Passion Altarpiece, Ternant

 As a result of following a brown sign we found new treasure! The Route des Triptyques is well worth following should you be pootling along the Route du Fours-Luzy (D981) in the departement (county) of Nievre (the south-west of Burgundy). This will get you to the church in a tiny village called Ternant, population 300. It is home to two astonishing medieval altarpieces. This blog post concerns one of them.

The Entombment of Christ, on the left of the altarpiece, with Mary Magdalen kneeling in the foreground, Christ outstretched on the tomb, and Joseph of Arimathea, Saint John, the Virgin, Mary Salome and Mary of Cleophas.

The Passion Altarpiece was made in a Brabantine workshop (in what was at the time the Burgundian Netherlands) around 1460. With its iconography it represents a Passion cycle frequently depicted in works from the southern Low Countries. Its composition is a classic inverted T arrangement and is typical in its tripartite construction (with extending hinged panels), depiction of donors and a painting of the coronation of the Virgin on the back of a panel.

The theme of the central three dimensional panel is the Crucifixion, with scenes of Calvary, the fainting Virgin and the kneeling donors. The landscape painted on the background is Jerusalem. The Virgin has her hands clasped above her head, supported by Saint John and a female saint. In the background a second female saint in an attitude of prayer, and Mary Magdalen, wearing an extraordinary turban, her back turned, lifts her arms towards the Cross. Both donors are richly dressed and kneeling. Charles de Ternant clasps his hands, a dagger in his belt. Facing him, his wife Jehanne de Vienne-Pymont is holding an open book, wearing a remarkable henin (headdress) and a bejewelled necklace. 

Mary Magdalen, in a gown decorated using the brocart applique technique, kneeling to kiss the hand of the dead Christ.

Above them, linking the donors to the Crucifixion scene are two grimacing soldiers and a high ranking priest. In the middle are two other groups of soldiers and priests, surrounding Christ. At the top, Christ is fixed to the Cross by his ankles, between two cherubs. Another character is collecting the blood of Christ at his feet.

The righthand side depicts the painted interior of a brick house, pierced by a window and an open door. The scene within is a Pieta. The seated Virgin carries Christ while his head is supported by Saint John. The drama is observed by two small passers by, through the ajar window.

Jehanne de Vienne-Pymont, one of the donor couple.

The lefthand side also shows an interior, representing the Entombment of Christ. This is the moment when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus place Christ's body in the tomb. A kneeling Mary Magdalen holds his hand. In the background the Virgin prays, while Saint John and two female saints (Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas) are also present.

The three scenes are topped by an interlaced decoration evoking the plant world and set under a dome of starry sky. The architrave is a high relief frieze of geometric motifs decorated with three coats of arms: Ternant and Isabeau de Roye (the parents of the donor), Ternant, and Burgundy.

One of the donor couple, Charles de Ternant.

The altarpiece measures 236 cm high x 550 cm wide (when open) x 44 cm deep. It is made of oak and painted walnut. Dendrodating shows that the oak was about 300 years old when it was felled in about 1450. The carcass is one single big plank with other elements such as a raised central compartment added using dowels and glue. This was then prepared by painting with a limewash base coat.

The sculptures are walnut, from pieces that have been split then sawn transversally and worked with a cleaver which was kept sharp with a honing stone and a flat edged file. The parts would have been held together in the workshop with nails which were replaced by beech dowels during restoration in the mid-20th century. The central figures are two pieces of walnut, held together with metallic supports. The ground is represented by wavy gouge marks. 

The Fainting Virgin, in a gown painted in azurite blue, the central scene of the altarpiece.

The painted decoration on the sculpture uses a variety of techniques traditionally applied in the Brabantine workshops. There is gold on a base of Armenian bole (a type of red clay), a mixture of lacquers on silver leaf, a technique that created an embossed look called brocart applique, and azurite on a black undercoat. After the carving the work was painted white. Skin tones were painted on. Draperies were given a thicker base coat of white. Blue robes were painted in blue azurite over a black layer. Cloth of Gold was created by painting on red clay then covering with gold leaf and burnishing by rubbing with a smooth agate tool. The lacquered decoration was created by painting with the red clay then covering with silver leaf as a base. The lacquers themselves were made with cochineal for red and copper for green. Brocart applique was created by using a base of wax and pewter which was then gilded and lacquered.

The Passion altarpiece was a gift made by Charles Ternant, after his parents Philippe Ternant and Isabeau de Roye decided to build a new church in the village in 1448. Charles was born around 1433 and had been brought up with the future Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. He had spent a long time in the southern Low Countries, particularly in Brussels, where he was able to commission the altarpiece, probably after the death of his father in 1454. The altarpiece subsequently several times escaped destruction (pillaging, the Revolution, wars, incorporation into various collections, restoration).

Behind the Virgin is Mary Magdalen, in a turban, with her back turned to us, raising her arms in despair or supplication.

The style of the sculptures, the clothing and the iconography correspond to the Brabantine workshops of the second half of the 15th century. The altarpiece belongs to a style from around 1500, and which was already being produced by 1460. It has elements in common with a few other altarpieces from the period, and reflects a style associated with Rogier van der Weyden. He was working in Brussels from 1435 to 1450. So the altarpiece is thought to be slightly later than him, but by someone who is influenced by his style.

The monumental nature of the altarpiece also resembles several religious sculptures in other locations from the period. And finally, the use of the polychrome techniques typical of the Brabantine workshops such as brocart applique and lacquers on metallic leaf confirm the period in which the piece was made. It is interesting that the dendrodating indicates a date closer to 1450 than 1460. 

Me trying desperately to get decent photos without reflections.

As an altarpiece the work was protected to some extent by being displayed with its back to the light. It has not been subjected to extensive repainting. Eighty percent of the paint is original, and retouches have respected the original colour scheme. The retouching can be picked up mainly by differences in tone and how the paint has aged. 

The azurite blue and the ermine trim on the cloak and the clothes in red lacquer, especially, have been retouched numerous times. The polished gilding has been redone in a piecemeal fashion, presumably as and when wear or tarnishing occurred in the past.

The right panel of the altarpiece, a Pieta.

The first round of retouching was perhaps in 1881, coinciding with the altarpiece being classified as a Listed Monument. We know for sure that there was retouching done as part of a restoration that took place between 1938 and 1947. Some really poor quality and roughly executed retouching was done in 1971. This is likely when a vinyl varnish was abundantly slopped all over the altarpiece, coating all the sculpted figures in a thick and uneven layer, regardless of whether their original finish had been mat or shiny.

There has been fungal damage to the wood due to high humidity. The wood has been weakened and caused numerous small breakages. The introduction of beech dowels in 1947 allowed wood boring insects already present in the work to proliferate rapidly and to cross over into the walnut figures. Two different sized exit holes indicate that there must be several species present. One is probably a furniture beetle Anobium sp and the smaller holes may be one of its predators.

There is significant build up of encrusted dirt. 

Who is This Saint?

 Rather than a 'what is this thing?' I'm going for a 'who is this?' post.

This statue in the medieval church of Saint Martin in Prissac is clearly old and looked like it had potential to be interesting. I reckoned it was 17th century, but couldn't immediately identify the saint.

It turns out to be 15th century, so contemporary with much of the church decor, and represents Sainte Radegonde. She's a very common female saint to be featured in these parts, so I should have noticed that this nun was wearing a crown and guessed who she was. The statue has had quite a life but has been treasured in this church for centuries. Radegonde was a popular saint at the French Court, especially during the Hundred Years War, as Poitiers remained loyal to the French King and there are sites dedicated to her in several places from Tours to Poitiers. Charles VII was particularly attached to her cult and named his eldest daughter after her. 

The statue was made by an unknown artist from stone and painted. She was restored in 2017. Anyone who knew her from before this date will barely recognise her. She used to be multicoloured, and I suspect, spent quite a few decades being mistaken for the Virgin Mary (due to the crown).

She came to the attention of the Regional Curator for  Historic Monuments in the course of a major restoration project focused on the wall paintings in the church, which started in 2013. At that time she was in a very degraded state and restoration was recommended, although she was outside the scope of the original project.

Luckily, there was a qualified sculpture conservator, Delphine Bienvenut, who came from the village. The statue was sent to her workshop in Tours.

Sainte Radegonde de Poitiers was a Thuringian princess who married a Frankish king in 536. She died in Poitiers in 587 at the age of about 67. We spent a few days in Thuringia in June, around Wartburg. It's a small centrally located State in modern Germany, once part of the GDR (ie Communist East Germany). Radegonde set up her court in Poitiers and lived as a simple nun, known for her piety and humility. She was sanctified by popular acclaim very quickly after her death.

The Church of Saint Radegonde in Poitiers, where she is buried.

It's thought the sculpture was probably made from a single block of stone originally, but it is now divided into three pieces -- the head, the chest, and the rest of the body and arms. There would have originally been hands too of course, one holding either a sceptre or an abbess' cross. Each of these pieces have been joined at some point using wooden dowels about 2 cm in diameter.

Upon studying the sculpture the conservator discovered that there had been three layers of overpainting covering the first layer. The original paint scheme had been applied over a preparatory base coat of smooth white. The saint's gown was a layer of blue-grey applied very thinly to the preparatory coat. This coat is quite scrappy and slapdash, and is now almost impossible to separate from the layers above and below. The cloak is richly decorated with gold leaf and red lacquer. The crown is quite blingy and also covered in gold leaf, with elements of green and red lacquer. The rosy cheeks on the face are well done and seem well preserved. The eyes are green and the wimple is white.

The first layer of overpainting is strongly adhered to the layer below, making its removal practically impossible. In this layer the gown is a sombre grey-green, but the cloak has become azure blue, decorated with a gold motif. The crown was redone, but repeating the original, as was the face and wimple.

The second layer of overpainting was easy to remove. It had been applied in a slightly thicker coat. The colours are less contrasting, but of very good quality. The veil and cloak were painted in very dark green and the gown in an even more sombre shade of green, virtually black. The wimple was white and the crown ochre and gold. Once again the face has been nicely rendered, but the eye colour has been darkened.

A third layer of overpainting was then applied but it was poor quality and noticeably modified the appearance of the statue. It became a riot of clashing colour and I suspect mistaken at this point for the Virgin Mary.

The conservator opted to remove the most recent overpaint to reveal the finer details of the carving and colouring. She found that the statue was of very good quality, which given its appearance when she received it was a bit of a surprise. Personally, I'm a bit sad that due to the difficulty of taking the paint back to the earliest layer the sculpture has ended up very sombre, rather than the jewel like colours of the original.

Further reading: I wrote about the Chapelle Sainte Radegonde in Chinon some years ago and you can read it here https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2021/09/chapelle-sainte-radegonde-chinon.html

Notre Dame des Champs

Follow the Roman road from Boussay along the wooded ridge of the Bois aux Prêtres, as I often do, and you will come across a curious grotto hidden in the woods on top of a slope. A sort of stone bower with a nod to the famous site at Lourdes, it is topped with a rather etiolated statue of the Virgin Mary.

Every year in early August pilgrims come to honour her, and a mass is celebrated in the woods by the grotto. Benches and trestles are laid out and a meal served in the clearing in front of the grotto in the evening. 

Last summer I happened to walk up there just after the pilgrimage. The path was lined with home made bunting and the grotto filled with flowers. There was not a scrap of rubbish to be seen.

The statue was erected in August 1906 and I assume the current landowner's family commissioned the entire grotto construction.

Note that the land is privately owned, so technically you need permission to visit the chapel. The site also happens to be one of the best wild orchid sites in the area. I have recorded 14 species for the site.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Vote For Us!

 Since 2021 Allianz (an insurance company) has partnered with La Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (a charity dedicated to saving French ecclesiastical artworks) to identify works of art at risk. After verification of their eligibility they are presented to a jury of representatives from the two organisations, who select two or three finalists from each region.

 

The painting The Descent from the Cross which hangs in the Abbey in Preuilly is one of the three finalists for Centre-Val de Loire.

These works are then put to a popular vote, that determines which will be conserved.

The municipality of Preuilly sur Claise and the local history society (SAP), who will also contribute to the restoration fund, are calling for everyone to vote for the painting.

It is very simple. Go to the website by clicking on the link below. Scroll down and select Centre-Val de Loire on the map. Choose the Preuilly project from the choices that will appear below. You will need to fill in your name and a valid email address.

https://www.sauvegardeartfrancais.fr/sondages/allianz-plus-grand-musee-de-france-vote-2026/

This is quite urgent as voting ends on 22 February. 

This large painting can be seen in the nave of the Abbey Saint Pierre.  It is a good quality copy of the work by Jean Jouvenet (1697) on display at the Louvre, and it deserves to be restored.

Preuilly sur Claise is counting on you!

A Hellmouth in the Brenne

 Musician angels.

The church in Paulnay, to our east in Indre, houses a number of wall paintings. They were created during the 14th and 15th centuries. To the left of the entry there is a depiction of the Last Judgement. The black flames seem to spurt forth from the earth, and the Devil pushes the Damned into the fire. On the nave is a depiction of the monthly activities undertaken by people. Between the apse and the nave you can see two musician angels. The one on the left holds a rebec (a bowed stringed instrument), the one on the right a cornemuse (bagpipes). In the apse is Christ, done with intense colours and surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists. 

 

 Interior.

Up until May this year the paintings were badly degraded due to the humidity, and conservation action was urgently required. Luckily the Foundation du Patrimoine had stepped in and a fundraising campaign meant that work to fix the drainage and conserve the paintings commenced in May 2022.

 

 Front facade.

The church in Paulnay has been a listed Historic Monument since 1910. It was erected in the first half of the 12th century in the Poitevin Romanesque style. Its ornately carved facade and painted interior make it a particularly noteworthy church in Indre and it generates a bit of historic interest and tourist visits. Archaeological digs have also revealed its pre-medieval history, with the foundations of a 2nd century Gallo-Roman temple and Merovingian burials found. The two sarcophagi on the forecourt bear witness to the archaeology.

 

 Western door.

The small simple church has a nave but no aisles or side chapels. The earliest wall paintings are traces on the nave ceiling vault which date from the very end of the 12th century.

 

I think these carved birds around the door represent doves.

Most notable on the exterior are the carvings of mermaids and birds. The mermaids in particular are unusual motifs in Berry. Mermaids have quite a complicated symbolism and can be associated with birds; the soul separate from the body; funerary rites; virginity; demonic temptresses able to turn men away from God with their promise of love; the sins of cupidity, arrogance and luxury; and/or the perversion and destruction of men through desire. Put simply, they represent the dangers of going to sea at the time.

 

 Carved eagles on a capital on the front facade.

Paulnay is one of the communes in the Brenne Regional Natural Park. Indre is the modern 'county' (Fr. département) name for the old province of Berry. There is a well regarded workers restaurant where you can get a cheap simple lunch directly across the road from the church.

A demon pushes sinners into the flaming mouth of a monster known as the Hellmouth, symbolising the entrance to Hell.

 

Last Judgement scene. How many demons can you see? There are at least four plus the Hellmouth and the Devil himself looming large. I assume on the opposite wall there would have been a scene of the righteous ascending to Heaven, but it has been lost to the damp.

Mermaid.

Winged monsters with male human heads, eagle's claws, and coiled slug like bodies.

Carved head of a man with a forked beard, poking his tongue out.

Bogues and Borscht

The Galoches walk on Friday 17 October was a 5 km circuit, first along the river, then up onto the heights above Yeures sur Creuse, followed by Ukrainian food as part of the schools' Semaine de Goût ('Taste Week').

 

 Svitlana, her mum and Patricia the school canteen cook prepared about a dozen Ukrainian dishes for people to try as part of the annual food studies school week. Borscht and varenyky mushroom dumplings are always popular.

A replica of the Lourdes grotto, behind the church in Yzeures.

A wildlife 'highway', leading down from the heights into the village.

A rustic shed.

A horse chestnut conker above and a sweet chestnut below. Can you tell the difference? (Look for the way a sweet chestnut tapers to a fibrous point opposite the base pad. This base pad is also smaller, as is the nut itself in sweet chestnuts.) Don't eat conkers as they will give you gastro-intestinal pain.

The River Creuse.

Walking along the river path.

Sweet chestnuts which have fallen on the walking path from an overhanging tree. The extremely spiny outer protective sheaths are called bogues in French.

Japanese anemones.