Wandering Womble. Remember those TV characters the Wombles? them just wandering, wandering wandering. That’s me. I dodge museums and sites of interest and just wander. The market is on this morning and although I usually love the pulse of it today it feels too squishy. We buy a baguette and two slices of Jambon for lunch and move on.
As I eluded to yesterday there is a photography exhibition on in Arles at the moment and I have skirted its fringes but not entered any of the exhibitions. We wander past a small gallery and it has a poster which draws me in.
I look at the picture on the wall and I know why. It feels like home. I look down and at the the little caption written in French and see the words Nouvell Zealand. I talk to the young woman who speaks English. “That’s home” I say. “I know where it is, it’s Takaka”. “Yes” she says. We talk and I tell here about the blue springs out of Putaruru and show her photos. She tells me that next time they go they will definitely go there and then we wander through the pictures of our beautiful piece of the world, captured beautifully. The artist now shares his time between Provence and the top of the South Island. When you walk through the back of the gallery there is a courtyard that you walk through to another room. I am in Takaka and can feel the springs. Random.
Wombling around some more click, walk, click. Arles lanes are lovely they just mix and merge and sooner or later you pop out only to go back again. It felt like every time we ventured out we would pass something new and something we had been by before.
Dinner was the hardest as everywhere we went they would say we needed a reservation. We had been lucky the previous two night and managed to get something down a quiet side street and been indulged with plat du jours, of various delectability. This last night in Arles was to not to be and we settled for a Hamburger and beer special (therefore WH the got two beers) and we ate outside in yet another pretty square down a wiggly lane.
