Old and Loud

Although the cathedral in Albi dates back to 1287 it took 200 years to complete.  even still, it is far older than its organ which dates only from 1736.  Still old enough to qualify as old, I think.  You'll have to trust me that it can also be very loud when required, or watch and listen to this video.

You could also say that some of the patterns on the walls are loud.  they may look modern in their geometric design but they date from the 1500s.  If I had them in my living room I'd have a perpetual headache.  Here though, the effect is amazing.

My photos are not all they might be because, quite rightly, they don't allow any artificial light inside, and I'm not about to start carrying a tripod around with me. 

A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts. 

Points and circles

Circles within circles on a clock with a point on top and of course the hands point to the time.  This one is on St George's Street in Canterbury.

More circles within circles and even more hands pointing to phases of the moon and months, I think, on the astronomical clock in Bourges Cathedral. A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts. 

Vintage hearts

If you walk along the streets of Bourges in central France, you will come across plenty of evidence of Jacques Coeur.   As you can see from this road name, he was the king's treasurer in the 15th century, a position of great importance. and his surname translates as "heart".

His house in the centre of Bourges remains today and reflects that great importance.  On it you'll notice carving of hearts and shells.  The meaning of the hearts is obvious enough, but the shells are there as a play on words: Jacques in coquilles St Jacques meaning scallops.

A lady, maybe Madame St Jacques, leaning from a balcony with a carved and [vintage] heart below.

A [vintage] heart with scallop shells either side, on the same building as above.

A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts. 

Do five cuckoos make a spring?

From Chris Romeiks/vogelart.info via Wikipedia

 
"For one swallow does not make the summer" [Aristotle], but could five swallows know that spring is in the air?  It seems unlikely in this snowbound part of the world but possibly they have sensed a change.
The excitement over hearing the first cuckoo in the spring really might have given me a clue, but I really hadn't taken in the fact that cuckoos migrate to warm places during the winter, never mind where those places could be.  In fact they migrate to Africa although very little was known about where.  One bird was found in Cameroon in 1930, and that is just about all.
Until recently.  Last year the British Trust for Ornithology decided to find out more about cuckoos' migration by catching and tagging.  The birds proved hard to catch but in the end five from various parts of East Anglia were fitted with solar powered tags which transmit for 10 hours then recharge for 48.

The first surprise was that the birds started leaving the UK in June and all five had left by the end of July.  Two then flew south via Spain and the others via Italy.  At times their routes were 3,600 km  apart and yet they all ended up together in the Congo by the end of November.

But here is the good news and another surprise - three of them have started moving north!  Has spring already started?

Read all about it.

Three years in a row...

"You don't get snow on the beach, not here," they said.  I looked out this morning, and what did I see?  Not France, that's for sure.

Sparkling water

We haven't had much bright sunshine this winter so when I saw the light shining off the flat surface of the water through the twigs, I had to take this picture.  It looks better enlarged but it doesn't capture the full sparkle properly.

A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts.