Work (Not) in Progress

I am am so grateful that before my father died I was able to send him an email showing him one of my latest purchases.

In 2008* Dad and I made a shutter for what was at the time the window in our guest bedroom, and is now the shutter hiding insulation behind the hidden window in the pantry alcove. It has stood the test of time well, but now needs a proper repaint. That will happen when the weather calms down and the paint isn't in danger of evaporating from the brush, I'm not in danger of becoming dessicated, or the rain is so heavy I can't see what I'm doing.

Dad and I, proud of small things

As it stands now. I gave it a slapdash coat of a new colour 15 years ago

My new purchase. Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?

*Looking back through our records I see it was actually 2007. I should have checked the blog first.

Not Normal Service Resumed

Today we might have been writing about last night, however:

We haven't been for the past few years, due to either health issues or the fact that July is when we take our holidays. This year's we're here, we're relatively healthy, and it'd be nice to be outdoors and not instantly fry.

I realise this would probably been more useful as yesterday's post, but I didn't get around to it.

Maybe next year.

Track Inspector's Draisine

Here's a "what's that thing" that surprised me and it's a real curiosity: a zoomorphic track inspector's draisine from about 1845. I can't quite work out how you balance it on rails, maybe you always keep your feet on the ground? Why didn't they put another wheel on the other track? Wolf or dragon? So many questions.

The word "draisine" traces back to Karl Drais, the German inventor whose 1817 pedestrian "Laufmaschine" — pushed along by foot, with no pedals — became an unexpected fashion craze in Paris and London under the name vélocipède or dandy horse. The fad faded within a few years, but the name stuck.

The rail version came later and separately: in 1837, Franz Aloys Bernard in Vienna adapted the draisienne concept to run on rails. Both the road and rail versions honor Drais's name, even though the rail draisine was really a different invention built for a different purpose — track inspection and maintenance rather than recreation. In French all track inspection and maintenance rail vehicles are still called draisines.

A Pochette

This is a much smaller "what's that thing?" than the past few days.

This is a pochette, a pocket violin from 1680 (ish). It was used by dancing instructors so that they could play a tune, and then pop the instrument in their pocket when demonstrating complicated steps.

The fiddle players amongst you may be interested to learn that it is tuned a third or fourth above standard, although the information sheet didn't say what the standard was likely to have been. You can bet it wasn't A= 440Hz.

This one is in the Bach Museum in Eisenach 

The Pyramid of Couhard

As we were driving into Autun two weeks ago we literally had a "what's that thing?" moment when we spotted something on top of a hill. The next day we drove up the hill to investigate. 

What we had seen was the Pyramid of Couhard, also known as the Pierre de Couhard, a Gallo-Roman monument likely marking the tomb of a wealthy or prominent citizen of Augustodunum. Rising in a sort of pyramidal form, it was built using a core of rubble and mortar, and originally faced with cut stone. Much of the cut stone has eroded away over the centuries, leaving the rough inner masonry exposed. It stood within a larger necropolis that once extended along the slopes of the area, though most other traces of that burial ground have since disappeared.

The pyramid's unusual shape sets it apart from typical Roman funerary architecture in the region, prompting long-standing debate about its exact function and inspiration. This puts it on equal footing to the more local (to us) Cinq-Mars-la-Pile.

Canal Sans Eau

A second "what's that thing?"

When we were travelling to Germany we spent a night in Troyes so we could visit the stained glass museum - we'd missed it in 2023 on our way up to Amsterdam.

I booked a Premiere Classe hotel just south of Troyes in an industrial area in the village of St Thibault. Looking at it on the map I spotted something. It needed investigation.

The Canal de la Haute-Seine was built in the 19th century to link Troyes with the wider French waterway network, and it had a short, difficult existence. Its planned extension upstream from Troyes toward Bar-sur-Seine was meant to eventually connect with the Canal de Bourgogne, but it was never finished, leaving a stretch known locally as the "canal sans eau" (canal without water). At Saint-Thibault, the unfinished Villebertin lock is a relic of this abandoned ambition.

As you can see, it's incongruous.