With wonderful timing I finished my picture just as we arrived at the lunch stop. For lunch I had what in a school cafeteria we called a monte cristo sandwhich. Bubba mangles the French name into "crockee monster".

London had the same flowers Pomona did. Here in France are new flowers, even decorating the tollbooths along the motorway. But not growing wild - that job is left to poppies and mustard-seed.

The most impressive sculpture-work I have seen was in the Chartes cathedral, on the back side of a wall around the altar. The front of that cathedral had more detailed work than Notre Dame. All was dense of detail and rich in imagery and variety. Even the bordering had themes and variety. And the altar wall was huge, not only quite tall but very long in its horseshoe shape.

I'd like to get a job designing water towers in France. They are all over, and no two are alike. Towers and cones, flaring or slimming, they look odd rising from the small villages we pass.