Breakfast Yogurt pots licked clean it's time for Sophie to head off on a Tuesday morning adventure. Today Angus, 'The Font' and the family diva are going for a long walk by the canal. We follow a white van on the single track bridge that spans the river. The bridge was built in simpler, more leisurely days. For high speed 21st century living the bridge arches are alarmingly narrow. This doesn't bother the local white van drivers who zip along in speed limit denial.
The little porridge coloured Volvo is parked by the lock keepers cottage. We call it the lock keepers cottage and assume there is a lock keeper but we've never actually seen anyone emerge to do anything vaguely lock keepery. Perhaps, these days, it's all automated and the cottage is let out as a weekend retreat to Toulousians ? 'The Font' thinks that the capital investment needed to automate a canal that only has a handful of boats on it three months a year would be a very bad decision.
Sophie, as family diva, leads the way.
All goes well until the 7:32 train from Bordeaux to Toulouse ( stopping at Agen and Moissac ) goes hurtling by. The reverie interrupting train gets a full on PONette glare.
So starts a new day with a Polish Lowland Sheepdog in deepest, deepest France profonde.
So starts a new day with a Polish Lowland Sheepdog in deepest, deepest France profonde.
Unsung dinosaurs :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ode-worlds-most-average-dinosaurs-180977614/
6 comments:
I love the canal-side photos.
Is white van driver speed limit denial a universal syndrome?
I can sympathise with Sophie - I was just envying you the tranquil scene beside the canal when that train went hurtling by! So much for the quiet of the countryside.
Judging by the speed and lack of adherence to any traffic regulations here, I should say that white van speed limit denial is a universal syndrome!
Your white van drivers could perhaps be compared to our Amazon or FedEx delivery drivers as they hurtle along flinging packages left and right and and racing onwards. It's always best to stay out of their way.
What lovely photos this morning of your canal visit. The 7:32 train made me long to be on it going to Toulouse.
Hari OM
No - there IS a thing called "White Van Syndrome", which incorporates the speed limit denial, the other traffic existing denial, parking regs denial and traffic light denial!!! YAM xx
The cloud reflections on the canal are particularly beautiful.
I would not want to be a cyclist meeting a speeding van head-on on that bridge.
I drove over a similar bridge--worse, it was over the Missouri River, so it was agonizingly long. I looked up a photo and it shows two-way traffic, but I recall it being one way at a time. Extremely narrow, with safety rails that were barely a meter high--looking out the river, one say only air and the chocolatey water below. I think I went at 10 mph out of sheer terror. I wanted to take a different route, but my father, in the shotgun seat, insisted, and one did what he wanted.
What a wonderful place to walk! One could go for miles. Happy End-of-Lockdown!
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