Cherbourg meets Port Adelaide

Bonjour,

Many of the photos from our balcony show the blank wall of the local police headquarters. The building may be functional but missed out on the old world charm and character.

Because of the strong links between Adelaide and Cherbourg in developing the submarine project, it was decided to commission some art work in both locations to link to two together. Jimmy C (SA artist now living in UK) and Elizabeth Close (Adelaide based Aboriginal artist and one of the artists featured in the 2017 Port Adelaide Wonderwalls Festival ) were commissioned to paint a mural on the wall of the police headquarters. Further down the track, an artist with links to Cherbourg will complete a mural in Adelaide.

We took progress photos as the work took shape, but this video does it better.

Elections may be over in Australia but the EU elections are taking place between 23 and 26 May. France will have 74 seats (out of 751 – rubbery figures though due to Brexit mess). It appears to be a bit like the Senate in Australia, where most of these 74 seats will come from a handful of parties. The French are not big on loud, in your face, advertising and billboards and the election signage is no different. In very orderly fashion, they have erected designated stands for each candidate to post their signs in their allotted section. These stands all seem to be displayed in public spaces, like near the church and you can guarantee they will be gone as soon as the elections are over – probably well before this happens at home.

We have seen a number of these in the last week – always 34 spaces, one for each candidate.

Posters are all very uniform is size. Number 20 candidate! Hair!

Cherbourg still has a few surprises. There is a public garden about 500 metres away that is very tucked away and you would not even notice it if you blinked as you walked past. This garden was the home of Emmanuel Liais (1826-1900), a former mayor of Cherbourg. He was an astronomer, botanist and collector of exotic plants from his travels in South America and Asia. His house is now a museum and the gardens and greenhouse still contain some of his collection. The photos show some plants that have been there for a long time.