Fevrier

February seems to have been a quiet month though I suspect this is relative.

After the festivities (and associated food) of Christmas, New Year and Twelfth Night we were expecting a gap but we swung straight into Le Chandeleur on 2^nd. This is about related to our Candlemas, though ours is largely ignored unless you’re a serf who needs to pay rent to the lord of the manor, and appears to celebrate candle- and lantern-makers. It also involves crêpes. The guided tour we booked had us first heading for the nearest crêperie, then following the guide who carried a flaming torch around the narrow streets of the old town. The first stop was a little square behind the main shopping mall. Those weird windows I’ve been wondering about are fifteenth century shop fronts. I’d thought they were twentieth century “updating.”  Oldest houses on the left, newer ones to the right (picture taken the next day)  

These tours have been great at pointing out details we wouldn’t otherwise notice: the painted house number is representative of an original feature and a lot of research has been done to get colours (and numbers) correct on relevant streets. 

 

The guide couldn’t, unfortunately, throw any light, real or otherwise, on the meaning of a nearby street, Rue du Profond Sens, whose name could mean “profound meaning” or “deep direction.”  I hope it’s the former. Our walk went past a St Jacques Pilgrimage marker in the pavement, a few yards past the top of our apartment block (How little we notice!) and into the market place, where we stopped on the site of a former church, heard the story of the Chandeleur ceremony and were given our candles which if they stayed lit until we reached home would bring us good luck for a whole year. As it was blowing a gale, we all opted to keep the candles unlit rather than risking disaster if they blew out.

Even with no particular aim in mind, the town’s got plenty to look at. One Sunday morning I set out for a stroll just to see what I could see.  Carpeaux is the town’s star: a sculptor of note, quite reactionary in his day for his style which moved away from classical styles to figures with natural movement. He sits thinking above one of the boulevards. 

The town was occupied during both World Wars and I went through the square marking Victory in Europe.  

Turned round to see this sculpture, made (I think) from machinery used in textile manufacture, another of the industries once important in the area. 

 

I was still fidgety when I got back so went for a “free on the first Sunday of the month” trip to the Beaux-arts museum. It’s not very big but it does have some absolute gems. The first room is devoted to works by Carpeaux and they are wonderful: so much life and character in the poses and expressions.  Isn't the woman on the left just watching her grandkids and enjoying seeing them playing but also making sure they're safe?  And the young lady isn't the demure well-behaved embroiderer we might expect.
 

Other sculptors and painters are represented, Watteau being one of the best known local lads who was quite handy with a paintbrush, and Rubens gets a look in, though they’re not my favourites. Maybe when I become a Friend of the museum I’ll like them better. 

 

 

There's definitely a hill here!

On the 6^th I joined the Nordic walking group at Sebourg, a village about five miles north of Valenciennes. We had a glorious warm sunny day but most importantly, we had HILLS! They were not the biggest ever but went noticeably up and down.

The 9^th was another guided tour, around the old General Hospital,” half of which will become a luxury hotel, the other half used by the council. The “hospital” was used mainly for keeping people apart from the gentry of the town and housed vagrants, beggars, prostitutes and drunks. Much of it does not have public access, but we were allowed in the further reaches and the scale of the building was impressive.

There's another storey above this.

We went on into town and admired what had originally been the cavalier’s quarters and are now student accommodation and also learned why the Place des Belles Poules no longer exists by name (belles poules are not chickens sold at market but “beautiful chickens” of a different sort).

The 15^th to 24^th was spent partly helping the Red Cross at the cloakroom at the new  

exhibition centre. It was a good distraction from the bug that hit us both and made us feel tired for ten days. 












There have also been a couple of walks round the lake and another guide tour on 14th February, on the theme of L'Amour. It didn't involve any food but we looked at a lot of sculptures and threw a coin into the river as an offering to the god of the river, whose name I now forget. We also went past the weird book shop. It's possible the only place I'll ever see a shrunken head, a skull and sixties pop magazines next to each other.

So that’s a quiet month!