Maggie

We would like to use our blog to pay a small tribute to our dog Maggie who died peacefully last night here at home. We were fortunate to get Maggie from Battersea Dog’s Home seven years ago. She had been found wandering around Palmers Green with no identification and had been handed into the local police station. Some person either sadly – or deliberately – lost her. But we found her and were lucky to have many happy moments with her. She was just a mongrel – a grey fluffy mix of terrier and poodle – and we will never know how old she was when she died. At a guess she was probably between five or eight when we got her. She certainly was starting to show her age in recent months but she never lost a kind of youthful joy - even when she could no longer go for long fast walks and when her breathing had become more laboured. She was always so happy to be around us, loved her food, enjoyed chasing the cat and had a remarkable sense of humour. The mornings were usually a ritual of rolling about, kicking her legs up in the air and making sniffing sneezing noises that on her more buoyant days ended in a good fit of tail chasing. She was a villainous thief when it came to food but I always found her zest for my cooking flattering. Guests at our gite loved her. She seemed to attract great affection from everyone. Old and young stopped to stroke and make a fuss of her. Her passion in life when we were in London was the post woman and lamp posts. Here, when we moved to France, she enjoyed bouncing through the fields and doing the gite holidays barbeque circuit. She was such a good-tempered, no-fuss kind of animal – never making a nuisance of herself and always there as part of the family. We will miss her terribly and thank Battersea Dogs Home from the bottom of our hearts for giving her to us that lucky day we turned up to find ourselves a pet.

Le Roc-Aux Sorciers

A recent outing to one of the latest tourist attractions in the area needs to be mentioned. The archaeological site Roc-Aux-Sorciers was both interesting informative and pleasurable. A newlybuilt discovery centre opened in March this year allows the public to be informed about an important and fascinating Magdalenian site which was discovered by an eccentric British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod in the 1940's. This discovery of a large settlement of nomadic people who returned habitually 15,000 years ago to this area by the river has been hailed as important as the cave paintings of Lascaux. The newly built discovery centre enables the visitor to learn something of the history of this site before passing through a chronological time zone that explains in context this archaeological find. 15,000 years ago a large settlement of 'homo sapiens' not only made this part of the river Anglin their home but into an overhanging sheltered rock surface they carved a story of their lives. This incredible freeze of horses, bison, women & men is as yet incomplete as it waits for other excavation to reveal the artwork of these ancient people. 20 metres of sculpture have been recovered but it is believed there is possibly many more metres not yet recovered. Therefore available to the public is a reconstruction of the sculptures currently exposed as well as a fascinating multi-media film that brings to life in sound and images the creation of this important find. We found the visit to 'Roc-Aux-Sorciers' a truly moving journey into the lives of people in the past.