July 26, 2005
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Les fleurs sauvages du Souvenir
Remembrance wild flowers
English version below the pictures
Quand nos amis anglais vinrent chez nous dernièrement ( voir mon précédent blog du 14 Juillet ) nous avons visité l ' énorme Mémorial de Thiepval érigé à la mémoire des 72000 soldats britanniques tués durant la terrible bataille de 1916 de la Somme ( mon département en France ) pendant la première guerre mondiale .et dont les corps n 'ont jamais été retrouvés . Tous les noms sont gravés sur le mémorial . De nombreux visiteurs viennent chaque année pour honorer ces soldats . Tandis que nous étions là , il y avait aussi une classe complète de jeunes Anglais avec leur maître qui leur expliquait la signification de ce monument et l ' horreur de la guerre .
Quand nous quittâmes nous avons pris un chemin bordé par un talus herbeux recouvert de fleurs sauvages . Je ne sais pas pourquoi , mais ces fleurs rouges , blanches and bleues qui m ' étaient inconnues me disaient quelque chose . Elles exprimaient le cri et l ' âme des soldats tués là dans cette région et dont les corps étaient maintenant complètement mêlés à la terre . Je souhaitais de prendre une photo de nous Anglais et Français liés par l ' amitié en face de ces fleurs . Le chauffeur de l ' autobus des élèves offrit gentiment de nous prendre tous en photo . Voici ci - dessous cette photo qui signifie beaucoup pour moi . C ' est pourquoi je l ' ai titrée : les fleurs sauvages du souvenir .
Remembrance wild flowers June 2005
The French and English people ( Janine , Juls , Marie , Michel and John ) in front of the slope covered of the remembrance wild flowers June 2005
When your English friends came here lately ( see my blog of the 14th of July before ) we visited the huge Thiepval War I Memorial erected at the memory of the 72000 British soldiers killed during the terrible battle of Somme( my department in Northern France ) in 1916 whose bodies were never found . These 72000 missing soldiers have their names carved on this memorial . Numerous visitors come here every year to honor those soldiers .While we were there , there was also an entire class with the teacher who explained to the young English pupills the meaning of the monument and how awful the war is .
When we left we took a path bordered by a slope covered by wild flowers among the grass . I don' t know why but those red , white and blue flowers unknown for me talked to me . They expressed the cry and the soul of the soldiers killed in this area .and now completely mixed in the ground . I wanted to take a photo of us English and French people linked by friendship in front of those special flowers . The bus driver of the class bus offered gently to take us together . Here is above those pictures that means much for me . This is why I titled the pictures the Remembrance wild flowers .
Comments (101)
"Elles exprimaient le cri et l ' âme des soldats tués là dans cette région et dont les corps étaient maintenant complètement mêlés à la terre."
The soil of France is soaked in the blood of young men lost to centuries - millenia - of wars, wars justifiable and wars ridiculous. It is a testament to the insanity of humans. May those flowers speak of the peaceful place Europe has become, and the wish that the rest of the planet can find the same ways to work together.
"where have all the flowers gone?" is the song that comes to mind as I gaze at the wildflowers. I didn't know that the Battle of the Somme caused the death of 72,000 young men.
A wonderful rememberance of your visit from the British and the blending of friendship. It is good that there are monuments to those who have fallen in the horror that is war. Love
Nancy
Wow, you are a very thoughtful and sincere man. I enjoy coming to your site, for I am Never dissapointed. In friendship...
I wish more people could express that friendship like you do my friend
Thank you for finding me where I was... I came here because you are here and I have missed you.
How terrible war is, I hope the world learns someday the lesson of peace.
It must be a very solemn and beautiful place to stand in, Michel. When I visit places like that where tragedies have taken place, I feel strongly the horror and sadness that happened there. And how beautifully poignant it is to think about their very bodies returning to the earth to make it rich and nourish those incredible flowers.
I'm glad you had a good visit with your Xanga friends. With any luck, it will be Jim and I in a few years!!
Hugs,
Lisa
comme toujours, les photos et l'histoire sont magnifiques.
what a great photo. a nice way to keep memories fresh.
Beautiful flowers and beautiful friends.
Your words and your photos are always so thoughtful. You have a wonderful heart!
xoxo Cat
While every war is terrible, I have always been especially moved by the stories of World War One. So much of France was pounded flat by battle. Two generations of French men were lost if you take both World Wars into account.
I am glad the flowers spoke to you in such a way, so that you could speak to us.
Beautiful pictures Michel. I must try to visit that area of France for my own personal tribute one day.
Michel,
Really pretty flowers...and I loved that you and your friends went and enjoyed history. I love outings like that. Hope you're having a good day.
becky
les fleurs sauvages sont belle
Another beautiful entry in pictures and thoughts!
I was very moved that day - as you know ! It was the most special day of our time together. Many young men from Widnes are died there so that made it even more significant for me. Years ago my class organised an assembly on November the 11th and the music we chose was " Where have all the flowers gone " ( merrow mistral )
Marie
72,000!!! It's insane.
Beautiful picture of all of you together, and also the one of the flowers! Such a nice thought of the flowers. I'm so glad to see you posting again, Michel! You take care, and have a nice day! Kaye
C'est emouvant... et affreux quand on s'arrete a y penser, n'est-ce pas?
Je t'embrasse
Lise
the flowers are a beautiful rememberance =) you you are having a beautiful day!
Lovely indeed. I appreciate how the teacher brought out how awful war is.
I see why you loved those flowers so!
Its lovely to remember what men gave us so we could have a peaceful world . Those flowers were so lovely . Please forgive as with what had gone workwise I have not got to sort out the photos to send to you by mail but I will do it in the next week or so.
Those are staggering numbers, and a wonderful memorial. I am glad you had such a good visit with Juls & Marie.
what an amazing measure to capture a memory. Beautifully done...
That really is beautiful. What a nice thought.
i didn't quite know how to say this in french: they couldn't have chosen a much better place to bloom.
bon à toi, Michel.
You always have such beautiful posts. It makes me look at life differently, more optimistically. I don't know of anyone who could speak of the beauty of flowers on a grave. I truly enjoy your posts.
I really love these pictures, Michel.
what a wonderful memory and really a lasting treasure of friendship.
Rosemary
Good to see the picture of Xangans enjoying themselves with you and Janine .Thanks for your comments. I wonder where you are ,if not at home ,hope all is well .Love Marjie
so good to remember and enjoy the lovely flowers when you think of others. thanks for sharing sir.
What a lovely place! It's very important to remember those who have been lost in battle. In fact, I think it is important to remember everyone who has gone before us, no matter how they died. Those who went before made us who we are.
It's also nice to see friends from different countries standing together in this place.
Cher Michel,
Ton blog est incroyablement poignant! Quelle poesie de decriver les vie des autres, que les animes revivre dans les fleurs! (Wow, is this horrible French or what?!?!)
Tu me manques trop!
Amities,
Clementine
That something so beautiful could grow from something so horrible.
thats terrible.. they died in a foreign land and they cudnt even find the bodies...
What a wonderful post, Michel!
It's a lovely tribute to the soldiers killed during war. Also, a great picture of you all together. I noticed, everyone is around the same height! I notice these things, you see. 
The flowers are truly beautiful!
Thanks for your comment on our new house, Michel.
I don't know the events of the Great War that well.. Interesting to see the flowers bloom in that way. Did somebody plant them by any chance?
This is so beautiful, but of course, it would be!
C'est très émouvant
mais aussi plein d'espoirs !
Dernier commentaire depuis le lieu où je t'ai rencontré pour la première fois ! Donc Stuttgart en Germanie
, AM
Dans quelques heures la page sera tournée
Amitiés et A bientôt depuis d'autres horizons
Bonjour à Janine également
Words beatifully spoken. Your heart inspires me.
Karen
i ride some, but more than anything i help special needs kids as therapy as they ride horses...it's a really cool experience. kids that suffer from autism and cerebal palsey are really involved b/c it helps to strengthen their muscles. i don't think i'm taking any kind of vacation this year, i took a week long vacation up to boston, mass in may, so that was my 2005 trip. what about you? any plans for a vacation later this year? hope you're having a good day.
OMG!Your site is really simply but...yeah! COOL!
AWESOME pictures!
Badly,I can't understand French... *sighs*
But your site is really cool!
What a beautiful memorial. I am sure that Marie was touched by this thoughtful tribute to the bristish soldiers that fought to bring peace to France and the other innocent countries that were attacked by the Germans.
As ever,
Carol Suzanne
How very sad, 72,000 British soldiers!!! They certainly deserve a memorial such as this. It would be great, if people could learn from the history of it, but it does not seem to stop the terrible wars from raging on...
That is a wonderful picture of you and Janine with your xanga friends.
It appears that you are all having a good time. What better place to take the picture, then with those beautiful flowers in the background.
Have a great day, Michel!!!
Love
Edie Rose
Boy, you certainly are a popular guy! I know why. The pictures and thoughts are always lovely. Thanks for allowing me this view of your life.
You asked where I was in the pictures on my blog. I am behind the camera. I never really like pictures of me. There is at least one in my Hawaii blogs, though.
In this post, you have also served as a teacher . A heart for those "lost" is a very admirable attribute. You are a ver special person to put such remembrances into such beautiful thoughts.
Auklets are small penguin like birds that have a hormone that gives the fragrance of lemon. The mosquitos are repelled by this and the auklet colonies could be smelled by the researchers up to 1 km away! I am too far south to see penguins or auklets.
Those flowers really are beautiful and that is a really good picture of you and Janine with Juls and her family.
very moving, m fauquet
j'y viendrai aussi un jour
xo
After hiking all summer, I have to say that my favourite parts were where wildflowers and bushes grew in abundance under old trees. The green of a forest seems deeper when it provides relief to a single flower.
I'm glad that the world has memorials, and that we have memories.
Merci pourla photo et les bons mots et pensees. Toujours, meme a aujourd'hui, les soldats sacrificent plus qu'on peut imaginer pour nous.
Lovely pictures. and a lovely post.
What significant memories you have of Marie and Julie's visit, thank you for sharing them.
RITA
beautiful pictures!
~*Sazzy*~
Beautiful, Michel. Il nous montre l'inutilite de la guerre. merci.
Michel, I appreciate your comment on my other site. You remain the sweetest man I have ever known.
I do miss hearing from you, and I'm glad to see you are updating again. Wild flowers are my favorite. I hope all is well with you.
<3
Oui, tout mes tresor vielle, maintenant dans ma jardin!
Beautiful flowers. I see how they "express the cry and the soul of the soldiers killed."
I am relearning my history--thanks to you and Marie and Julie.
The Rememberance flowers are beautiful, but not as beautiful as the people standing in front of them!!!
a great picture with a wonderful meaning. you know how to make the simple things as important as they are. thank you for the gentle and beautiful reminder. and thanks for the inspiring birthday wishes!
With world events the way they are, it seems that some people have forgotten how terrible war is. Especially the individual costs.
Your garden bounty is certainly magnificent! it looks like you have plenty of potatoes with which to make soup! Someday I will have a garden, I hope
Thanks you really much ^_^
and yeah...I check it out...cool!
i love your posts and have missed them while you were away. i'm glad you're back!
Cette entrée de votre site perso est très belle. Nous devons souvenir les gens sacrifiés pour la paix mondiale. Nous devons vivre dans une société mondial qui tolerer tous les differences entres des personnes et utilisez des solutions pacifique pour la majorité de nos problèmes. En réalité tout le monde est lié avec des emotions, des idées, et de la compassion.
Could I subscibe you? =D
Thanks a ton for comment back.
I love this site...yeah cool pics like I said
I read some books about the horrors of the Somme border war.
Very good idea to name the flower like that. Memory of the death soldiers and memoiry of all the people that died and will die for the crazyness of wars and of terrorisme.
Thanks for your post. I am ok,but I need a little break. Bur I will still read your beautiful posts.
Amitié
Carlo
It seems that I missed your last post...what a beautiful garden. No wonder you were not on xanga during the spring; you had too much to do! Beaucoup de travail mais un jardin extraordinare. The remembrance flowers are a great background for the reuniting of your two countries. The virtual friends have become friends in real time. Vive l'amitie!
Wow. Those photos are beautiful! I love wild flowers. They are free to plant themselves wherever they wish. At home our gardens can look like prisons because they are ordered and sometimes held within walls. I love the freedom of wild flowers.
Hi Michel!!! RYC, my daughter Kellie also has a xanga and she was just writing last nite about life, and that is what she wrote about me!!!! I love her so... hope u and yours are having agreat summer
You share such wonderful thoughts and pictures. Thank you.
Have a beautiful week. (((hugs))) and smiles ~char
the wild flowers are very beautiful. I'm going to speak in english only because I haven't spoken french outloud in a few months, for we don't have school right now.
Noel is a very good friend of mine who is in theatre. I love acting and singing, and so does he so we get along very well. He is a very great person with alot of talent.
I'm once again amazed at how well France keeps history alive. The united states doesn't have much history so I love hearing about other countries. Hopefully one day I can live in Europe and learn as much as possible about the past of the world.
Cassie
Beautiful. I love the flowers. You all look so happy. It is always good to read your posts and sometimes remember what had been back a long time ago.
In Texas, our wildflowers are the Indian Paintbrush and the Bluebonnet. I should post some pictures for them if you would like to see them, let me know.
-the rachael
Hi Michel! Just popped back in to hello, and hope all is well with you and your family. Take care! Kaye
I'm glad that you're back to posting! I missed your wonderful pictures.
Bonjour, Michel: Thank you for the lovely birthday wishes.
What a wonderful post ... your words are as beautiful as the wildflowers. Such a sad piece of history to remember - but an important one, too, as so many innocent lives were lost, lives that deserve to be honoured. There is something about both WWI and WWII - je ne sais quoi - that fills my heart with so much emotion, perhaps it is just the sheer horror of it all. I think the wildflowers are nature's reminder that these brave men did not die in vain. God bless! Nancy
thanks Michel for your comment.
A lot of people I know are organising relief work.
it is indeed sad to think what nature is capable of.
we humans cannot control our destiny- just wait and watch!
I love reading your entries Michel...always makes me feel very peaceful n' calm!
The wild flowers are beautiful. The spirit of those who died lives on in the blooming flowers...hence such life n' vibrance!
Such lovely flowers, and great pic of it is nice to meet friends from here.
Angela
Wild flowers always remind me of the Resurrection. Rebirth and hope. They go together.
Les images très agréables. Merci pour l'histoire sur eux.
Fascinating story behind the name. War's terrible, isn't it?
Dear Michel--what a beautiful post! I feel their souls when looking close-up to the gorgeous flowers. Pain, yet beauty. Thank you very much for your beautiful comment! Are you well now?
Very nice pictures, Michel. The flowers remind me of the wildflowers here in the Spring. Pictures are always a wonderful way to freeze moments of time forever. Blessings, kc
How incredible to think about. Seventy Two Thousand souls, lost and their bodies lost with them. No exaggeration to say that the hills, the flowers and the grass are their legacy.
A city of men, gone.
Peace to you.
I read your post under this one. Your garden and crops are beautiful! :- ) The potatoes remind me of one of the last summers my great grandfather was alive, and we dug up the potatoes in his garden for him. And all sorts of other things.
I knew you wanted pictures of the indian paintbrushes and bluebonnets, so go to my site and you will see snapshots of them.
Although, they do look awfully alot like some of the wildflowers in this post of yours. Maybe you have them over there too? That would be interesting to know.
-the rachael
We have 3 bathrooms in our house. Houses in the United States are larger than houses in the rest of the world. It is not actually unusual for people to have 3 bathrooms. I have a friend who has 4. Our house is actually not large by standards here. We have 3 bedrooms on the main floor, 2 bathrooms - one is the main bathroom and one is attached to our bedroom - a living room, and a kitchen with an eating area. We have a finished basement with a family room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and the laundry room.
We had an exchange student from Munich when our daughter was in high school. When we brought that student home from the airport, she walked into our house and thought we must be very rich. Then she saw the homes of some of our friends and understood that we are not. Homes are just more elaborate here. Actually, I think her family was wealthier in their culture than we are in ours.
A little more about houses in the United States -
At the time when your house was built, most houses in the US would have had a main floor with upstairs bedrooms as you do, and they would only have had one bathroom. We built our house in 1974 and moved in in the spring of 1975. The style then was what is known as a rambler, with most of the rooms on the main floor. Ramblers usually have attached garages and at the time we built out house, the garages held 2 cars. Our neighbor across the street only has a one car garage because their house is a little older than ours. Housese now often have garages that will hold 3 orf 4 cars. Both our son's and our daughter's houses have 3 car garages.
Houses being built now are usually not ramblers because putting a foundation under a space that big is too expensive now, so our son's house and our daughter's house both have the bedrooms upstairs. Both of their houses have basements, but neither have basements under the entire house.
Basements in the United States are common or uncommon depending on where you live. I live in Minnesota, where we have a lot of tornadoes in the summer and where it gets very cold in the winter. Almost all houses here have basements under at least part of the house. They are needed for protection from tornadoes in the summer and they help the house withstand the winter better. Our houses also have to be very well insulated.
In the south, basements are very uncommon. So are garages. They tend to have carports, which are just a roofed area where a car can be parked. Their houses do not have as much insulation as ours do, either. The type of houses that are built really vary by the part of the country in which they are being built. Remember that the US is much bigger than any European country, so we have many climates and a lot of cultural variation.
Dan would like to know what you taught and what level your students were.
By the way, a 6 bedroom house in the US would be totally out of our price range! Only a very wealthy person would have 6 bedrooms. Isn't it funny how things vary from place to place?
What a wonderful looking house you have! Thanks so much for the link!
Mon Pere vas etre tres bien. He's having tests done on his stomach to see if something serious could be causing bleeding, but he's not in any immediate danger.
Cassie
Very touching
I love wild flowers- there's always been something about them I find fascinating. Maybe it's their endurance or strength but I parallel them with people in many ways. They may not be the richest or most vibrant flowers but they've got a wild free spirit that takes their life anywhere. I know it may sound weird but it's how I've always felt about wild flowers.
Great picture too! You're just as handsome as ever!
You are so sweet! Thank you for your wonderful comment.
How lovely to be reading your posts again Michel! My husband and I, and our petite chienne have just returned from Dordogne... your country is truly, truly beautiful!
The flowers are a lovely memorial, and so was the one you wrote for Terry Cuthbert (LordPineapple.)
Hello sweety God Bless.
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Salut, mon ami! Merci pour ton visite a mon blog. J'espère écrire plus souvent, maintenant que les projets de maison sont presque finis. J'espère que vous allez bien, et que votre jardin produit merveilleusement cet été. À bientôt!
Beautiful.
A beautiful hommage to friendship across the channel. Michel, je m'excuse de n'avoir te rendu visite. J'espère que tout va bien. Je suis rendrée du Grand Nord depuis un mois.
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