I’m not a sculptor

We drove into Candes – St Martin, having seen it mentioned in the Charming Villages of France and that was enough to have a look around. A cobbled path led to the top of a hill for a panoramic view of where the Loire meets the Vienne River. What goes up must come down and Sharon used me as a walking stick to the bottom, where she momentarily lost her hat for the second time in the Church of Saint Martin. This town is where he died after visiting here to solve someone else’s problem.

A young man was running an interactive display of the wildlife of the area and we spoke to him for a while. He had good English. He learnt in Dorset! A table like a butcher’s block had a mason’s chisel and hammer and he asked if I’d like to try my sculptor’s hand at chipping into the local tauffur stone, which is used to make all the local buildings. It was soft and easy to work and as the rough stone already had the basic shape of a head,  I decided to turn it into a dog. Chips were flying and dust was rising and I attracted quite a following. The young man said to Sharon, “He works with confidence. Has he done this before?”

I thought I might brag about my effort with my vermiculite block, the One Hung Low that hides at home in the garden behind the bamboo,, but didn’t quite know the words to explain myself without getting into too much trouble.  I worked at the dog’s snout and thought I’d etch a groove to emphasize its nostrils. It was developing quite well until I noticed an English woman staring at my creation with a strange look. Looking again at what I’d roughly carved, I realized that perhaps my dog snout looked rather like a penis and quickly erased it with the file. The Italians were better sculptors than the French!

We found a comfortable place to stay at Monsoreau, on the river, quiet, with a garden of grape vines, mulberry tree and bananas,  caged budgerigars, cockatiels, finches and parrots. It feels like home so will stay for a couple of days to unwind.