Sunshine after rain

It was bright and sunny this morning, but in the afternoon the clouds rolled in and there was a sudden downpour. I went out quickly to take some photos and couldn't resist my one tree, which has just started to put out leaves.

We had a lovely evening yesterday with an international group of friends: two British, three German, two French, one Seychelloise :) We ate wild boar that had been shot by P, and cooked by our German friend A. Usually boar is served in a daube, after being marinated for days in red wine, and is tough, strong-tasting, and indigestible. A had pot-roasted it after marinating it in wine and spices for only 24 hours, and it was superb, tender and full of flavour. It was J's birthday, so it was followed by birthday cake. Great conversation and good food and wine -- a combination that can't be beaten.

I took the little Olympus with me and took a few quick snapshots without flash. I just left it on auto, taking hand-held photos in a very dimly lit room. When I looked at the results today, I was impressed. Good white balance, perfect exposure, little blurring and surprisingly low noise given that it chose an ISO of 1250. This is the type of situation when I'm most likely to want to use the small camera, so I am very happy. Here's a completely unedited example -- not a great photo, but I love the subtle lighting.

This afternoon, we went to nearby Montlaur to see a film called La Campagne de Cicéron, which was filmed on location not a million miles from here -- there were lots of nudges and murmurs of recognition from the audience. It was made in 1990, but was surprisingly old-fashioned -- without knowing exactly when it was made, I'd placed it in the early 1980s. A really classic French nouvelle vague scenario. I tend not to be keen on nouvelle vague films (with the more than honourable exception of Truffaut), but I enjoyed this. Little in the way of plot, but it was quirky and dotted with surreal oddities. A constant theme was characters trying to make dramatic exits and tripping down steps or falling off bicycles. Or, in one case, falling out of a first-floor window. It reminded me in some ways of Alain Resnais's Providence with its strange non-sequiturs. The cinematography was lovely too, with lots of dimly lit scenes and fine framing. The director, Jacques Davila, died the year after it was released, but it was rescued from total oblivion and released on DVD in 2010. Worth a punt if you like French arthouse films!