Me and the lad went out for an afternoon of photo-reportage to smallish town that shall remain nameless in case someone recognises their drying underpants.
As with many towns where industry has mostly ceased, an air of tristesse invades the streets, abandoned shops and overgrown gardens. There were highlights of melancholic beauty and some surprisingly artistic graffiti although I'm not sure about the 'smiley Hitler' and the hastily scrawled 'Le Pen' et FN that covered a lot of walls in an abandoned housing estate.
Pausing our street-wandering we found a newly-started up café-bar and enjoyed a cup of citrus-flavoured (odd but nice) earl grey tea and admired the Dali-inspired artworks.
This town, along with others, and actually including our own, need places like this - art cafés, places to show work, music bars, etc, and to re-invent themselves if they are to survive economic downturn, and the general 'crise financier' that we are in and will remain in as far as I can see.
Refreshed, we continued dallying and photoing, climbing over barricades into semi-demolished housing estates, visiting the main church and exploring a little further into the outskirts of the town where there seems to have been a phase of corrugated iron dwelling-cladding.
No comments:
Post a Comment