New lens and 'Goodbye Girl'

I loved the band Squeeze, they were were a huge influence on me in my younger days and whilst I may well be biased, on repeat listening their music doesn't seem to age with time. I believe Glen Tillbrook and Chris Difford are still touring as a duo doing the occasional festival but their hay days with the band (including of course Jools Holland on keyboards) are long gone .... they don't get enough credit for my mind, so in my small way here's an attempt to revive a few memories - first of a couple of Squeeze songs, this is 'Goodbye Girl'

Hope you enjoyed that ... not 100% faithful to the original and that ending with a brief snatch of  'American Pie' just kinda happened and it sounded ok so stuck with it!

Second Squeeze song comming soon .... just deciding which one to cover!

Ok, on to things photographic and good and bad news. Bad news is that my trusty Tamron 200-500ml lens seems to have stopped working with my camera body (Canon 550d), something to do with a communication error between lens and camera ... might be sheer coincidence but this problem seems to have developed since I mounted another recently purchased lens - another Tamron (18-200).

Currently scouring the internet forums for possible fixes but no joy so far.

Good news is that the new lens is fab! Took it out and about the other day and took some pics in Antigny (a nearby small village with a semi famous Lantern des Morte, more of that later) and then in and around Montmorillon.

These are the Antigny pics.

The first 2 feature the Lantern des Morte (Lantern of the Dead) which is situated in the middle of the village. There are several similar small towers across the middle of France and although this one is perhaps not the most attractive of its type it is certainly one of the oldest - 12th Century. The origins and purpose of these constructions are not entirely clear but most common wisdom suggests that these were used to light medieval burial grounds. They all have entrances at the bottom and an opening at the top so that lanterns could be hauled up to shine a light on the dead. Most are situated on or near old burial grounds but not all, giving rise to another school of thought which suggest that over time Lantern des Morte is actually a mis-pronunciation and that these are actually Lanterns of the Moors - reflecting some kind of Moorish history and meaning. Like I say, its not clear but some of them are very fine looking and I like the element of mystery surrounding them!

Later on in the day I took advantage of the great light and took another stroll around Montmorillon. I've taken similar pics before but with my canon powershot but think these are much better.

The first 2 are of the Eglise de Notre Dame, with the second one 'artfully' hidden!

Here id a fairly typical view of the 13th Century bridge LeVieux Pont

Here we see a view of one half of Montmorillon from the top of the the Cite de Ecrit.

















And lastly here is the 'very difficult to find any information on' statue of the Virgin Mary with Child - I don't think it's that old and certainly the base looks 18th Century. Any comments re this statue's history would be very welcome as I drew many blanks when attempting to research!