Another Run Out

We do not have a television so we find our "TV like" entertainment via YouTube. We have recently discovered a series called "Fake or Fortune" and have been watching several of the programmes.

In one episode they were trying to establish the provenance of a sketchbook containing drawings  which were believed to have been drawn by Henri Toulouse - Lautrec when he was in his late teens. During the course of their investigations they visited the childhood home of Toulouse - Lautrec which we realised was about a couple of hours drive from us.

As the frantic tourist season has now finished and the temperatures have dropped to between the mid twenties and thirty degrees we decided that we would have another "run out". We had an extremely interesting guided tour of the Chateau du Bosc with reference to the painter and the families that have owned it. It is still lived in, evidenced by the smell of Sunday lunch, and remarkably, still contains furnishings from Louis XIVs time. Apparently the incumbent aristocrat at the time of the Revolution was a very "generous chap" and the peasants intervened to stop the chateau being pillaged by the mob.

Henri was idolised by his Mother and he shared her bedroom until he was 11 !  The room has been left as it was at that time but it now also has a display of his toys, books and drawings.

Life chose to stunt his growth,
condemn him to constant pain.
Who are we to criticise his self-medication,
his choice of suicide by absinthe and debauchery?
We all have a cross to bear,
his was heavier than most.