Avranches and Mont St. Michel...

Off south. First stop Avranches. Museum of manuscript illumination. Scores of beautiful works of the calligrapher and miniaturist's art. Especially interesting were the exhibitions of how it was done- making the parchment, creating the coloured inks, and so forth. Incredible pains and details, everything had to be perfect. No erasures! Yet within the practical constraints of "copy the book", a whole world of art and craft emerged and throve.

Art, the joy of expressing feeling, is as much a part of human beings as breathing oxygen.

And here is a bad picture of a lovely little ivory's expression of peace:



Then to Mont St. Michel. A foggy day so it arose out of the mist, suddenly just THERE.



It was just magnificent. Varied from cute and charming, to amazing, to puzzling, to awesome.































Maintenance and reconstruction on these places never ends.One of the things we were privileged to watch was a man replacing stained glass in the refectory.

What a lovely thing to do, and to know that your work will, even just a little, make beauty, please and touch people you will never know, centuries after you are dust.




Or until the tide comes in.