Good Bye

Over a year ago on the 15th April i posted a picture of a local Borne. I returned today to photograph the same Borne as the intervening months had encouraged the ivy that had already taken root, to strangle the yellow and white with a forest of green.

I was surprised that in the same time that i had decided that the creeping transformation of a once essential idiosyncrasy was worthy of a photographic testimony, someone else had decided it was worth saving and stopped to clear my photo opportunity.

I suspect Paul, or in French Pol, the village essential: school bus driver, rose planter, Christmas tree putter-upper - he's been known to dress up as Father Christmas for the primary school and he is a volunteer pompier that will drop everything and rescue you from a car crash.

He used to cut the roses in the President's garden in Paris and once gave me instruction how to care for mine.

As i wrote in that previous post the Bornes are slowly being eradicated by plastic impostors and you will find the predecessors abandoned in the ditches and lay-bys near to where they were ripped unceremoniously from their vigil.

Of course i see all this as indicative or society's ridiculous need to update what is almost perfect with something that is perfectly flawed, another step towards banality.

And i see Pol as one of the last bastions of care and attention to detail that few respect or recognise as necessary, yet makes a difference.

As a collector i also admire the graphic simplicity and startling efficiency and would have more than the one that sits in my garden if they were not so heavy to move and if i hadn't crushed my fingers trying to put that one into the boot of the car.

Luckily, because of Pol among others, the road near my home has several almost-originals- sometimes improvised on geographical features.

Sometimes the Borne marks the boundary between two departments so then something a little special is called for.

Any way, i gotta go. The French Tv is screening Michael Jackson's memorial, another. important attention to detail and i want to pay homage to him too before he disappears more.