Rain, rain, and more rain

Friday 30 November

My last posting was about a drive in the rain, and it hasn't stopped raining since, until late yesterday afternoon.  So, I haven't really a lot of news to tell.  We have only been out to do some groceries shopping, and ran from the car to the shop and back, because of the cold wind and driving rain. Most of the time we find things to do inside, which varies from playing wordfeud, solving Sudoko puzzles, and reading for me.  Frank finds other things to do, like drawing and taking the details of the garden chairs for me to make in miniature! :-)

At times like this I am glad to have access to the internet and skype, which allows us to stay in touch with friends and relatives.  So far we've had quite a few chats, which is great.

However, I am beginning to believe that this holiday is jinxed.  In hind sight, a few weeks before we left I had a sudden premonition that this wasn't going to be a dream holiday, and so far little incidences keep telling me that I was right.  One of them being my bobbin lace cushion.  I have taken it on numerous trips, but this time it got damaged and although I have repaired it temporarily I keep having problems, because now all the wires on the bobbins, used for the beading, are breaking off.  For those who are not familiar with lace making, the bobbins have a beaded wire at the end to make them heavier and to prevent them from rolling:

Of course I don't have any spare wire with me, so will have to make do with bobbins that keeping annoyingly rolling away from under my hands.  That I am persevering shows the following picture that Frank took this afternoon:

I was sitting close to the central heating (behind my back) to warm up after our walk earlier in the afternoon. Last night the weather started to improve a bit.  The sky became a bit lighter and the sun started to peer through the clouds.  However, this morning it was just as overcast as before, but dry!  So, being fed up with having been cooped up in the house for the past few days we decided to drive to nearby Roybon (4.6km) and walk through the village.  When we got out of the car it felt a bit cold, but it wasn't until we saw a thermometer that we found out that it was actually 0°!  No wonder...  It was a very short walk, I can tell you, and taking pictures was kept to a minimum, not having gloves.  Luckily our winter jackets are of good quality.

Roybon is a very small village with a few shops, like a little supermarket, bakery, hairdresser, pharmacy, drapery and post office.  There's also a little restaurant which has used the name Roybon to its advantage and is called: Auberge le Bon Roy.

We have taken some pictures, but on this site you can see some more, generally taken in summer, and they show a completely different Roybon than the one we are seeing this time of the year.

The Church of St-Jean-Baptiste de Roybon, built in the nineteenth century, and designed by the diocesan architect Berruyer. The building was erected in 1878.  The neo-Romanesque façade is of  local materials, bricks and pebbles, ornamentation typical to North Isère.

Another building with the typical pebbles

Our main attraction this afternoon was this little Statue of Liberty:

This monument was erected in 1906 in honor of Henri Saint-Rome (1797-1862), who was one of the most important figures of the second republic in the department of Isère.The statue is an exact replica of her older sister, moved to New York. With three meters high, it would fit in her hand.
It was given by Auguste Bartholdi himself to his friend Saint-Mathias Romme who made a symbol in honor of his father.

Not only because we recently visited the real Statue of Liberty in New York, but you may know by now that we like to go geocaching and a cache was said to be hidden near the statue.  We did find it, but it wasn't exactly hidden near the statue, but somewhere else: behind me in the picture.  The hint was clear and it didn't take me long to discover the micro container to log our names.

We also visited the Place du Temple, but the building is currently being restored and there were so many work vehicles in the way that it was no use taking pictures.

We did take pictures of the snow in the fields beyond though:

Here and there there were also patches of snow on the grass and the cars in the village.  No wonder the snow ploughs were getting ready earlier in the week.  Who knows what's in store for us!

We walked back past the old Gendarmerie...

...and saw this poor man climbing a ladder to nowhere!  Is it meant to be Santa? We don't know.

By then we were ready for a hot cuppa, so back home we went...