Street Art in the Countryside...

Levalet's street art at Hermonville

I have been trying to practise my driving skills over the past few weeks by setting off into the countryside, during the early morning hours, in order to avoid any heavy traffic.... Well, any traffic actually.

Weekend mornings do yield a crop of morning-after-the-night-before revellers; sufficiently sober to drive, I trust, but generally rather jaded and certainly not in the mood for the exasperating amateur antics of the new driver - me!

Then the Sunday cycling enthusiasts also take to the highway in alarming numbers. Typically male pelotons, kitted in the full cycling gear, are fully focused on tackling troublesome gradients on a personalised roadmap that certainly does not factor in that infuriatingly hesitant car that trails behind them, not quite daring to overtake - with me at the wheel!

There may be a certain bonhommie within these groups, and this perhaps extends towards the other group, but both have an understandably limited tolerance threshold when it comes to new drivers and share a marked disdain for incompetence on the road. Oh well...

So far so good, even if this promises to be a long period of adaptation, frayed nerves and frustration since driving does not seem to come naturally to me. However, on one of my latest trips I was delighted to come across some of the recent works of Levalet in the nearby village of Hermonville and that was reward enough for my efforts!

Romeo and Juliet - in the smartphone era...