Getting That Cherry Ripe Vibe in France

Cherry season means cherry desserts. I had some blush yellow cherries from our local organic orchard Fruits Ô Kalm and the fruit flies in the kitchen were in plague proportions. So I stewed the cherries. Then I had the idea of serving them with whipped coconut cream. And just before serving I had the brainwave of grating a little dark chocolate on the combo. A total winner. Super easy, super delicious.

 

Ingredients

400 g sweet cherries

6 tbsp sugar

300 g coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 squares of dark chocolate

 

Method

1. Break out your cherry stoning tool from the back of whichever inconvenient cupboard you've shoved it in. Set it up, then rinse your cherries and pluck their stalks off.
2. Run the cherries through the stoning tool, then put them in a saucepan with a dash of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
3. Gently simmer the cherries for 5 minutes, keeping an eye on them because they'll have a tendency to boil over.
4. Put the cherries aside to cool.
5. Put the coconut cream, vanilla and remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar in a high sided bowl.
6. Rummage out your electric hand beater and whip the coconut cream. This will take a while, longer than dairy cream.
7. Serve the cherries in bowls, topped with a dollop of coconut cream. Shave some chocolate onto the coconut cream using a fine grater.
   

Australians will understand the reference to Cherry Ripe. Everyone else is probably mystified.

First World War Memorial at Saint Flovier

 At Saint Flovier you get to see the human faces of the Great War.

Inside the church there is an unusual memorial. Put up sometime after 1918 thanks to Paul Gravier, a local benefactor, and designed by Lux Fournier, it showcases the faces of those locals that the War took away. Around a central painting representing Christ appearing to a fallen soldier, 54 photographs printed on enamel disks give a presence to these young men of Saint Flovier who died for France. Eleven other soldiers are identified just with a name plate but without a photo. Paul Gravier's grandson Patrick Chevalier de La Teillais was killed in 1918. His oldest daughter (and Patrick's aunt), Rosita, is said to have had a heart attack caused by the strong emotion produced when hearing the bells ring out to announce the end of the War. Paul Gravier had built a Renaissance Revival style chateau on the edge of the village in 1884 for a vast sum of money (a million and a half francs) and he and his wife Elisabeth Hugues had entertained lavishly. She died in 1905, and a few years after the War his other grandson died in an accident. On Paul Gravier's death the estate was divided and sold in relatively small parcels as farmland. The chateau was allowed to fall into ruin and has been demolished. 

Amongst the faces is Paul Désiré Brault, born in Saint Flovier in 1894. A soldier in the 113th Infantry Regiment, he was sent to the Front in the autumn of 1914. Some weeks later he went missing at Boureuilles in the Meuse, far away from his native village.

And there is Louis Jules Blin, born in Fléré la Rivière in 1892. He joined the 90th Infantry Regiment in Le Blanc in 1912 and died of his wounds in Poitiers hospital in September 1914.

Gustave Guinot was born in Douadic in 1878. He joined up in 1898 in Le Blanc, recruited into the 9th Transport and Logistics Squadron. He died after a short illness whilst in service in November 1916 in Hospital 76 in Cannes.

Joseph Eugene Bruneau was born in Mer sur l'Indre in 1893 and was a sergeant in the 160th Infantry Regiment. He had joined up in Chateauroux in 1913 and was killed by the enemy at Ripont in the Marne in September 1915.

Victor Raoul Chasselay was born in Saint Flovier in 1890 and was a sergeant second class in the 49th Artillery Regiment. He was recruited at Le Blanc in 1910 and killed by the enemy at Eherdinghe in Belgium in May 1915. The records seem to indicate that his family were not notified for a year after his death.

When you stand in front of a memorial like this you don't just read the names. You do a calculation of how many young men never came back, and how that affected a village as small as Saint Flovier (population around 750). You look at their faces and imagine being their mother, or their wife. You wonder what they might have achieved if their fate had not been to die in the mud of some First World War battlefield. This is not just a list of names, albeit tragically young men, but men with faces, which makes them that much more present.

The service records of these men are available online at https://www.memoiredeshommes.defense.gouv.fr/conflits-operations/premiere-guerre-mondiale.

We're Difficult To Get To

Anyone trying to visit us at the moment needs to know the back roads, and be able to tell the man at the bottom of our street what they're trying to do. There are works happening all over the place, including water pipe replacement on the road to Chaumussay, and resurfacing the main road between the Post Office and the turnoff to the Gymnasium.

This isn't the part of the main road being resurfaced, but it is in the same condition. Anyone from the UK or Australia will be horrified by the state of it. You can see the man at the bottom of our street (in orange) ready to tell motorists they have run out of options.

Work in progress. They were really getting on with it, to the extent it looks like it could be finished on schedule, which was yesterday evening. I haven't checked yet.

Saints de Glace

The Ice Saints are those whose fêtes are on 11, 12 and 13 May. There is a saint for every day in France, and the saints for these particular dates are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancrace and Saint Servais. These are old saints, now desanctified and replaced by new Vatican approved saints, but there is much to be said for the agricultural tradition associated with the Saints de Glace. Farmers and gardeners watch the skies warily in May, because hail can damage seedlings and burgeoning fruit, and if the skies are clear frost is the enemy. In the old days, of course, one hail storm or a very deep frost could easily spell the difference between living well and living on the edge for a year. These days, it can still really affect a a producer's income. This year in our part of the Sud Touraine we haven't had any significant hail, but we have had a couple of very sharp rain storms. It's been a month since the last frosts, but that's no cause for complacency.

Looking at the skies last night I'm betting there won't be a frost.

According to Metro France on two years out of three there is a significant cold spell after the Saints de Glace

Look For the Little White Dog

Jean Gourmelin was a French 20th century illustrator born in 1920, who produced works that highlighted the absurd and fantastical. He most often worked in pen and ink, but sometimes made engravings, paintings and sculptures. His works play with space, time and chance. 

Stained glass window in the chapel of the Chateau Royal de Blois.

He was born in Paris and his parents worked for a wealthy Jewish family in their grand townhouse. At school the art teacher was quick to recognise his talent. When he was fourteen his parents bought a shop in Vendome and the family moved. At high school he encountered artists working in various media who mentored and influenced him. 

After graduating from art school he worked designing and printing luxury wallpaper and very quickly became known in these circles. During the Second World War he worked as an industrial designer in a factory, in order to escape conscription into the compulsory work programme. 

The little white dog which is the 'signature' of Jean Gourmelin.

From 1951 to 1969 he collaborated with his cousin Claude Serre, who was also an illustrator, and the master stained glass artist Max Ingrand. In that time they produced several series of stained glass windows, most notably for the chapels in the grounds of the chateaux of Blois and Amboise, and the cathedrals in Rouen and Saint-Malo.

All of the glass, both 16th originals and 19th century repairs, at the Chapel of the Chateau de Blois, and much of the glass in other churches in Blois, was destroyed during the American bombing campaign of 1944. After the War Ingrand and Gourmelin were commissioned to create new windows for the chapel. They worked together after the War on the windows of the chapel of Saint Hubert at the Chateau of Amboise as well. To recognise Gourmelin's work, look for the little dog with the curly tail, which is his personal 'signature'.

Stained glass in the Chapelle Saint Hubert, in the grounds of the Chateau Royal d'Amboise.

The windows in the Chapelle Saint Hubert in Amboise were made in Ingrand's workshop in 1952. They were conserved in 2022-24 as part of a total restoration of the chapel. Those of the Chapelle Saint Calais in the grounds of the Chateau Royal de Blois, were made in the same workshop in 1957, and have never been restored.

From 1961 onwards Gourmelin worked with science fiction writers and political journals. From 1971 onwards he participated in a television programme with other contemporary artists, illustrators and cartoonists. 

In 2000 he developed a degenerative eye disease and gave up drawing. From 2008 he had a series of strokes, and died at the age of 90 in 2011. He and his wife had lived for 60 years in Hauts-de-Seine outside of Paris.

A Big Step

We had a proper thunderous storm yesterday afternoon, the sort where if the road gutters aren't clean, houses get flooded.

That's not likely to worry the owner of this building.

I am interested that it still retains its Hand of Fatima door knocker.

8 Mai

The 8th of May is "Victoire 45", a public holiday in France celebrating the end of the 2nd World War in Europe. The day is marked with celebrations and parades throughout France, and in Preuilly sur Claise it is no different.

We will be gathering at the Mairie just before 11:00 and then walking as a group to the war memorial for a short series of speeches and wreath laying. Afterwards we will be in the Salle de Fêtes for a glass of something and little nibbles.

The War Memorial at Verneuil, dressed for tomorrow

A Phoney Post

Readers with good memory will remember that when we were in Australia 18 months ago I had to buy a new phone. That was because although the phone we took with us was 4G, it wasn't the flavour of 4G that Australia went to once they turned off the 3G signal.

When we got home that became my looking at the internet and maps phone, and I kept using my Wiko phone I bought in July 2022. 

The first pic I took with my old phone

Yesterday the Australian phone became my main phone, and the Wiko is reduced to photo duties. It took 18 months for that to happen because I was dreading having to properly set up a new phone, and it turned out rightly so. I don't know how anyone deals with the stress of migrating to a new phone every year, whilst trying to maintain some sort of privacy.

The first pic I took with my new phone

Anyway. The new phone is working, and happily still doesn't receive a reliable signal while I am at home. 

Something Fishy Is Going On

On the 4th of October 2024 we posted about having written 6000 blog posts which had been viewed 4,408,662 times.

Things have changed since then: our all time visits now stand at 11,288,340, with 26,799 visits yesterday, and 482,374 visits last month.

I was interested enough to ask ClaudeAI what the reason could be. I had my suspicions, and this was the answer:

This is a really interesting question, and I think I can offer a strong likely explanation — though there may be more than one factor at play.

**The most probable cause: AI bot crawling**

Your blog covers nature, wildlife, history, French life, and food — exactly the kind of rich, detailed, original content that AI companies are aggressively harvesting to train their large language models. Automated traffic surpassed human-generated activity for the first time in a decade, accounting for 51% of all web traffic in 2024. Since then it's grown further.

Research from 2024 found that a record 16% of "general invalid traffic" from known bots was generated by AI scrapers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and AppleBot. These bots hit every page they can find, and Blogger/Blogspot doesn't filter them out of your view counts the way more sophisticated platforms do. Your 6,000+ posts across many years give bots an enormous amount of pages to crawl.

Crawling traffic spiked twice — first in November 2024, then again between March and April 2025 — which aligns suspiciously well with your traffic jump from October 2024 onwards.

**Other contributing factors worth considering:**

- **Compound SEO effect.** 

With 6,000+ posts built up over years, older posts continue to accumulate search ranking authority over time. A blog that old and that prolific keeps climbing organically in search results for niche queries about French nature, Loire Valley history, orchids, dragonflies, etc.

- **AI-generated search results driving curiosity.**When AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity cite or reference content about French natural history or life in the Loire Valley, some users do click through — even if the click-through rate is low.

- **Growing anglophone interest in rural France.**There's been sustained growth in people researching relocating to or visiting rural France, which is squarely your content.

The short version: you've built a genuinely valuable archive of content at exactly the moment AI companies started hoovering up the internet, and your view counter is almost certainly catching a lot of that automated activity.

I was right in my suspicions, but this is slightly worrying. The half life of facts would suggest that much of the stuff on the blog no longer applies. Add in the whimsy, local misdirections and suppositions and I wonder how relevant a lot of the information is now. We don't set out to deceive, but anyone looking for definitive, up to date information is likely to be directed by AI to restaurants that no longer exist (I've checked), boulangeries that closed 10 years ago (checked that too), and expect the sewing machine man to be at the market (not for many years). Or indeed other towns that have "Preuilly" in their names.

This is just one reason we would never use AI to write a blog post - once you have fact checked everything it turns out easier to do it ourselves -  although I have in the past used AI to restructure and check grammar and spelling (UK English).

Should I ask Claude how many times he has crawled the blog?

The Church in Saint Flovier

The 19th century church in the village of Saint Flovier, 15 minutes down the road from us.

Until last week I had never set foot inside the church in Saint Flovier. It is 19th century and I assumed that the interior would be faux medieval wall paintings and saccharine 19th century Madonnas. Well I was right. But the church also has a couple of decent 17-18th century paintings, and some chunky 15th century choir stalls with a range of misericords. There is another, 20th century treasure contained in this church, but I'll write about it another time.

Finial on one of the 15th century choir stalls.

The church was constructed in the 1880s in the Romanesque style. It replaced a 12th century church which was in a poor state of repair and too small. The architect was well known for his historic restorations and came from Paris. Inside notable artists of the day from Tours, Orleans and Paris created the decoration, including stained glass from the workshop of Luc Fournier in Tours. The paintings from the old church were transferred to the new one.

Finial on one of the 15th century choir stalls.

The 15th century oak choir stalls had come from the old abbey church in Beaulieu les Loches which had been destroyed in the Revolution. As was the norm for the time they feature misericords, or a sort of hinged ledge which functioned as a seat but allowed the monks to appear to be standing whilst they suffered through long services, or 'offices'. The misericords are carved with a variety of quirky subjects, mixing the sacred and the profane, clowns and devils, and illustrations of proverbs. Images such as 'green men' swallowing or spitting leaves symbolise the renewal of Nature. Debauchery is depicted by a pig's head or performing clowns.

The end of one of the 15th century choir stalls.

There is also a set of much more staid 17th century oak choir stalls. They were made during the reign of Louis XIII and feature acanthus leaves, angel's heads, pomegranates, swans and fish, in the style of their time.

A misericord depicting fish on a 17th century choir stall.

A misericord depicting pomegranates on a 17th century choir stall.

Misericord on a 15th century choir stall, depicting a jester with a rattle.

A misericord on one of the 15th century choir stalls, depicting a man in bed I think, although he's got his eyes open and wearing a tunic or doublet.

A 15th century misericord, depicting a man with a fashionable forked beard.

A 15th misericord depicting a boar's head.

A 15th century misericord depicting an acrobat exposing his backside. Images such as this are surprisingly common in medieval churches.

Lily of the Valley for 1 May

On 1 May in much of Europe it is traditional to give a sprig of Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis (muguet in French) to friends and family for good luck throughout the year. How the plants in the forest survive the annual onslaught of widely advertised outings to pick the flowers in the wild I do not know. 

 

The bunch above is held by Nadine, who we encountered in the forest some days before, with her husband and grandson. They were spending quality family time picking wild Lily of the Valley. We greeted each other warmly and Nadine invited me to smell the flowers. They were divine!

Just then an oil beetle trundled across the path in front of us. I took the opportunity to talk about what amazing and weird (in a good way) creatures they are, for the benefit of the young boy. I was very pleased to observe that he didn't immediately attempt to stamp on it, but just watched it quietly. His grandparents made all the right 'how interesting!' noises. 

 

Male Violet Oil Beetle Meloe violaceus in the Forest of Preuilly late April. 

Not far from our little group was a young woman gathering ramsons (a type of wild garlic). She told me she planned to pickle the buds (so they are like capers) and make pesto from the leaves. We are very lucky to have good quality forest nearby for walking, foraging and socialising. The forest was a gift to the community from the previous private owner in the 20th century.

Charnizay's Mass Dials

Looking at the Charnizay canonical sundials 

(which no longer function because they predate the big 15th century buttresses).

Sundials on the church at Charnizay.

On the south facing exterior wall of the church in Charnizay are the remnants of four canonical sundials (only one of them still clear). In English they are also known as mass dials or scratch dials, in French they are called cadrans canonials. The purpose of these is not for the general public to tell the time per se, but for the priest to know when to perform the daily cycle of services. They date from the Middle Ages, maybe the 12th century. They are semi-circles, divided into six, eight or twelve sectors and vary according to the season. When they were etched into the wall the church only had small buttresses, but nowadays the sundials are in the shade of more massive buttresses added in the 15th century.

 

The use of mass dials began in the 7th century and continued until the 14th century. The lines don't correspond to the hours of the day as we know them, but to liturgical times, seasonally and geographically adjusted. They are usually a semi-circle, with a hole for a wooden stick where the  radiating hour lines intersect. The sticks are always long gone, but their function was to cast a shadow so you knew what the canonical time was. Many mass dial enthusiasts recount finding a small stick and putting it in the hole, almost like a reflex action.

In the 6th and 7th centuries every congregation had their own rites and the number of divisions on the first canonical dials varied. Around the 8th century the Rule of Saint Benedict established a standard set of seven ceremonies or 'hours'. They were Matins/Lauds (midnight/before dawn), Prime (sunrise), Terce, Sext (noon), None, Vespers (sunset), and Compline (end of the day). These canonical hours do not have a temporal hour number associated with them, as they vary according to the seasons.

The canonical dials are positioned at head height, usually near the entrance. On grander churches they may be carved with care, but more often, and on little rural churches, they are crude and difficult to distinguish from graffiti. 

It was towards the end of the 7th century, under the influence of the Venerable Bede in England, that canonical dials became widespread. Monks from England, Scotland and Ireland disseminated the practice throughout Europe.

Canonical dials continued to be used right into the 16th century, but by the 14th century the bigger churches and cathedrals started using clocks and the mass dials were slowly abandoned except in small rural churches.

There are around 1500 canonical dials still visible in France, mainly in Normandy, the Touraine and Charente, and in monasteries associated with the Camino de Santiago (Fr. chemin de Compostelle).

A Walk on the Eperon Barre de Murat

The Eperon Barré de Murat is a ridge of limestone (Fr. tuffeau jaune) topped by a plateau at about 120 metres above sea level. This site, frequented by Mankind since the Neolithic was formed by the confluence of the valleys of the Brignon and the Larçon. It is a well known site for wild orchids and the habitat they require is maintained by a flying flock (Fr. troupeau itinerant) of grazing sheep.  The calcareous grasslands shelter a number of insects, such as cicadas (Fr. cigales) and the Large Blue butterfly (Fr. papillon Azuré du serpolet) which require dry sunny places.

 

Tassel Hyacinth Muscari comosum (Fr. Muscari  à toupet).

Two ancient defensive walls, called a vallum, are still visible at the narrow end of the site. They served to protect and 'bar' access to a prehistoric settlement. 

 

There were lots of caterpillars of the localised and increasingly rare Small Eggar moth Eriogaster lanestris (in French the caterpillars are called la Laineuse du cerisier).

The site is managed by the Conservatoire d'Espaces Naturels Centre Val de Loire.

 

 Small Heath butterfly Coenonympha pamphilus (Fr. Procris).

Earlier this month Simon and I did the 3.5 km circuit around the site so I could check the progress of the orchid flowering season. It was a hot sunny day in the mid-twenties temperature wise, and about half the walk is not shaded. Just to warn you -- this is a hot site much of the year, so take water to drink. We took about an hour to get around and saw 5 species of orchid in flower. Unbeknownst to me, my friend François, who is an ecologist for the Conservatoire, was also there that day. He bagged an extra species of orchid, damn him...

 

 Downy Oak Quercus pubescens (Fr. Chêne pubescent).

Lady Orchid Orchis purpurea (Fr. Orchis pourpre).

View looking north-east from the vallum.

Violet Fritillary Boloria dia (Fr. Petite violette).

Narrow-leaved Helleborine Cephalanthera longifolia (Fr. Céphalanthère à feuilles étroites).

The uncommon Green-underside Blue butterfly Glaucopsyche alexis (Fr. Azuré des cytises).

A number of Early Spider Orchids Ophrys sphegodes (Fr. Ophrys araignée) lurking about in the grass.

 

 

Further Reading: https://espacesnaturels.touraine.fr/eperon-de-murat.html (page for the nature reserve, in French).

What to do About a Swarm of Honey Bees

The answer is short and simple: contact a beekeeper immediately and they will come and collect the swarm. A beekeeper in France is an apiculteur. You can find contact details for dozens in your area by doing a simple internet search. 

The sooner they are collected the better, for their own well-being, and for yours. If they are collected promptly it protects them from being caught out in bad weather (cold and/or wet), which is not uncommon in spring. It also gives them less time to become settled in an inappropriate new home, like your chimney or behind your shutters.

Swarming bees can sound and look alarming, but they are not really a threat to you. They are concentrating on protecting their queen, and finding a new home. Leave them alone and you will find that they will just peacefully attach themselves to a branch and hang there for some hours in a clump huddled around the queen to keep her warm. Scouts will come and go on their mission to find a new home and report back, but they can be safely ignored by you. Don't delay in calling a beekeeper to relocate the swarm though.

 

The second of two honey bee swarms I saw on 17 April this year. This one was on the Eperon Barré de Murat Nature Reserve where we walked that afternoon. The first was in our neighbour's garden, while we were having lunch in ours.

Honey bee colonies in the Touraine Loire Valley tend to be splitting up and on the move ie swarming from April to June. On Friday, coming back from the dentist, I drove into a swarm on the move between Ferrière Larçon and La Celle Guenand. A few unfortunately splatted on the windscreen. Somewhat disconcerting.

Fantastic Mr Fox

 

Signs have gone up in the Forêt de Preuilly featuring a red fox, no doubt called Renard, who is instructing visitors to pack their rubbish out. There are no bins and Renard says 'Remportez vos déchets !'.

And in case you were wondering, the Roald Dahl story and later Wes Anderson movie Fantastic Mr Fox is called Fantastique Maître Renard in French.

Garlic

Four weeks ago Susan blogged about our local garlic patch. It is now in bloom, and the smell is incredible.

The photo isn't the sharpest, but it does give you an idea of just how much wild garlic there is.

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.

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.

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.