A wild boar's head for sale. Look at the teeth in the smaller photo (click to enlarge)
Wild boar are everywhere around here. When I arrive home late at night, I always cast a wary eye before I get out of the car! They are often below the house where they find water in the creek - and of course the dogs think it's great fun to rush out and chase them away. Note: there is strong fencing between the two!
I've been told, because there is a market for wild boar meat, that they were bred with pigs and some escaped - so now instead of having just a couple of babies, they produce many. No idea if this is true or not. Menton organises wild boar hunts in the season - to keep the numbers down, of course, and I suppose for the hunters to ask their wives to make sanglier stew.
Stew is fine - long slow cooking - but one year several people ended up very seriously ill in hospital as they'd eaten sanglier steaks - cooked rare - and ingested some horrible parasites.
In Menton, May 1st doesn't only mean the day we give Lily of the Valley for luck (see yesterday's post) - it's also the day of the big Brocante organised by the Lions Club of Menton. Each year it gets bigger and bigger with more and more stalls, not just here - by the Bastion - but throughout the town. By the port, in the side streets, outside the market - hundreds of stalls and thousands of visitors.
Theme Day for the City Daily Photo family and today's theme is numbers. I wonder if the number 26 shown on these boys' T-shirts represents a famous French footballer? This Menton beach photo was taken at the end of March.
This dog is always in exactly the same place outside the butcher's shop. Really strange that he never moves and amazingly he kept really still for my photograph. Good dog! The shop is in a small side street in Carnoles, part of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
You can enlarge the smaller photographer to see what a friendly chap the butcher is - not sure his clothes would meet hygiene requirements in some countries tho.
Menton is not known as the City of Lemons for nothing. Citrus - oranges and lemons - are everywhere. Here you see one of the most common varieties of lemon: the Four Seasons, named for good reason as you get blossom and fruit all year round. You can see this even more clearly in the smaller photo - click to enlarge.
These shots were taken outside a small house way up in the Old Town - and just below the cemetery.
You never know what you'll find wandering around the beautiful cemetery above the Old Town.
I wonder how the inhabitants of this grave would feel if they knew a seagull had taken up residence to sit on her eggs?
She kept a very beady eye on me so I didn't stay long.
After the event, this car was featured in Nice-Matin and referred to as a Topolino. After much Googling, the Topolinos I found didn't look like this car. Indeed, Richard from Zurich Daily Photo had featured a Topolino - very different as you see.
Richard suggested I write to Fabrizio from Torino Daily Photo who knows all things to do with cars and Fabrizio assures me that this car is definitely not a Topolino and Nice-Matin had got it wrong! Well, we all know that you can't believe all you read in newspapers.
The Topolinos (Micky Mouse - or more correctly Little Mouse) refer to the
- Fiat 500 A produced from 1936 to 1948.
- Fiat 500 B produced from 1948 to 1949. Type A and B
- Fiat 500 C produced from 1049 to 1955 (Fabrizio's father had a blue one). Type C.
The car you see in this photograph is simply a Fiat 500, a special series model that was first made on the 4th July 1957. In fact, the very newest Fiat 500 was introduced last year on the 4th July.
Thanks very much, Fabrizio for all this information. Big kiss to you!
Remember Célia, the beautiful young girl doing her make-up in the motorbike mirror? And featured a day later in the 1925 Renault Torpedo?
In the small photo, left, you see a sweet young girl but in the main photo we see a sensuality that reminded me of Jeanne Moreau - somehow it demands to be seen in black and white. Amazing to me how photography can change the way we see. And what we see changes a photograph!
There's always great interest at the concours. Little boys, big boys, mothers - everyone wants to look inside and admire.
Another tiny car - this is a 1949 Simca Six Decouvrable.
Simca was founded in France in 1934. Originally associated with Fiat but later independent. In 1970 it became defunct and was taken over by the Chrysler group.
The Spanish parody group, Los Inhumanos, had a popular song called Qué dificil es hacer el amor en Simca 1000! (How difficult it is to make love in a Simca 1000!) One presumes it would be even more difficult in a Simca Six!
Everyone proudly poses in front of their cars. Here you see grandfather, daughter and grandchild in front of their MG - obviously a newer model than the one we saw the other day, but still a minimum of 25 years old - as are all the cars are at this concours.
Not only a British car but a car with British number plates. An MG. I don't know the year but I'm sure someone will tell me.
My first car was an MG. A TA, I think, it was. Anyway it was registered in 1939 - cost me £80. I drove it around Chelsea with bare feet, a mess of hair on my head. We were called hippies in those days! I drove the car till it would go no further and couldn't afford to get it fixed. Should have kept it - be worth a fortune now.
Here you see the car that yesterday's young lady was getting ready to accompany. It's a 1925 Renault NN, Torpedo. The owners bought the car in 1982 and since then they've changed the tyres, the car has been repainted and a small amount of work has been done to the engine. Meanwhile, they buy parts for the car directly from Renault or from enthusiasts.
In the last photo, you see the car ready for judgement. The judges are sitting off to the left, out of shot.
A motorbike mirror. A pretty girl puts the finishing touches to her macquillage. She knows I'm photographing her and can't stop giggling.
What car is she about to adorn? Note the style of headdress, the fur, the glove.
Do come back tomorrow to find out.
As you can see, this gathering of ancient cars is very popular in Menton. I've not heard of a display of cars and flowers before. Have you? These three Hotchkiss cars show different choices in flower arrangements.
Hotchkiss cars were made between 1903 and 1955 by the French company Hotchkiss & Cie in Saint-Denis, Paris - a company started by an American engineer, Benjamin B.Hotchkiss from Connecticut. The badge for the marque showed a pair of crossed cannons, evoking the company's earlier history as an arms manufacturer during the Franco-Prussian war.
As we all know, Italians talk with their hands, not just their voices. Look at this man - he's standing, talking to a group of men who are sitting on a bench in front of him. You can see the head of one of them. That hand never leaves his chest except to express what he is saying.
I used to go to an Italian hairdresser and if he was talking to someone else in the salon, I got my hair washed with one hand. He was incapable of talking without using at least one hand. I adore Italians! And of course, Menton is so much Italian - all the French here speak Italian. You cross the border and they speak French. And many of the businesses in Menton are run by Italians or families that were originally Italian.
Do you use your hands when speaking?
A couple of hours after I took the main photograph a fire devasted 50 hectares of land above Garavan. Had I remained in Menton just a little longer I would have had a photograph for you but back home in Gorbio, I don't see this part of the town. In the smaller photograph, taken a few days later, you can see the burned forest behind the church spires. With fires so early in the year, it doesn't mode well for a fire-free summer.
One of this blog's readers who visits Menton regularly wrote soon after telling me he'd seen the fire on the Menton webcam. I didn't know there was a webcam so am most grateful for the information. Thankyou, Don. You'll find a link on the right hand side of this blog - or click on the link. It seems you get control of the camera, which is located at St. Agnes, for 2 minutes. You then get a choice of 10 locations to view, with zoom control too.
Note: this webcam isn't working at the moment. I'll add it to the sidebar when it's working again. Technical problem!
The beach webcam, tho, always works although it's less impressive and with just the one view along the beach to the Old Town. See link on right.
