Wow.... i forget when im living in one place how much the universe is prepared to lift you and carry you if you are open to it. Synchronisities, Abundance, Love.
These past fez days have been gorious, we sat in Albi as i wrote the last update on the interenet searching for couchsurfers to stay with.... well i did.. mean while mike was of facebook, but as is so often the case with him this was the perfect place for him to be as a friend of his who lives in the area happened to be online at the same time (apparenly a rare occurence) and she offered us a place to stay if we decided to come visit. never did i imagine what a glorious thing this would be. After visiting the pink chathedral of Albi (big, scary, masculine with an organ concert happening) we headed to the bus station. En route a momentary meeting with a man with supernatural facial hair, an accordian and some marrioneetes playing in the street. he greeted us with a joyous smile which we also retured, and when we tried to give him moneyhe refused, saying something about empathy in french. So with a mile and after giving him a handfull of wild plums we had picked we continued on our way, he was our good omen.
The bus to the village we were headed to was only 2€ and took us right out into the hills and valleys of Tarn, here we got out at a train station 20km from Penne, our destinaton. and what better thing to be greeted by than an ensemble of cats and kittens!! ahha! heavan (well..slightly flea ridden heaven).
Shortly our friend Gerome came ot pick us up and when we arrived another friend, Claire, gave us keys to our very own french, medievle (i can never spell that word) cottage. and here in this beautiful village we have spent our last few days. We went with Gerome and Amandine to a local campsite to see a band play nd i ate ice cream...yum... and then next day... yesterday... adventures got even more.
After a glorious morning in the sun lit lanes of Penne playing music, talking and drinking tea Gerome took us to a cave about 2km away from the town, after a 15 min walk up the hill we got to the entrance. This particular cave was inhabbited in the pehistoric times and once we entered into the cool damp tunnel we came across the cave paintigs of two Bison. Unfortunatly there was a huge grate infront of it because in 1992 some kids had gone in there and tagged the whole cave, INCLUDING the ancient pieces of art. ... breaks my heart... and makes me wonder how those kids feel now they are older, and if they ever go back to visit the damage they did becaue the Bison are barely visable now, worn away and the further you go into the cave the more tags you find here and there in black spray paint. ...yet so,ehow to me the etched numbers of 1853 and 1962 etc throughout the cave was more charming... a different level of vandalism yet one sightly fonder to my heart and much subtler i guess. Makes me think of Old Max Salad and his stone masonary graffiti .. oh steven your a classic!!
After the cave we rushed off to a local village that was having a festival, Gerome rushed us to the town to catch a puppet show, we presumed he realy wanted to see. on arrival he ropped us by the street up to the show and ran off fast as lightning to with our money to get tickets. Then when he arrived he marched deturmined up to the show... but when we got there he handed us out tickets and we realised he didnt hae one... he had rushed it all and run so fast just for us so we wouldnt miss the show!!! (oh i forgot to mention there is a very interesting language barrier between us all, both speaking broken sentances of each others language haha)
The puppet show was inspiring and funny ... makes me dream of days when i will also be reating such magical shows, bringing life to inanimate objects.
After this mike and i decended to the festival centre and met up with claire, Amondine and Gerome. I love the way the french do town festivals, so community based. different to the festvals that i go to in england where the community is strong but built of people scattered all across the country comming together. These little town festivals are build upon a comunity of people who live near each other and parhaps often dont talk or know each other but they all come together to create this one event as a community. Gypsy music, clowns, free grape juice/wine and nibbles suplied by the council... perfect.
As night decended and the lights began to twinkle, the sky orange and blue my eye lids began to droop. around midnight we got into the car and i fell asleep, only to wake up in ANOTHER magical place where astrology boffins had come together with masive telescopes to view the stars. In my dreamy dosey haze mike and i wondered up into the obseratories and peeked through telescopes looking at jupiter and her moons. At galaxies far far away... however more impressive to me than these huge amazing instruments of sight was my own eyes... the night sky seemed never ending and full of glittering shining stars and planets.... finally we returned to the car and headed home.
Today Gerome happens to be driving south to almost exactly where we were planning to head next to go to a Marrionnete festival (our good omen flashes into my mind again) and so we shall go with him, down to the mountains to mirepoix. Apparently a dear dear friend of mine has just hitched across the whole of north spain and fance to go there to meet up with us... Good Old Rosie...
so thats the latest update, who knows when the next one will come, and it may not be as detailed due to internet access but i hope you enjoy reading about it :)
Loads of love Fleassy
PS. wow i can not help but send so so so much gratitude out to all the people i know in my life, i keep having flashes of images and dreams of all my dear friends... thank you.
PPS. a dream last night of muddy slip-n-sliding on a tobbogan up a hill... no need to push just slipping up hill...another good omen.
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