Tuesday, 21 April 2026

The Car Park at Chenonceau

I'm sure I have written that title before, but hey-ho.

We were at Chenonceau last Saturday, and I was amazed to see that the car park has been completely reorganised. There is now a designated flow route, and the parking bays have been marked - with wooden logs so you can't ignore them. Luckily, my customary position is too hard to define that way, so it remains totally shaded, and available for random positioning, essential when you're driving a car with the turning circle of a Traction Avant.


It remains to be seen if it combats willful bad parking, and if the surface survives rain, but it's looking better without totally destroying the ambiance.

Monday, 20 April 2026

ANZAC Biscuits

Since we are coming up to ANZAC Day, when Australians remember their war dead, on 25 April, I thought I would post a recipe for ANZAC biscuits today. These are delicious.


ANZAC Biscuits.I copied the recipe from the back of a bag of flour, and it comes from the Country Women's Association, so it is the 'official' recipe. (In the UK the equivalent of the CWA is the Women's Institute, but I have no idea what the North American or French equivalents are.)

ANZAC Biscuits

Makes 50

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dessicated coconut
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C and lightly grease oven trays.
  2. Combine flour, sugar, rolled oats and coconut.
  3. Melt butter and golden syrup.
  4. Add bicarb to boiling water and mix into butter mixture.
  5. Stir into the dry ingredients.
  6. Form the dough into large marble sized balls and drop onto trays, allowing generous room for spreading.
  7. Bake for 10 minutes until light golden brown.
  8. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
PS. ANZAC Day usually more or less coincides with la journée de Souvenir des Déportés in France, which commemorates the French men and women who were deported as forced labour, interned or sent to concentration camps during the Second World War.

Friday, 17 April 2026

No Post Today

...,.. unless you count this.

Tourtheloire.com is our new website. Same address new look.

At the end of seven day's work, the new website it's at the stage where I can let it rest a while as it is. To my eyes there's no glaring problems that need solving "this instant" and I'm happy with the look (but already nostalgic for the slightly home-brewed look we previously had).

Meanwhile, a photo of a sunset. For no particular reason.


Using AI for a project like this has been interesting: frustrating at times, because machines "think" differently. I used a fairly generic prompt (modernise this website) then when we got to the stage where I was happy with look I (eventually) discovered that it's best to make one change at a time. If I tried to improve too many things at once one of the previous changes got reverted.

Still. It's finished for now, and I don't have to spend 18 hours trying to make a machine mind read my latest thought.

Of course, if you see a glaring problem, please use the contact form (it's here) to let me know. 

Wednesday, 15 April 2026

The New Website

After 4 incredibly long days our new Loire Valley Time Travel website is online.

There are one or two little glitches I'm in the process of sorting out, but I think so far I'm happy. The website is here.

There's not a lot of other news, yesterday was a nice day so I sat in the garden a while, played some guitar, and fretted about the new website. 

Today I hope we can have a little adventure.

Tuesday, 14 April 2026

Oops a Daisy!

You may have noticed there was no post yesterday. We've been distracted. 

I have been spending the past four days recoding the Loire Valley Time Travel website. It's been rather all consuming, me doing the coding, and Susan reading the results, offering advice, and keeping my liquid and food levels up.

Here's a sneak preview: 


It's not yet ready to be put online, but I think we're close.

Friday, 10 April 2026

Springtime in the Forest

It has now reached the stage where even the most recalcitrant trees in the forest are starting to show signs of spring. These photos were taken on Monday, before we we went to the farm to buy veggies.

Monday before buying veggies is a regular walk time for us, it works really well, as combining two activities in the course of one car journey makes sense - especially with fuel at 2€09.




In other news, I have been using AI to redesign our website. No news on that yet, but it's getting close.