Battlefields

It's been a busy few weeks and I've not had chance to post for a while: now it's time to catch up.

i found this link to photographs of battlefields some time ago and immediately bookmarked it as the photographs of the Somme reminded me of the trip we made there one year on the way back from holiday - and the strange fulfillment of a dream about the place that had happened some months before.

http://www.westernfrontphotography.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5664

We'd driven to northern Italy for our holiday - a long drive over two days but a chance to find somewhere interesting to stay and sample the local wines.  but when we started planning our return we realised that our departure coincided with the start of the Italian holidays - and total gridlock.  We'd been away for a fortnight and so decided to set off a day earlier, and to add an extra stop in Northern France while we visited a battlefield.  My shelves at home are full of history books, but all we had with us was a road atlas for Europe - this was well before the age of the mobile internet - or even the internet. 

I searched the Atlas for the area around Calais and quickly discovered Albert, and I knew that this was one of the key locations of the Battle of the Somme.  We arrived by lunchtime and spent the afternoon exploring the trenches and memorials: the monument at Thiepval is far bigger than it looks in any photo and the whole area has a strange, haunted atmosphere.  Inevitably we spent too long there and it was getting dusky as we set off to look for a hotel.  The local Best Western was closed for the season but finally we arrived in Albert itself: not much to look at, but there was a small family hotel in the far corner of the square.

There was nowhere to park, so I lurked in the square while my wife went into see if there was a room.  When she came back there was mixed news: there was a room, but it was small, and under the roof and had two single beds.  If we stayed we would have time to visit more of the battlefield and if we drove on to look for a better hotel nearer the coast that would be the end of our expedition - so we stayed.

In my dream we had been staying in a strange place and from the window of the hotel I looked out on to a village square: the dream was vivid and quite real, and I wondered if it was linked to a story I had been trying to write.  I parked in a space that had become available and then we staggered up the steep stairs with several heavy pieces of luggage.  As we walked along the top corridor I began to feel a sense of deja vu that grew stronger as we approached the room.  When we went into the room I felt I had been there before and as I approached the window I knew what I would see: the view of the square that I had seen in my dream.