Rural existence and juxtapositions

Rural existence 

Mouvis is hardly rural, and Marc-Andre laughed when I described it as such, but their house is old (built early 1800s) and the neighbourhood is dispersed enough that neighbours seem not close.

Not far from Mouvis.. definitely rural here.

While there is a freeway quite close, it is submerged in a valley, and the sound is vague only- it becomes inaudible as the brain's built in noise cancelling technology does its work

In St Julien en Genevois. What is this?

Some poppy shots.

I love these flowers

Mouvis is also the situation of my favourite tree in the world. It's the cherry tree that on my last visit was replete with (admittedly slightly over-ripe) dark luscious cherries. On that occasion I overindulged. On this visit, global warming and the disruption of the seasons had determined that the tree had finished fruiting… nothing remained. In addition it had suffered the indignity of a severe pruning, reducing it from the majestic giant to a crew cut punk tree. I gave it a hug nevertheless and look forward to a future meeting. Meryl was great as a cherry scout, and managed to repeatedly arrive with kilos of cherries. As our time in Geneva continued, the cherries became cheaper and cheaper. The last batch was only 2 euros a kg (about $3) from the supermarket, and were still superb. 2 kg was consumed within an hour. I didn't realise they were to share!

Sunset over Mouvis

The other feature of Mouvis is Max, the very hairy and now old (12 ans) Golden Retriever. Max spends much of his day looking longingly through the gate, waiting for a walk or attention. We took him for a walk on our last morning.

You may notice that there's no photo of Max here... it's coming.  

Juxtapositions

One thing that differs from home is that in France, you can be in a residential area, and in between two apartments you might find a field of corn, or wheat. There doesn't seem to be the zoning that we are familiar with. They do have a zoning system (for example many towns have a Zone Commercial) but there seem to be many exceptions. It's not unusual to find, for example, a garage or tyre repair service next to a convenience store, right in the heart of a big city, with cars all crammed in and overflowing onto a residential street.

Slow life and fast lane juxtaposed.

How much of this is planned? Maybe it's historical, with some industries evolving from others that extend back decades. Nevertheless, it's noticeable to me, coming from a young and essentially town planned Australia.