2024: The Big Events

2024 has been a memorable year. I'm not sure we really want another one like it.

January was a quiet month. We were getting everything lined up for big events later in the year, so apart from doing grown-up stuff, we concentrated mainly on staying warm - and when we weren't doing that we had medical appointments.

February was hectic: we moved out of home so that renovation/restoration of our house could recommence. The process was arduous, only made bearable by the kindness of friends. We drove Claudette for the wedding of a friend, but we also lost a longtime reader of the blog, one of the most interesting people we've ever met. The medical appointments appeared to be happening at more than one a week.

In March work on the house continued. I learned new skills, and Susan did mega-admin whilst it hardly stopped raining all month. We finally moved back home in the last week of the month. The only "non- house" stuff we did was medical appointments - I hope this isn't what getting old is going to be like.

April signalled a kind of return to normal, apart from increasingly frequent medical appointments. At least the rain stopped. We did manage to work and raise some income.

Life in Preuilly sur Claise was disrupted in May whilst a feature film was... well, filmed in the market square. We continued to work, and surprise surprise, visit various medical establishments.

June was a real month of two halves. On the one hand we had baby hedgehogs in the garden and we visited Brittany (good things), on the other hand I was in hospital for over a week, suffering the indignity of having my prostate removed.

In July I finally got home from hospital, Susan did some work, but mainly life was sitting around being injected with anticoagulants every morning - or recovering from it. At least the Tour de France and then the Olympics were on TV. And I received deliveries of Vegemite.

In August I blogged about having cancer, urging every bloke over 60 to have a PSA test. I hope you took note, because the treatment sucks, especially if the operation isn't 100% successful. That meant ongoing indignities as well as forgetting any notion of getting to Australia to see our Dads. Once again, Susan worked, sometimes with our friend Olivier driving, sometimes walking tours on her own.

September was a case of "more of the same", apart from the restorative visit of friends from Australia. They were our first Australian visitors in Preuilly since before the plague of 2020. The medical stuff didn't stop, but at least I gained an oncologist to oversee treatment. It only rained half the time.

October was different! Except for the medical stuff which was boringly the same. Susan worked (again with Olivier), and cousin Linda brought a ray of smileyness to Preuilly, even though it had started raining again. Ten days before she arrived (and two days after she organised her visit) the oncologist emailed to say of course we could go to Australia and he had rearranged my appointments, causing mega-fluster as we only had 6 weeks between medical events.

All of November was spent in Australia. We did a lot of kilometres, saw family and a couple of friends, but actually found it very stressful. Travelling when unwell and under prepared isn't optimum. Highlights were the dads, family, and echidnas.

We arrived home from Australia in the first week of December, straight back into medical stuff, admin, and lighting the fire. Christmas was nice and quiet, and when the weather wasn't against us we did some walking.

Overall, I think we would categorise this year as having been expensive, confusing, uncomfortable, and damp. Sometimes I think it's only the amazing support we've had from family and friends that got us through it all.

Reinette d'Anjou Apple

Reinette d'Anjou is an old variety of apple, vigorous and productive, particularly suited to home gardens or organic orchards. The fruit are yellowy green with a red blush. The flesh is slightly soft, but still crunchy, with a very good balance of acid to sweetness. They are good eating apples from harvest in October into the winter, and will keep for cooking up until April.

 

Reinette d'Anjou at the market in Preuilly, on the stall of our local organic orchard Fruit O Kalm.
 

It's not widely grown, and deserves to be better known. The fruit is a good size, and juicy, so it's a good one to juice. The origins of this variety are not really known, but it is typical of the varieties that have emerged from the Anjou area.

The National Dish of Australia

You are probably all thinking that this is going to be a post about pavlova or meat pies. You'd be wrong. I don't think you can claim Vegemite is a 'dish', so it isn't about that either.

 

Hamburger with beetroot at the Snowy Store, Talbingo, New South Wales.

Based on my personal observation of what is served in the ordinary eateries of Australia, I would nominate pickled beetroot as the national dish. 

Lamb pie and salad with beetroot, Garden Cafe, Tenterfield, New South Wales.

Australians all know that Aussie hamburgers have pickled beetroot as an essential ingredient. But pickled beetroot is served at every opportunity, with salads, in sandwiches and with barbeques.

Beetroot salad, National Portrait Gallery café, Canberra.

I'm a big fan of beetroot myself, so I'm happy to see that the beetroot of my childhood has not only survived, but thrived. It seems Australians young and old of all backgrounds are happily eating beetroot on a nearly daily basis.

Service in Australia

Australians have a reputation for being friendly and informal, but we noticed a change in how we were dealt with by service staff on our recent visit. Rather than a relaxed and natural greeting of 'Hello, can I help you with anything?' in shops we were getting something along the lines of 'Hi!! How are you! Nice to see you today! What can we do for you just now?' This is all delivered in an excited and slightly higher pitch than natural, and with an upwards inflection. At this point there would be a pause so you could respond with whatever it was you wanted. Then there would be a bit more chitchat, usually including phrases like 'where are you from' and an attempt to upsell something. The service itself was an infuriating mix of obsequious and slow. On our first day we spent hours (I am not exaggerating) in the bank sorting stuff out and on the second day a similar amount of time in various telecomms shops. Most service staff sound like they are reciting a script from a training manual. It is not conducive to happy shopping. 

 

Chris at the Garden Cafe, Tenterfield, New South Wales. One of the service staff we liked, and who turned out to be an amazing person. Check out her FB page: https://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Treks-For-A-Cause/100092655536023/

 

There were some notable exceptions, thankfully. This phenomenon was much more prevalent in big city shopping centres, and much less a thing in rural areas, where people generally behaved more naturally and less like corporate robots. 

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

At first glance this print hanging in the reconstruction of the World War I hospital at the Chateau of Chenonceau looks like a satirical print. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's not even really caricature, but rather a familiar gentle spoof depicting a group of mates. The men shown are some of the great French flying aces of the First World War, drawn by one of their own number, who was a professional illustrator.

The print, a lithograph, is by Jean de Moulignon, and the subjects have signed their portraits. Only 13 prints were produced, being one for each of the airmen, some for the Air Force and one for the artist. Jean de Moulignon had been a student of Edouard Detaille, a well known illustrator and painter specialising in military scenes.

Combat Group 12, especially Squadron 3, nicknamed the Escadrille des Cigognes (Stork Squadron), was legendary, and many of the most famous war aces, such as Roland Garros and Georges Guynemer, flew in this combat group.

The pilots in this drawing are Antonin Brocard, Georges Guynemer, René 'Pere' Dorme, Alfred Heurtaux, Albert Deullin (with his dog Parasol), and Mathieu Tenant de la Tour. Leading the parade is a stork, wearing a Lewis machine gun on its head. At its peak the squadron flew SPAD planes with powerful Hispano-Suiza engines and armed with Lewis machine guns. After the War Hispano-Suiza adopted the stork as their own emblem, in tribute to Guynemer.

The drawing was commissioned by Brocard for Pierre Delage in 1916, and subsequently he gave one of the prints to Capitaine Colcomb, with a dedication which translates as 'To Captain Aviator Colcomb observer and fighter pilot during the Great War in memory of his comrades and of the Stork's Reconnaissance Patrol. With all the esteem and admiration of his boss and his friendship. Commander Brocard.'

At auction the prints go for around 300 to 800 euros each.

Who were these rather gawky looking men, slouching along with their hands in their pockets?

Antonin Brocard, the Commander, became a politician between the Wars. During the Second World War he was put in charge of training the Polish Air Force. He died in 1950.

Georges Guynemer, 54 aerial victories, killed in action September 1917 aged 22. The circumstances of his death and subsequent burial remain somewhat mysterious. There is a memorial to him in the town of Poelkapelle in Belgium, near where it is presumed he came down. His original SPAD S.VII, nicknamed "Vieux Charles", is in the collection of the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Paris-le Bourget airport. He is considered the most brilliant of the Storks and was the hero of the popular press during his career, much to his own discomfort. Rather frail he was rejected for military service four times before his persistance led to him being accepted to train as a pilot.

René Dorme, 23 aerial victories, nicknamed 'le Père', and easily recognisable because of the cane, which he was never seen without. Killed in action in May 1917, aged 23. Greatly admired by his colleagues.

Alfred Heurtaux, 21 aerial victories, survived to become a politician between the Wars then joined the senior management teams of leading automobile manufacturers (Ford in the US, General Motors in Europe, then finally Renault). He was an active member of the Resistance in the Second World War and died in 1985 aged 92.

Albert Deullin, 20 aerial victories, killed working as a test pilot in 1923 aged 32.

Mathieu Tenant de la Tour, 9 aerial victories, killed in an accident whilst performing acrobatics in December 1917 aged 34. He trained as a pilot because wounds put an end to his cavalry career. He, Guynemer, Deullin, Dorme and Heurtaux were particularly close friends.

Pierre Delage, 7 aerial victories, killed in action in October 1918 aged 31. Like Mathieu Tenant de la Tour he switched disciplines and only trained as a pilot after wounds left him incapable of continuing in the infantry.

To have an official 'kill' recorded Brocard insisted that there must be three eye witness testimonies verifying the event. This was often impossible to achieve, especially if the witnesses were the enemy, so the official aerial victories list is often a mere fraction of these pilots real effectiveness.

Joyeux Noel

 Joyeux Noël et passez de bonnes fêtes !

Merry Christmas and happy holidays !

 

A wreath from this year's decorations at the Chateau de Chenonceau.

The Ghost of 2 Days Before Christmas Past

In the years when we owned our house in Preuilly sur Claise but still lived in London the 23rd December was the day we travelled.

In 2006 we flew into Limoges (it was supposed to be Poitiers, but Poitiers Airport was shut due to fog) and stayed in a gite in Roux. In 2007 we drove, once again staying in Roux. In 2008 we drove, stayed in our own house, and froze our bits off. In 2009 we were in Australia, but I am sure we were on the road.

Since then (with the exception of 2017) we've spent this date at home gearing up for a day we then pretend isn't important.

Yesterday, the furthest we travelled was this. It was not too cold, and depending on which way you were looking was either fine or dreary - both photos on this post were taken on yesterday's walk.

L'Epicure, La Roche-Posay

Last Wednesday was my birthday (65!) so we went out for lunch. We chose L'Epicure in La Roche Posay because it opened just before we left for Australia and our friend Sihan (from the Restaurant l'Image in Preuilly) recommended it. 

It looked like everyone else dining there was with business colleagues. The restaurant offers a three course menu du jour Tuesday to Saturday for €25, and they are closed on Mondays. They have taken over the former pizzeria in rue du Falk.

We had parsnip soup to start, thankfully without the curry spice that is ubiquitious in British versions of this soup. It was the best parsnip soup I've ever had, thick, velvety and nicely parsnip flavoured. Then Simon had whiting and I had flank steak, with mash, seasonal vegetables and pesto. Once again, a perfectly cooked 'onglet', and super tender without sacrificing flavour. For dessert Simon had a crème brulée and I had a pear tartelette Tatin. Crème brulée is a classic and I always like a Tatin of pears as a change from apple. I had a glass of sparkling wine and a strawberry Diabolo, and we shared a bottle of sparkling water to drink.

Check the restaurant out on their website: https://restaurantcaveepic.wixsite.com/epicure

 

 

Thanks to l'Epicure for a delicous birthday lunch.

Long Nosed or Flat Faced?

That's right, I'm talking about prime movers for semi-trailers.

One of the things Australians who are paying attention will notice in Europe is that there is not a long nosed prime mover to be seen. They are all flat faced (I believe the technical term is something like 'cabin over engine').

Road train on the Newell Highway, New South Wales.

 Why is this so, and why do long noses dominate in Australia? I went digging on the internet to find out.

The short answer is space. Flat faced trucks take up less space and are more manoeuverable, so in Europe they are more practical. Whereas in Australia the environmental factor that trucks struggle with the most is dust, and long nosed (technical term 'bonneted') are easier to maintain. They also allow for a more powerful engine.

Road train on the outskirts of Goondiwindi.

 The long answer involves regulations that specify different axle configurations and load weights in different regions and is too complicated to go into. But if you are interested, I suggest you read this article: https://historicvehicles.com.au/working-vehicles/why-australian-heavy-trucks-are-the-way-they-are/

In the course of my reading on this subject I also discovered that the term 'B-double' is only used in Australia, and that any multi-trailered rig is a roadtrain. I had thought there must be some technical difference between a B-double and a roadtrain, but the reason we have two names for the same thing turns out to be political. When roadtrains were allowed into the more populated areas of Australia, the politician in charge of the change thought the public would be scared of having roadtrains in their home towns so he coined the term 'B-double'.

Coffee Here and There

Yes, let's return to the vexed issue of coffee. Australia versus France. Knickers will be twisting already...

Vietnamese iced coffees, Sunny Café, Merimbula, New South Wales.

Since we have been living overseas café culture has blossomed in Australia, and it's lovely to see. Even the smallest towns have at least one thriving café, and many have two or more. My home town has three, for a population of about 3300. The cafés that do the best are those serving breakfast burgers, good house made savoury pies and the sort of cakes that look traditional and home made, like your granny would have made. 

However, since we have departed the sunny shores Australians have taken to boasting about the quality of their coffee, and that's not so lovely. That's just parochial, tedious and irritating.

 Roses Café, Goulburn, New South Wales.

In the majority of cases the coffee available in Australian country towns and big cities alike disappointed us. Most of the coffee we were served was faintly flavoured foamy hot milk. We tried asking for extra shots of coffee, but it made no difference. In the end I realised that it was not entirely the coffee that was the problem. It was the enormous quantity of foamy hot milk plonked on top of it that was the main culprit. Bear in mind that we were not asking for 'lattes', we were asking for 'flat whites', and we were not asking for 'large', just 'medium'. Finally we resorted to asking for milk on the side and that more or less solved our problem. 

 Cakes, Bottlebrush Café, Pittsworth, Queensland.

The French aversion to milk in coffee must have been absorbed by us to some extent I think. I was quite repulsed by the quantity of milk that it appears most Australians habitually consume in their coffee. The French are more tolerant of dark bitter roasts too, and we found most of the Australian coffees a bit bland.

 

Iced coffees, Garden Café, Tenterfield, New South Wales.

Flavoured milk drinks are available everywhere, and I had a strawberry one for old time's sake. It was a lot of milk and I struggled to finish it! On the other hand I also had an old fashioned strawberry milkshake in a down and out roadhouse, which was excellent. You just can't tell until you try with this sort of childhood nostalgia. 

 

 Bakery/café, Adaminaby, New South Wales.

On the whole, cold milk drinks generally worked better for us. Because it was hot much of the time we opted for iced coffee, something most of these cafés can do well, and a treat for us because it's not something you see so much in France. The best was in a Vietnamese takeaway in Manly. 

The best hot coffee I had was in the National Portrait Gallery café in Canberra.

The best coffee I've had since our return to France? That's to be had in the Bar Restaurant de l'Image, just round the corner from where we live. The proportion of coffee to milk is good, and a flat white tastes like coffee, not milk. Mathieu, the owner and barman, says the milk is important though, and he always uses milk from our local dairy co-operative Laiterie de Verneuil, as it is higher in protein than the milk from Poitou that our shops also stock.

Footwarmers

This is the last blog post about Tumut Station - at least for a while. And finally, it's the reason why it made such an impact on me.

Tumut Station

While we were there we took a photo of this structure, helpfully labelled as a footwarmer boiler. I'd never seen one before (they were rare, even in the heyday of the railways) and whilst researching them I learned something*. I have read early fiction that mentioned railway trips and footwarmers (Conan Doyle, Collins, or Wodehouse, can't remember) but I always assumed they were either hot water bottles or a box of embers. The truth is more complex than that.

The remains of a footwarmer boiler 

Australian railway footwarmers were reusable heat packs provided to train passengers during colder months. They were sealed metal tubes containing a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate. They were heated in baths of boiling water, and provided a couple of hours warmth. Also inside each warmer were small metal balls which meant that when the footwarmer was cold it could be shaken, and the balls provided a nucleation point around which the liquid crystallized. This process released heat, warming the pack for several more hours. Once cooled, the footwarmer was reactivated by boiling it in water, which dissolved the crystals back into liquid form, ready for reuse on the next journey.

*This is partially the reason we blog - take a photo, research it, blog it, discover facts

Bike Paths

On our walk yesterday (3.17km) I got to thinking about the differences between Australian disused railway lines, and French disused railway lines.

In France, over 6,900km of disused railway lines have been converted to voies vertes - cycle and walking paths. There is an ambition to increase that to a network of 20,000km by the year 2030.

This is our local voie verte, yesterday.

And this is the goods shed (also yesterday)

In Australia there is an ongoing - sometimes very heated - discussion on the wisdom of converting railway lines to bike paths. Many people are in favour of the plan, but there are those who want railway lines reopened. Even if they were closed in the 1940s and serve areas of decreasing population.

One of the schemes under "discussion" is the old railway between Tumut and Batlow. As far as we could tell, the residents of Batlow are generally in favour, and show this by displaying an old bicycle on their verandah roof.

This is the state of the railway - and goods shed - in Tumut.

Fontbaudry

Fontbaudry is the neoclassical chateau (built 1845) that you glimpse through the trees as you approach Preuilly along the Loches road. You can also see it (side on) if you walk along the northern edge of town. 

Usually we only see it in winter, once the trees around it have lost their leaves. Yesterday was a typical sighting: I was on a perambulate around town and I snapped it from a distance on my phone.

It wasn't a great day for walking yesterday: I think the photo says it all.

Autumn to Winter

We went for a short walk yesterday, and when we got home I looked at the photos I had taken only to realise I already had an almost identical photo, taken almost exactly 3 months ago.

The top photo was taken a week before the autumn equinox, the bottom photo a week before the winter solstice. I guess I have two more photos to take - but not quite yet!

Smoking Here and There

French people have a reputation for smoking, but actually, these days, you can go for days, even weeks sometimes without encountering anyone in France smoking in your presence. Smokers are not the pariahs they have become in Australia but they are generally fairly discreet, and many people have managed to give up altogether, or swapped to vaping (which is indeed quite commonly seen in public).

 

In Australia on our recent trip I noticed very few people smoking, but I did notice a trend I hadn't spotted before. Everyone I saw smoking in Australia was doing so in their car. That is presumably viewed as a safe private space where one can indulge a habit which has become socially unacceptable.

Wizzing Into Danger

The toilets at the Old Tumut Station (surely it's a misnomer - there is no new station, and the railway line is closed, anyway) are perfectly clean and useable...

if slightly unsettling....

It's Flunch Time

Flunch is a French cafeteria chain which opened its first restaurant in 1971 in Lille. It has since grown to the extent that you rarely see an Auchan supermarket without an associated Flunch. In total there are about 160 restaurants across the country. It's owned by the same family that founded and still control most of the following companies (take a deep breath)... Alinéa, Aquarelle, Auchan, Boulanger, Cultura, Decathlon, In Extenso, Kiabi, Leroy Merlin, Norauto, Odyssey International network of French schools, Saint Maclou (amongst others).

We've been living in France for over 15 years, and in that time we have eaten in Flunch maybe a dozen times. Even though they have a reputation for being good value cafeteria style food, we've never quite cracked the system of how it works - in fact we usually come away wondering why it cost more than we expected. However, yesterday we made huge progress.

You take one of the white, odd shaped trays (this is important later) and make your choice from the large screens above the cashiers (and other places) you select the menu you want and the dessert (and entrée, if you're having one) that corresponds with that menu. Choose your drinks (they may or may not be included). Then go to the cashier, place your order and pay, and make your way to the kitchen. Hand your ticket over and you're presented with the meat part of your hot food. Then hit the freestyllee vegetable bar for chips (fries), a choice of hot vegetables, cheesy pasta, and other stuff. You can go back to that as many times as you like.

After you've eaten, you pile all the remainders on your white tray (remember that?) and put it in the racks provided. The little red trays don't fit.

Thus for 18€40 we had two sets of chicken nuggets, endless chips and veg, excellent if simple desserts, and a bottle of sparkling water.

Ace!

Our Traditional Lamb Order

It's that time of year: our local lamb producers the Bottamines of Les Effes have their boxes of meat available. Susan has a standing order for a side of lamb, and went to the farm yesterday to collect it. As ever it's vacuum packed and ready to use. What amazes me is that prices haven't increased - 7.3 kilograms cost €117 in 2021, this year 7.06 kilograms cost €111.99. It's excellent meat, and the box usually lasts us a year (with judicial meat consumption). In fact the weekend before we left for Australia we had the leg of lamb from last year's order - and very nice it was too!

When I was a boy in Australia my parents used to buy half a lamb (hoggett, actually) and it would last 6-8 weeks. But then they were feeding three growing children, and hoggett was the cheaper option.

A Calvary Emerges

We have mention in passing that in the 19th century a Calvary was erected on the hill behind Chaumussay. We assumed that it had disappeared, because we've neither see it, nor trespassed up the mosquito infested path to find it.

Imagine our surprise, then, when on visiting just before we left for Australia, we noticed a cross at the top of the hill.

Whether this is because trees have died or been removed, or we have never been there in winter (unlikely) I don't know. But I assume it is one of the original crosses emerging from the undergrowth rather than a new erection.

Local Walks

It would be wrong of us to assert that every commune in France has a board showing local walks in the area, often with the national walks (Grand Randonné), but that would appear to be the case. Sometimes these boards are near the post office, often they're by the town hall, and sometimes they're in the parking lot by a picnic area.

They aren't all an identical format, and some are very old. The board in Ferrière Larçon is typical.

Preuilly sur Claise once had a similar board by the post office, but that is long gone. The is a board in the Bourg Neuf that shows longer walks in the South Touraine (but not little walks from villages).

This makes it very easy to explore France on foot, no matter your mobility. As long as you can find the board.

Dad's Car

While we were in Australia my dad decided that it is time to stop driving. I understand what a difficult decision it is to make, and dread the day I have to do it myself, but at 92 sharing the road with enormous trucks and people driving very fast cars without any sense of courtesy (or the road rules) is not a lot of fun.

This meant he was able to lend us his car, a 2007 model Toyota Yaris. It's a small town car, very polite to drive - if a little underpowered and with an automatic gearbox that has very little sense of logic. If you want random gear changes and over-revving then a Toyota CVT automatic gearbox is your friend. 

But it performed well, getting us where we needed to be with only a little fuss, in relative comfort, and with all our luggage. Add in navigation via our phones and you're away!

Our first, and longest, trip was from my dad to Susan's dad and returning to JB and Rosy. We did it over the course of two days each way, pausing along the way for many breaks, meals and taking in the view. What's the point of rushing through scenery?

I was interested to see how I fared driving distances after so long away, but apart from one or two times where I ran out of steam and needed a 20 minute nap I am quite pleased. Driving in Australia is different to driving on Europe.

Our Voyage in Numbers

This is a per person count. We didn't spend all of our time together, but the numbers are remarkably similar.

Air: 36,000(±)km

Train: 1548km

(586km in France, 962km in Australia)

Road: 3242km driven

(Plus countless kilometres in other peoples' cars)

Ferry: 109km

Just chillin'

We were away from home for 38 days, slept in 12 different beds, and ate in 28 restaurants.

We didn't turn Strava on, so there's no count for the number of steps or kms walked, but "enough" would cover it.

In total we took 2787 photos (plus a number of photos of knees, nostrils, lens cap covers, and floors). We can show them all to you if you care to visit.

Awaydays Blog Post X: A Wall of Thanks

We're back in Preuilly sur Claise after just over five weeks in Australia. As ever there are a long list of people to thank: JB and Rosy for hospitality, friendship, and loans of all sorts of stuff, Kathy and John for hospitality and for reorganising themselves so generously around us, my Dad for the use of his car, Rick and Helen for hospitality, Kippa for last minute taxi service, Geoff and Christine for a last minute bed and excellent roast lamb, and a host of other people who went out of their way to be helpful and provide meals.

It wasn't a trip long on planning: we had been talking about visiting for the past 5 years or so, but medical things (including a world wide pandemic, don't forget) were always getting in our way. Then Susan emailed my oncologist, asking if we could, at some stage, consider visiting Australia, and he replied "certainly, I've rearranged your appointments".

This forced our hand. I had a week to plan and buy tickets and get my head around the reality of going. In some ways I never really got my head around either going to Australia or being in Australia. Things I would normally just cruise through I found thoroughly stressful, and I made some beginner's errors - luckily not really financially disastrous.

But I'm glad we went. We saw our dads, which was the main purpose of the exercise. There are many people we didn't see due to the time constraints, and only a couple of days felt like a proper holiday. But it was nice (if slightly too noisy and frantic for my tastes) seeing family.