Once again our trusty Siberian Irises are in bloom. They are gorgeous as ever, even though they receive no care whatsoever - no watering, no weeding, no dividing. Nothing.
The reason they are known by us as the PseudoSteves is because they are not the variety Steve, which I bought many years ago at a Royal Horticultural Society show in Westminster (London). Steve sadly did not survive the move to France but his robust unnamed cousins love it here.
Crane flies are a group of very long legged flies in the sub-order of more primitive flies known as Nematocera - you could say they are really giant non-biting gnats. In Britain they are often referred to as 'daddy-long-legs', but this leads to confusion with several groups of spindly arachnids which are also widely known by this name. Crane flies have several distinctive features and wing venation, so can be identified to family level from good photos fairly easily.
Male Ctenophora festiva photographed in the Forest of Preuilly in May 2008, with my old compact digital Olympus camera. Check out those antennae!
They usually look quite ungainly in flight but they beat their wings very rapidly (50 - 70 times a second, much faster than dragonflies). At rest they mostly sit with their wings spread open. Be careful not to handle them, as the legs are fragile and snap off very easily. Females have pointed abdomens, with an ovipositor for laying eggs in the soil or decaying plant material. The larvae live on decaying material in soil or water. They dessicate easily, so in dry years do very poorly. The larvae are known as leatherjackets and some species are crop pests.
Male Ctenophora festiva, photographed in the Forest of Preuilly in May 2008.
Ctenophora festiva is an uncommon species that I see occasionally, and adults can be found in the forest here between April and July. Despite its striking appearance, which means that you are likely to notice it if it flies near you, it does not have an English or a French name. With its black and yellowy orange body it is mimicking a wasp. About 20 mm long, they have a black spot near the tip of the wing, the upper side of the thorax is black, and the hind legs have black bands. The feathery antennae of the males are extraordinary!
Their larvae develop in the trunks and stumps of rotting trees, particularly oaks and chestnuts, and as adults they don't stray far away from the stump they emerged from.
Cherry season means cherry desserts. I had some blush yellow cherries from our local organic orchard Fruits Ô Kalm and the fruit flies in the kitchen were in plague proportions. So I stewed the cherries. Then I had the idea of serving them with whipped coconut cream. And just before serving I had the brainwave of grating a little dark chocolate on the combo. A total winner. Super easy, super delicious.
Ingredients
400 g sweet cherries
6 tbsp sugar
300 g coconut cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 squares of dark chocolate
Method
Australians will understand the reference to Cherry Ripe. Everyone else is probably mystified.
At Saint Flovier you get to see the human faces of the Great War.
Inside the church there is an unusual memorial. Put up sometime after 1918 thanks to Paul Gravier, a local benefactor, and designed by Lux Fournier, it showcases the faces of those locals that the War took away. Around a central painting representing Christ appearing to a fallen soldier, 54 photographs printed on enamel disks give a presence to these young men of Saint Flovier who died for France. Eleven other soldiers are identified just with a name plate but without a photo. Paul Gravier's grandson Patrick Chevalier de La Teillais was killed in 1918. His oldest daughter (and Patrick's aunt), Rosita, is said to have had a heart attack caused by the strong emotion produced when hearing the bells ring out to announce the end of the War. Paul Gravier had built a Renaissance Revival style chateau on the edge of the village in 1884 for a vast sum of money (a million and a half francs) and he and his wife Elisabeth Hugues had entertained lavishly. She died in 1905, and a few years after the War his other grandson died in an accident. On Paul Gravier's death the estate was divided and sold in relatively small parcels as farmland. The chateau was allowed to fall into ruin and has been demolished.
Amongst the faces is Paul Désiré Brault, born in Saint Flovier in 1894. A soldier in the 113th Infantry Regiment, he was sent to the Front in the autumn of 1914. Some weeks later he went missing at Boureuilles in the Meuse, far away from his native village.
And there is Louis Jules Blin, born in Fléré la Rivière in 1892. He joined the 90th Infantry Regiment in Le Blanc in 1912 and died of his wounds in Poitiers hospital in September 1914.
Gustave Guinot was born in Douadic in 1878. He joined up in 1898 in Le Blanc, recruited into the 9th Transport and Logistics Squadron. He died after a short illness whilst in service in November 1916 in Hospital 76 in Cannes.
Joseph Eugene Bruneau was born in Mer sur l'Indre in 1893 and was a sergeant in the 160th Infantry Regiment. He had joined up in Chateauroux in 1913 and was killed by the enemy at Ripont in the Marne in September 1915.
Victor Raoul Chasselay was born in Saint Flovier in 1890 and was a sergeant second class in the 49th Artillery Regiment. He was recruited at Le Blanc in 1910 and killed by the enemy at Eherdinghe in Belgium in May 1915. The records seem to indicate that his family were not notified for a year after his death.
When you stand in front of a memorial like this you don't just read the names. You do a calculation of how many young men never came back, and how that affected a village as small as Saint Flovier (population around 750). You look at their faces and imagine being their mother, or their wife. You wonder what they might have achieved if their fate had not been to die in the mud of some First World War battlefield. This is not just a list of names, albeit tragically young men, but men with faces, which makes them that much more present.
The service records of these men are available online at https://www.memoiredeshommes.defense.gouv.fr/conflits-operations/premiere-guerre-mondiale.
