19/07/2017 A few quick photos from the garden and the promised photos of the cars on Sunday last

Maximum temperature 28C, minimum 16C.   11 km/h NW winds with 16 km/h gusts.  A light shower that has not hardly wet the rain gauge.

Stargazer Lilies

Common Wall Lizard - (Podarcis muralis).

Love is in the air - Graphosoma lineatum.

Two Citroen 2CVs,  MGB and an  Austin-Healey Sprite with another 2CV. 

The 2CV above returning from the rally.

Porsche 996 and an Alpine-Renault A310

An immaculate Chevrolet Corvette

Somebody owns a very old race car - it looks a little different to the F1 cars of today's car racing!

Porsche 911carrera.

Panhard Dyna convertible .....

and returning from the rally with the top down

MGB GT

Two Porsche 996s back to back.

Mini.

Renault Alpine and I think the one behind is also a different model Alpine but someone may correct me on this.

Austin-Healey Sprite, MGB, Opel, Austin-Healey Sprite

No apologies for the number of Porsches, we are Porsche fans!!!

17/07/2017 The town of Chabanais where yesterday's car rally with friends ended. The photos of the cars I may do another time.

Maximum temperature 33C, minimum 16C.   18 km/h SE winds.  Dry.

I have been working in the garden trying to catch up and have not picked up my camera all day!  My back knows how hard the gardening was!!

The rally ended with lunch in Chabanais so I took the chance to walk around before we all sat down to a magnificent lunch.

The new bridge over the  Vienne river  was built in 1958; see the sign below at the entrance to the bridge

The paths of memory.

The bridge was destroyed by the Maquis (the French Resistance) on  1 Aug 1944  to stop the Germans from crossing.

The same bridge, showing the weir and the other half of the town on the opposite side.

Standing on the new bridge looking downstream towards another old steel bridge. I wonder if this steel bridge was a temporary solution, after the big one had been blown up. I cannot find any reference easily....

The church spire of San Sebastian seen from the opposite bank. It was originally the chapel of a hospital founded in 1386. It became a parish church in 1419 for the inhabitants of this district.

The history of Chabanais is extremely interesting, and there is a Wikipedia entry, mostly concentrating on the effects of numerous wars.  if my  French speaking followers are interested it can be found here

Sadi Carnot.

Born in Limoges (42 kms away) on 11 August 1837, he became the French President on 3 Dec 1887.  He remained  president until he was assassinated in Lyon, stabbed with a knife on 25 June 1894

I was fascinated by this little dog happily being carried around in a bag :-)

Dining room full and there were 120 cars, so this meant quite a lot of people.  A few cars only carried one person, but most had at least two, and there were some with four.

Main course was six giant paellas and we all had full platefuls; some people even went back for seconds!  This was followed by a course of 3 cheeses and a huge bowl of fruit salad. Yum yum.