Not long until next year

Very early on in our visit to France we noticed a sign on some cemetery gates, which we translated as meaning that all withered chrysanthemums must be removed by New Year's Day. "Odd..." we thought. Pondered the sign for a while, came up with no answer and then forgot all about it.

Fast forward to Monday of this week. Nov 1st is a national holiday in France and is All Saints Day. I googled a bit to see what people more got up to on this holiday. Turns out they go and visit their dead family members and place chrysanthemums on their graves.

Chrysanthemums turn up all over the place on Nov 1st and we did pass through a small village on Monday that clearly takes the whole tradition very seriously indeed. There were pot mums on every doorstep and arrangements of chrysanthemums in communal areas. I even saw a bush that had several bunches placed in it to make it look as though it was blooming mums.

The idea dawned on me that I needed to visit a cemetery to see these death flowers en masse. Today when we walked into Saint Pardoux I was fortunate enough to spot the graveyard and to find it empty. There always seems to be visitors in cemeteries here and I have the feeling that weirdo English visitors with cameras might easily cause offence. For that reason this was my first French cemetery expedition.

The mums did not disappoint.