Our hamlet... and the dog

These are not photos from yesterday but from the day before. They are two views of parts of the hamlet we live. A hamlet (un hameau in French) is a (usually) small settlement that doesn't have a church in it and usually doesn't have any businesses or shops in it. It's just residential, and it's officially part of the territory of a village, which is a municipality, or of a ville (also a municipality). I guess a hamlet could be called a neighborhood in American English.

Our hamlet, called La Renaudière, consists of nine houses and about as many residents. It is just over a mile from the center of a small village with a church and with a mayor (who lives in our hamlet but is mayor of the whole village, pop. 1,200)). Our hamlet is also just over a mile from the middle of Saint-Aignan (a town with a church and a château). Saint-Aignan has a population of nearly three thousand). Our dog, an eight-year-old Shelty, is visible in both of the photos in today's post.