wayfaringwordhack | Entries tagged with pics: le teich

Another way to Otherwhere:

If you can read waterunes,

if you can decipher their mixed messages of "This way! No, that!" (the trick is knowing you must read the water, too, and not just the runes),

perhaps you can find the byland in the sky. But only the cranes know how you may safely traverse the bridge that leads from here to Otherwhere.

I fear not many make the crossing, for few are those who read runes and fewer those who take time to talk to birds...

What you see here of the byland appears humble, maybe without interest; be not deceived. Otherwhere's mysteries and marvels, they are myriad.

I've listened to this more than once today.

She has such a forlorn look on her face at 1:50 when she sings, "I didn't ask to be born; I don't think that I'll ask to die."

Watch on YouTube

Summery video, but fall is fading fast here and winter temperatures are at last flirting with our evenings if not our days. I guess I better post some autumn photos before it is too late.

Blazing oranges, yellows, and crimsons are not the only colors of fall:

Perhaps I should say "Don't play" a little more often to Sprout...

( Another collage under the cut )

Current Music: Emily and The Woods - Never Play

If you want to get to Otherwhere, I know a way, a between way, as any way to Otherwhere should be.

This particular way lies in France, between Biganos and Le Teich, between two rivers that snake through forests of oak and pine, their heads buried in the Bassin d'Arcachon. You know you are on the right path when you venture off the main road to head down the dirt track guarded by two files of oak trees. Make sure to keep the algae forest to your right:

Don't think to detour and amble beneath those leafy, dark branches; that is a one-dimensional place, not roomy enough for both Other and you.

Travel on, past the wanderers who have fallen prisoner to the mushroom siren song:

Beware the X that marks a spot. You cant miss it, there on your right, a compound X, a many-legged X, screaming out, "It's here, here at my roots." Don't be fooled, for many is the fool who has passed that way, never to return. It seems to me that an X that tries too hard must be a ravenous X:

Continue on until, when you look left, you see that the river looks like any other river...

and an intent look to the right reveals a house, hiding.

The Sideways Tree is near, and often, to get to Between, you must go sideways:

And there, beneath the tree, between water and sky, is the Door:

_____________________________
This post was inspired by the joyous, unbounded creativity of asakiyume.

Current Music: Dry the River - No Rest

Milestones? I got your milestone, Mommy!

Two days ago, Soëlie started letting go of walls and furniture to brave the world Without A Handhold. After two steps, though, she'd either fall or lose confidence and crouch down to crawl.

Today, she decided she could do more.

With a tiny tin cup plastered to her mouth in drink position--I don't know how she could see, and maybe she couldn't and that was what gave her confidence to just keep walking--she took about ten steps from the kitchen counter towards where I sat at the dining table. By the time I grabbed my camera, turned it on, and started dialing up the ISOs, she had already sat down.

I praised her and cuddled her for a little while and then got my settings right on the camera. I put her back by the cabinets, and she rewarded me with seven more tottering steps. I know there were seven because I have the video to prove it! First steps unassisted: 12 months. Hooray! Tomorrow I have to try to get the video online for her proud papa. Too bad he is working in Paris at the mo and missed this momentous moment.

Current Mood: excited

Like most people I know--ok, I'm exaggerating an assumption--I have a million and one things I'd like to blog about. I fully intend to share things that I find interesting, beautiful, moving, things that make me wonder, that make me smile, things that irritate me, or things I want to record for my own memory. But the days slip by and I don't get around to it. Tonight, though, I want to do one of those record-for-posterity's-sake posts, though, so that, someday, when Soëlie asks, I'll be able to tell her when she did such and such.

( Pics and motherly ramblings )

frigg,

footlingagain, I know I'm supposed to be in bed, but my love called and delayed my posting. :P Tomorrow, I'll be in bed on time for sure!

Current Music: Bon Iver - Skinny Love

Several times a day, the forest echos with rifle shots.

Hunters bounce along the sandy roads in their little white Renault Expresses, often with a pack of excitable hounds just visible through the grimed windows. Even hearing the brassy peals of hunting horns, the unwary can be startled by a bullet of brown and white fur shooting out of the bracken to course its master's truck.

Teens too young to drive cars putter around on mud-spattered mobilettes, straps of their gun cases slung across their camouflaged chests like a beauty pageant contender's banner.

Around here, death comes in a rainbow assortment of colors.

Current Music: Damien Rice - Eskimo

And yet some people might think so when they see what I spend my time doing (

frigg particularly wanted to see how it turned out; however, I suspect she secretly wishes to mock me in public). Actually this didn't take me long once I got a polo to work with. What took ages was finding a suitable shirt.

I will hide this behind a cut for those who don't think S is cute enough to redeem something rugby related. :P

( Sporting in the sand )

So, she has her little USA flag, and her French flag, and it is black with the fern for the All Blacks because a) the world cup was held in NZ, and b) that's where she was conceived. And the number 10 is because she was born 10.2010. And I would rather, if someday she plays rugby, that she has the physique of a fly-half than a prop. :P

We've had some amazingly beautiful days of late, but the mornings and evenings have that chill bite that lets you know autumn is preparing winter's way.

The maples are ablaze with color: yellow, orange, red, purple-black. Ferns taller than I form a separate, russet forest beneath the lofty boughs of maritime pine, plantations of which cover the Gascogny Coast. Pine cones and acorns fallen from golden-leafed oaks litter the ground, and pumpkin-orange mushrooms as big as my hand sprout on logs and amidst still-green grass.

Soëlie is getting acquainted with fall, old enough at last to explore on her own. I just wish for her sake (and for mine) the air smelled more consistently of autumn's goodness--mouldering leaves, mushrooms, woodsmoke--instead of the stench of the nearby Smurfit-Kappa's paper mill.

Foot in mouth...

Yesterday at the garden store, Julien was carrying Soëlie on his shoulders--Soëlie who was wearing a pink* turtleneck, with pink-striped tennis shoes and pink-striped socks--and a lady said to us:

Lady: Aw, baby boys are so cute, aren't they?
J and I exchanged looks and agreed that indeed they are.
Lady: Sadly I only had one boy. Girls can be cute, too, but then they grow up and become brats.

Didn't we have a good laugh in the car...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Keeping on with the foot theme...

If ever you are, say, wearing flip-flops and happen to be standing next to the car tires, snapping your baby into her carseat when your husband (or significant other) thinks you are already IN the car and proceeds to drive away, do not--I repeat do NOT--try to jerk your foot out of the way. Just let the car roll over your toes before you scream or try to move clear. Jerking the foot away results in a double ouchie as the skin on your toes and your toenails are scraped against the tread.

Miquela, getting hurt so you don't have to...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

About as agreeable as a mouth full of sand...

After two water-n-vinegar baths, two afternoons of sitting out in the sunshine, and an entire spray bottle of odor "destroyer" from the local pet store, the couch STILL reeks of cat urine. :-<
_______________

*No, I'm not saying boys can't and don't wear pink, but this lady was not being open-minded; she was making a silly assumption that lead to her putting her foot in her mouth, even if she didn't realize it.

For the past few days, we've had unseasonably hot weather, peak-of-summer hot, not your typical balmy Indian summer temperatures. So this morning it was a surprise to wake up to a day that resembled true October. A very nice surprise, indeed, to find out our new home is just as capable of offering me foggy goodness as Sancerre was.

So, what should one do on a misty October morning in Le Teich?

How about pack a breakfast picnic and head to the port, which is nestled next to the ornithological park*...

...on a bicycle, of course!

We just got the bike seat for Soëlie, and I think she thoroughly enjoyed herself. Here's hoping we have some more nice weather so we can continue taking advantage of our new environs.

Tomorrow, the beach...

________________
*This area is providing great inspiration for a locale in To Be Undone, and exploring, observing, breathing the air is getting me excited to work on the project. Sadly, the locale in question is already one of the firmest in my mind and is well-represented in the book. Still, maybe re-entering the story through this place will ground me enough to make the other locales come alive.

Profile

wayfaringwordhack

May 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

A byland in the sky
Emily and The Woods
The Door to Otherwhere
Seven Small Steps for Soëlie; One Giant Leap Toward New Adventures
The little things
The other colors of fall
My hands aren't idle
It's beginning to feel a lot like autumn
My, what a keen sense of observation you have!
Misty October morning

Style Credit

Style: Dusty Antique for Nouveau Oleanders by branchandroot
Resources: OpenClipart and I'm home again

Expand Cut Tags

Page generated 7 Jul 2025 02:32 pm

The Wayfaring Wordhack

Valises in Lebanon

Entries tagged with pics: le teich

A byland in the sky

Emily and The Woods

The Door to Otherwhere

Seven Small Steps for Soëlie; One Giant Leap Toward New Adventures

The little things

The other colors of fall

My hands aren't idle

It's beginning to feel a lot like autumn

My, what a keen sense of observation you have!

Misty October morning