When I was in Grenoble I managed to see this fabulous exhibition of Doisneau’s photographs of the Alps. He went there regularly. Sadly online I’ve failed to find any of the realy interesting pictures of early skiing (in every day suits!) or the wonderful pictures of peasant life.
French posties’s bicycle
I’m just back from the farmers market, about to start a bit of crochet before I go to my sat afternoon shift at work. I’m crafting up a storm here and will try to take some photos soon of finished items. If you are craving some real mail sign up here for my mailing list. everyone gets a bit of real mail from me!
My niece Alex aged 5 is quite a foodie. Her favourite cheese is from a farmshop outside Cambridge – a goats cheese rolled in ash. She once announced ‘Mummy we DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ARTICHOKES’. In honour of Alex my friend took me to the best cheese shop in Grenoble. It was saturday morning and the queue snaked out the door. I wish Alex could have sampled it. One of the delights was a long low window of glass inside under the counter so you could look down into the basement to see all the cheeses maturing away.
I was fascinated by the ironwork. Particularly the designs of balconies and the frilly iron on the windows. My friend and I decided that it was a 19th C way to hide outside wooden venetian blinds when they weren’t lowered.
I was flicking through a guidebook to Grenoble and found reference to this art deco garage. As it happens my friend though she’d been in Grenoble 2 months hadn’t come across this gem and as she is also interested in 20th Centuary architecture we hunted it out. And were charmed. It had the air of a garage perhaps designed by the Italians. We walked in and took photographs. I didn’t realise it would be the kind of garage where you would actually rent a garage. The floors of the garages had 1920′s tiling! I did take a photo of one but its too dark to post.
Another thing about Grenoble I liked is the city had maples and ginkos growing in open spaces. No snobbery about ‘native’ plants. Our own dear Edinburgh Council ripping out beautiful fluffy flowering pink cherry blossom and foisting on us the rowan whether we like it or not..
