March, 2009:

On a journey to the airport, Adrian fleetingly spotted a poster with an Easter Island head on it and the words Bocapole underneath. Easter Island has always held a place of wonderment for Adrian and is a place he would love to visit. After a little surfing on the internet the advertised event was located. Foire Expo de Bressuire – “Des Marquises A L’Ile De Paques”.

An annual exhibition, held at the Bocapole, with this year’s theme being Easter Island. Offering Tahitian dancers as the entertainment and an agricultural fair and rollercoasters, bumper cars and other fun fair attractions.

With the possibility of actually seeing a real Easter Island head, we set off to visit the show. Entrance to the huge arena – a smaller version of the NEC- was 4 euros each.

On entering the main hall, we discovered it to be full of traders, offering all their wares from solar panels, heat exchange pumps, wooden staircases, cleaning products, furniture, paint etc etc. Hrmm not quite what we had expected.

Out the back door and we discovered tractors, mowers, rotavators and other agricultural paraphernalia. A large tent nearby was packed with cows from the local region. Some having won prizes with their backsides labeled accordingly.

And the Easter Island part …

Well, on entering a large marquee at the rear of the agricultural section we found the Easter Island heads. All made from polystyrene. What a let down.

They did have more stalls with (supposedly) South Pacific jewellery and clothing. There was one stall with a tattooist doing a traditional Tahitian ornate tattoo on a willing body. There were plenty of pretty girls walking around in flowery sarongs and a small group of musicians playing Tahitian music.

All in all – not really what we expected. Oh well, this is France !

When we bought the house we started doing a little research on the locale and the history of the place and soon discovered that the ancient pilgrimage route of “Santiago de Compostela” runs right through the area. Not only does it run through the Gatine and our local river valley here, but the one of the actual pathways runs… right past our front door. In France it’s snappily titled “Grand Randonneee 36″

Every year we’re guaranteed to see some sight of pilgrims actually doing the whole walk. It’s quite something to think about as the Journey will take them right down through Western France and across the top of Northern Spain. Wikipedia has a good entry on it. Parthenay was also an important stopping off point for pilgrims who would have entered the citadel through the imposing St. Jacques gates

So, yesterday, sat working on the computer and I glimpsed a walker out of the corner of my eye trotting past the front door. Serious, All the right gear. Booted and suited, gnarly looking face and a tall walking stick. Thought nothing of it until a few seconds later… a good 10 M behind him and bringing up the rear comes his wife – and she’s tethered to their cart in a full body harness!

Now, we have had people walking with donkeys, mules, groups of walkers doing a part of the way but this was some serious hardcore walking that was going on. I did rather feel for the poor lady as she looked a little downtrodden and unmistakably like a beast of burden.

And on the same day… a tale of more modern travel. A cloudless spring night commenced with a very brief appearance by the Space Shuttle Discovery and ISS, docked together and dancing a tango across Western France.

Very hard to take a quality photo as it’s just a pin-prick of bright light that raced in an arc across the sky in under three minutes. The wobble is the cameras mirror bouncing up to expose the frame and wobbling the tripod I was using. If I’d been better prepared I’d have done all the good things… weighed down the tripod and locked up the mirror. Must try harder next time some space hardware races overhead at 27,000kph

Update Summer 2009. I tried again, and failed, and then tried some more and got it!