It was a fine idea at the time. One of the reasons the SLR got overthrown was its tendency to have shutter jams… In a church in Lyon, for what it’s worth.

Don’t even think about it—I might want to repaint this door one day…

When your garage door is an expressionnist canvas, no-one dare park in front of it…

Nowhere to park in this town except in front of someone’s driveway. A series of picturesque interdictions.

Tagging as we’d like to see the art develop, from a cellar door in the back streets of Clermont.

The black spires of Clermont’s volcanic stone cathedral scrape at the rushing clouds.

Only in France could a legal requirement also be a work of art.

Decorating tip #1—the weathered look: Travel back to the early 20th century. Paint vivid colour and elegant typography on your wall in Clermont. Return to the present to find that time has done its work…

Existential musings on the fence outside the wife’s former primary school as a new year rises on Le Coteau. Every famous person who ever came out of France has a street named after him or her somewhere — usually every other town you visit.

At the foot of the path up to the walled city of Carcassonne, one of the most densely visited sites in France, the “new” city has seen better days.

Cutting through the pine forests of the Beaujolais in high summer, the stripes mark the passage of one of France’s Grand Randonnée circuits, linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

The view from the beach uphill to the dwellings of Camogli.

In the streets of Le Coteau, often high on walls, hidden by trees in the summer, lurk the ghost signs…

Inside the Palais des Papes in Avignon at dusk in winter.

Writing on the wall in the back streets of Aix-en-Provence. The old woman told me “Aix is finished,” but you wouldn’t know it from the influx of property speculators.