Equine Visitors

 Horse-trekking steeds tethered to a line.

Célestine is not the only one offering visitors to the Loire Valley a more interesting experience of touring the chateau than being packed onto a coach. There is at least one, and I think two, companies, offering horse-trekking tours.

One of the residents is keen to make contact with the visitors, but a little nervous.

The horses are 'undressed' and tethered to a rope between two trees in the picnic area at Chenonceau while their riders go off and visit the chateau. The resident horses, who live in the overflow carpark, make somewhat hesitant contact with these interlopers.

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Yesterday a crisis of major proportions developed in Preuilly around lunchtime. Wednesday is Sophie and Aurélien's (the bakers 'down the hill') closed day, but now with the new baker in town (the baker 'up the hill'), we don't have to rely on the depôts de pain for the daily bread on a Wednesday. Imagine the consternation and turmoil when citizens arrived at the door of the new baker's, to find the blinds down and the door locked! No sign on the door announcing a fermeture exceptionnelle either. No one knew what the story was! We all headed down to the Casino (that's the supermarket, not the pokies) as they are the depôt de pain. They had already run out, but the baker from Martizay who supplies them was promising to get more delivered in 10 minutes. The time came and went. More and more people gathered. A few got desperate and bought a loaf of 'long life' bread. Most just hung about in the cold. Eventually I decided to give up and go home. On my way past the Vival supermarket up the top of the hill I spotted my friend Sylvie inside, positively flaunting a baguette! I don't know where she got it, but it must have been the last bread in town. I made a face at her and went home to cook pasta for lunch. I didn't want to hang around the main street too long -- after all the traditional response to bread shortages in this country is to riot...

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For a vision of what our journey from Canberra to Queensland would have been like if we had been making it now rather than a month ago, see this video shot by one of the firemen at Coonabarabran, fighting the fire as it crosses the road we travelled.