Lots of pretty pictures

Saturday Elaine

and I went and looked around the castle (chateau).


We found a bit that I'd never seen before which was exciting. This was another gate with a guard tower, with arrow slits and holes for pouring out boiling oil and everything!!!

We poked our noses into the ruins of what was the actual living quarters.



Unfortunately our noses were all we could poke in because it was all sealed behind a gate.

However looking at the drop into the dry moat around the house, I'm not surprised they didn't risk people going in and falling off the walls. The whole house was horribly damaged during the war and the bombing has left the wall only about a foot high in places.



It's quite extraordinary looking at the castle, seeing what an incredible building it is, and marvelling at how it has lasted.
Though bits of it are definitely feeling the test of time.


It's fun though and has quite a few little stair cases and holes


Which appear to come out into thin air- halfway up a wall!!


As well as the castle we went to Saint-Pierre and Saint-Jean (churches) to look round and see the photos they have of what the churches and the surrounding area looked like after the bombings. Then to the post museum. This might sound a little bit geeky and boring but it was actually immense fun. There were things little things like the language of stamps- the orientation of the stamp having a hidden message. And there was an old telephone exchange (coz the post office used to control the phones) and we must have spent about 45 mins playing with this thing. Unfortunately despite the instructions we never quite got it working properly (they forgot to tell up which hole was hole number 86!!)

Sunday because there was the churches general meeting thingy in the afternoon we didn't have choir, so instead Elaine and I went to the pictures. We went to see 'Good night and good luck' which is the film that George Clooney wrote, directed and acted in (quite an achievement really). The film was brilliant, but I can't remember the last time I had to concentrate on a film so much- I came out with a sore brain. The film is all in black and white which makes it a bit harder to concentrate on (I pity the French because the colour scheme meant that the white subtitles blended in with the picture half the time), it's also quite heavy stuff. The story is about the battle between TV and government over the actions of Senator McCarthy during his communist witch-hunt in the 50s. It is fantastic- though definitely not one to blob in front of!!