreciated the humour of the city councils gesture, placing his subterranean monument at the back end of the cathedral made famous by Claude Monets' painterly impressions.

The whole wide world

Today a wren, lots of lovely lilac and a very insistent cuckoo. And tripped over a dead mole. Looking up has its disavantages.

La Manche

I take back what I said before leaving. Dieppe is NOT Newhaven.  

 

Telscombe Cliffs

Six miles. The second monument to premature death.

What happened here? Why hasn't the writing been painted out?

Saying it how it is

Above Brighton Marina. Grim place anyhows, who'd feel like diving on to Asda carpark. The wording struck me as too near to the point. But then again what do you put on such a sign? Something kindly, heartwarming, uplifting? Do you plant flowers? Nice colours? Say that it is Asda car park below? Get them to sponsor it, inc logo?

At school I spent weeks designing inflatable shark fins for a site specific art competition. Getting the perspective and proportions right was the main difficulty, I remember. Using an underwater mechanism the over large fins were to circle the beach below Beachy Head, visible from the cliff edge.

I didn't win the prize. Are there people who specialise in thinking up and then producing such warning signs?