John Walton, aviation journalist, columnist and travel writer | 44john.com: the blog

@anatsuno looking deeply excited about her MacBook Pro

Ah, BA, where the tea is blacker than the coffee

Air Algerie 767 next door

I for one love the view from my seat

Ambierle: Church at sunset

Up on the roof

It's my last full day in France, alas! I trundle back to London tomorrow, and then back west to see the folks and some friends.

I've kind of fallen in love with the Cote Roannaise, though. Hills and forests and sweeping views down to the plain.

Especially once it stopped being 39C/98F. That was HOT.

Poetry: An evening at the bistrot

There are worse things
the writer told me
than sitting in a bistrot in the woods by a dam
discussing artistry, aspect, tense, conjugations, translation, words.

Bilingual
(well, nearly)
the conversation wandered wonderfully
the oddly-formed waiter arriving, departing,
"bon appetit" over his shoulder
his good-natured opinion
formed by the choice of the wine.

"Is that what you call it?"
"I had no idea!"
"But if you try Russian--"
"--but what do you mean?"

Most blissful of evenings
of friendship
and thinking
and pensées
(the French way)
(and, traduit, in English)
(you know what I mean)
the Milky Way's stars in a line overhead.

The enormously tall Eglise Saint-Martin, Ambierle

It's hard to capture the remarkably high windows of Saint Martin in Ambierle -- nor its flamboyant Bourgignon roof, nor the lovely clotted cream sandstone from which it's constructed.

Market day in Ambierle: foie gras, fromage, tomates, fraises, haricots verts...

Alas, this does not mean "Barbarian Orgy Festival"