Photo Hop!

La Belette Rouge tagged me for a meme. I'm feeling brain deady today (a somewhat nasty combination of having felt sleepy from staying up too late the night before and being cold. And then too hot when the heat finally kicks in. And as such.... sleepy), so this is perfect.

There Are "Rules":

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.

2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.

3. Explain the picture.

4. Tag 4 people to do the same.


However, given that I'm a total bad ass, I'm ignoring the rules because I've already shown that picture on this blog. Technically. (It is on the fourth page of my flickr photostream and, it's the fourth one on the page. Oh hell. I'll post that one too because I'm all about following rules, but I'm a-warning you, it is completely boring. But it was a nice day, so hey:



This is one of the weirs for the hydro-system thingamajig that churned when the old Menier Chocolate Factory was still operational in Noisiel, France.

This site is where Nestlé France has now taken up shop ... and the buildings are STUNNING (check out my flickr set for the deets) and I wish to all get-out that they were hiring because I would love to work at this place and, bonus, I would be able to ride my bike to work. As if I would totally do that.... ahem...

So on the nice day in question, I took the kids for free ice cream on France's National Heritage weekend at Nestlé France. Nestlé gave me lots of coffee that day. I felt the buzz for a week after...

But I digress...)

So ANYWAY!

The photo I've been wanting to post on this blog for a long time, but couldn't find the segue to do so (Thank you La Belette!) is this one:




I love this photo. There is just something about it. The beat up old door in the decrepit building. The arrow pointing in the direction I was heading at the time and the words: "Vers le paradis" (Towards paradise).

I love that under it, there is the miss-spelled "C'est vrai?" (Really?)

It isn't particularily clever. But I think that I would have wept if I hadn't had my camera on me that day.

The picture was taken in Château-Thierry. A town just inside the Picardy region (ie, North-ish, but not so far North as to be considered "Ch'ti". I think).

Mr C, the kids and I were rambling through the town on a Sunday. We had driven up so that Mr C could show me an apartment complex that he had gotten wind of where we might be interested in buying an apartment as an investment. Turns out that the apartments? Total yuck (jayzuz, who thinks acid apricot is a fitting colour for anything?...).

But the town was nice. And I had my camera. So the day wasn't a total loss.

I love these days when we get all touristy. On the way home, we saw that there was a castle at Ferté Milon and we started following the signs, with no idea of whether the castle was on the way home or not.

We got lost. That part of France is mostly fields and less signs than the lonely intersections bi-secting the fields, but when we did find Ferté Milon, this is what we found:



An unfinished "Haunted Castle". Haunted because they say that faery lights light it up on certain nights of the year.

The only faery I saw was my daughter running towards the castle.

It's times like these that I'm reminded of how lovely it is to live in this country.

Now if only I could find a job that I could ride my bike to, I'd be set.

Four people I'd like to see a picture or two from:

Non, je ne regrette rien
Belgian Waffle
On the Banks of the Rio Grande
Magic27