Homes for Bees and Wasps

The town hall (rathaus) in Schrozberg has a wildflower meadow which was created to provide a habitat for insects and other small wildlife, including butterflies, wild bees and bumble bees. The idea is to provide food, shelter and breeding areas, helping many species to thrive while also supporting plant biodiversity. To protect this delicate ecosystem, the meadow is mown only twice a year, allowing flowers and grasses to grow naturally. A mixture of different grass heights provides additional shelter and food for wildlife, while seeds and plant stems continue to benefit animals and birds throughout winter.

That's not the most fun part: what really excited Susan was the sandpit for wild bees and solitary bees to nest in. It's right in the middle of the municipal flowerbeds in front of the town hall building.

It can be done, and Susan is pushing for something similar to be done in Preuilly-sur-Claise.

Lean Times in Loches

The War years marked Loches, as they did the rest of the country, with deprivation and rationing. For buying staples, especially food, families were issued with ration cards. The quantities authorised, whether it be for bread, meat, pasta etc were dependent on gender, age and how physical your work was.

In the market in Loches prices soared. At the beginning of the War a dozen eggs cost 9 francs. Two years later they were 19 francs. It was the same for a kilo of butter, which went from 25 francs to 100 francs.

The statue of Alfred de Vigny today, back in his original location.

The restrictions didn't only affect food. Many products became difficult to obtain, such as coffee, heating fuel, shoes, tyres or clothes. To save electricity the opening hours of shops were limited. Lacking petrol, the vet did his rounds on horseback. Certain car and truck owners modified their vehicles to use charcoal gas.

France was suffering a severe lack of raw materials. In 1941 the authorities collected all the non-ferrous metal they could find (lead, copper, tin). The following year anyone who handed in 200g of copper was offered a litre of wine in recompense.

This lack of metal resulted in the loss of numerous works of art. In Tours, several statues, including a famous one of Balzac, were melted down. In 1943 it was announced that the statue of Alfred de Vigny in Loches must also be sacrificed. This news provoked an immediate emotional outburst by the general public. The locals decided to act, and in the early hours of 29 July the bronze sculpture by Sicard was discreetly lifted off its socle by workers from Deschamps Carpentry and transported to a troglodyte cave in rue de la Roche Appert, where, well hidden, it waited in total safety for the end of the War.

A Mystery Cross

This is another "what's that thing" where we don't really know the answer besides the obvious.

We know it's a cross, we know it's immediately next to the church in Prissac (36), and we assume it's old.  How old it is, and its history we do not know, and our online research hasn't turned up any information.

So it's over to the hive mind: what's the history of that thing.

Not What I Expected to See

Yesterday as a treat we went with Niall and Antoinette to explore some of the painted churches of the Anglin Valley. As usual with these expeditions we saw a lot of excellent médiéval art, a lot of which was pretty cryptic. We did a similar trip with my cousin Linda this time last year, and things are no more clear.

We visited Chalais and its Église Saint-Léobon, which has had exploratory work done removing a thick (up to 8cm) layer of plaster removed, revealing intriguing early paintings. Unfortunately the money has run out, so at the moment you only get glimpses of what remains to be discovered.

I imagine the exclamation marks are because the 14th Century artist was as surprised as me to see a Disney Vulture

It was an excellent day out, and I even managed to find an almost sugar free dark chocolate sorbet in a tearoom in Saint-Benoît-du-Sault.

A Foreign Grotte

There are 765 recognised "Lourdes Grotto" in France. In the immediate area surrounding Preuilly-sur-Claise there are at least three: Boussay, Yzeures sur Creuse, and  (most impressively) Paulmy. 

This isn't one of them, in fact it's not even in France. This is the Lourdes Grotto next to the Sankt-Anna-Kapelle near Mulfingen, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It's not as picturesque (or old) as those closer to home, but it's the thought that counts.

Les Telots

Another "what's that thing?" from Autun. You can't miss them, two almost perfectly conical hills rising from nowhere. It's instantly obvious what they are, not so obvious the cause.

These are the Les Télots spoil heaps. Autun sits on a large oil shale deposit which by 1837 was being exploited for gas for public lighting. The Les Télots concession was granted in 1865, and production of shale oil gas started in 1881. The refinery constructed an oil distillation plant in 1936, employing several hundred workers who produced automotive fuel. Following closure in 1957, the site was dismantled and partially demolished. Remains of the installations (ruins) and these two large spoil tips still mark the landscape, overgrown with particular vegetation studied for its biodiversity. Les Télots is recognized as a natural zone of ecological, faunistic, and floristic interest (ZNIEFF).