Monday in Malay

First, my appologies for taking over a week to get this post on the blog. Before last weekend my body was screaming at me...throat raw, glands swollen, fever running rampant. I was just beginning to believe I might survive when on Saturday, Francis and Marie-Annick went off to Lyon to pick up Mimi. I've had a couple of nights of good sleep since then, so I'll take advantage of the coughing fit that woke me up at 4 AM to get this post started....

Marie-Annick needed to see her lacemaker friend before we could go touring. I stayed in the car, but on the terrace was a metal frame I have seen a number of times. During the summer the frame is covered with vines, providing a shaded space for table and chairs.

I wondered what the garden might look like in summer...

                                                                  Our primary goal was to find the two church-es in Malay; two church-es in one small village was defin-itely unusu-al.  

Some of the graves become veritable gardens

The inside of the church was well kept and really quite beautiful, though the benches weren’t designed for either comfort or beauty.

Look carefully and you’ll see that they are on a low wooden box. That keeps them orderly and out of the aisle, but since there is no heating system in these stone churches, I suspect the wooden box is mostly to keep feet off the cold floor.

Most of the original wall frescos have completely disappeared over the centuries, but France has been making an effort to revive what they can still see and that’s what has happened here.

We drove around looking for the second church and finally had to admit that we weren’t going to find it in this hamlet, but Malay apparently has two hamlets a few kilometers apart. Off we went. We spotted nuts on the ground and stopped, but Marie-Annick realized that they weren’t the chestnuts people eat. 

It was a peaceful spot, complete with a slow, winding stream.

The road led to another hamlet; there was the second church. If these hamlets had been separate villages at one time, it would explain having two churches.

We didn’t stay long. Just down the road we stopped for a lavoir I had never seen before. I certainly would have remembered the bird on the roof!

It’s also unusual to have a place for a fire built into a lavoir.

Wish I could take flower-ing shrubs like this home with me!

 Then we found an-other medieval village. I liked the walkway between towers!

There was another new (to me) lavoir with an open roof. I don’t know what happened to the normal water source, but there hasn’t been much rain so even an open roof didn’t help this old laundry room.

A cool idea to have your front door under a tower. Streets off the main square were quite narrow.

The church was quite ornate when compared to most small village churches…

…and it was obviously still being used…

…but it needs repair. Sure glad I’m not sitting under this crack, or near any of the others, each Sunday.  

While trying to figure out which road would take us toward home, we found this old tower by the “city wall.” It’s really half a tower with a “garden” growing inside.

A nice fountain graced the center of town where we paused to read directional signs. 

Marie-Annick picked the road, a narrow winding affair, and we were off again. The islands in this pond look like they were created by a biscuit cutter because of the low water level. The area needs rain.

 I can’t remember the name of this little hamlet even though the road seemed familiar. Then it dawned on me why places were familiar…

...I’d been on these roads before, 3 years ago, while searching for lavoirs! This one had had water in it the last time I’d been here. 

And we passed two more that I recognized! Neither had much water in them…

Marie-Annick stopped to check the map and I spotted fall colors, the same salmon color that is so plentiful right now in Vermont. The Autumn Joy sedum is a pale rose color. I’ll have to wait to see if it turns darker as ours does. Behind the tree is a house and yard with a quiet brook. 

  A little further and we found another lavoir I’ve seen before. I feel like they are old friends.

Alongside the road, equally spaced through a wooded area, were hunting stands. I seem to recall that these were for hunting wild boar, but I’ll have to ask about that.

Tuesday evening I moved into the gite at the Blanot Potterie.

Wednesday I felt a little under the weather and was glad when Anne let me go with her to the pharmacy.

Thursday and Friday I was in bed...