The Hover Flies Who Pretend to be Wasps

All summer long, and up until a few weeks ago in November, we've had an active European Wasp Vespula germanica (Fr. Guêpe européenne) above our kitchen ceiling. The entrance is just above the back door and the wasps coming and going occasionally freaked people out. But they never caused us any bother. Nobody got stung. They occasionally found their way inside, from whence they would be evicted by me with one of those cheap wasp and spider catching tools. 

 

Hornet Mimic Hover Fly Volucella zonaria larva on our kitchen light switch, 16 mm long unextended.

The other place they found themselves sometimes was trapped in one of the light fittings. I looked forward to the end of the season when the queen would go into hibernation and all the other occupants would die off. I planned at that point to remove the glass on the light and see if there were any interesting species that had been living alongside the wasps. I was particularly hoping for some Volucella spp. They are a type of hover fly that is known to parasitise wasp nests. And I was not disappointed.

 

The dead insects which had accumulated on the kitchen light fitting.

One day recently we noticed that there was a grub attached to the side of the light switch. Once I'd put my glasses on I could see that it was a Volucella sp larva. So then I needed to identify the species. That was not so easy. Not much is known about them and there aren't that many biodiversity records of them. Based on the information in Graham Rotherhay's guide to hover fly larvae I thought it must be V. pellucens. 

 

 Three female Hornet Mimic Hover Flies found in the light fitting. They vary in size between 16 mm long and 22 mm long, which will be due to the available food during their larval stage.

But then I checked the dead insects in the light fitting. Amongst the wasps there were three Hornet Mimic Hover Fly V. zonaria bodies. The larvae of V. pellucens and V. zonaria are very difficult to tell apart. Nicola Garnham, who has done some work with hover fly larvae, said to me on Facebook that she suspected from the start that my grub was V. zonaria, and it seems her experience with these beasties paid off. The live larva has been safely rehomed to a box in the pantry, and I'll try to raise it to an adult fly. Then we will know for sure. But it seems most likely that it is V. zonaria, especially as that is a species I see in the garden much more often than V. pellucens.

 

 Hornet Mimic Hover Fly larva, rehomed.

Hornet Mimic Hover Flies Volucella zonaria (Fr. Volucelle zonée) are big, colourful, distinctive and impressive flies. At up to 25 mm long they are one of the biggest flies in Europe. With their shiny chestnut thoraxes and orangey yellow abdomens striped with black, they are very striking looking insects. The size and overall appearance of this species is reminiscent of a European Hornet Vespa crabro, but their short antennae and plumper shape mean that they are easy to tell apart once you know how.

 

 Adult female Hornet Mimic Hover Fly on Wild Parsnip Pastinaca sativa in our garden.

You can see the adult flies from May to October, buzzing around pretending to be hornets, and mostly, sipping nectar from flowers. Like most hover flies they are good pollinators. They favour a variety of habitats, from beech and oak woods, to scrub and increasingly even urban parks. 

 

Adult male Hornet Mimic Hover Fly in the grounds of the Chateau de Chaumont sur Loire. 

The larvae are detritivores (ie the clean up squad) in the nests of bees and wasps, as well as predating the hymenopteran (bees and wasps) larvae.

Annual Donation to the Fire Brigade

Every year in early December the fire brigade (Fr. pompiers) come calling. They are collecting door to door for their charitable funds by 'selling' calendars. Households contribute as much or as little as they wish. The money goes to fund the firefighters activities, both professional training and social events (team building). Some of the money will also be channelled towards the fund to support the families of firefighters who lost their lives in the course of duty.

 

'Our' firefighters with this year's calendar.

All our firefighters in Preuilly are volunteers. Because we had cause to call them out earlier this year when we had a chimney fire, we gave more generously than usual, to express our gratitude.

The firefighters work in uniformed pairs to conduct their collections, for both physical protection and to prevent fraud. I've no doubt this practice will be reinforced next year after an incident last week in the small rural town of Sainte Maure de Touraine. A firefighter, inexplicably and unusually working on his own, was attacked by two assailants, who beat him and stole his satchel. 

The patron saint of firefighters is Saint Barbara of Heliopolis (Fr. Sainte Barbe) and her feast day is 4 December. French firefighters throughout the nation gather on or about this date for their big end of year party and awards ceremonies. Here in Indre et Loire there are 2559 professionals, volunteers, administrators and technical staff attached to the county fire brigade. This year they've made 32 157 interventions, covering fires, road accidents and emergency rescues to save human life. They have also responded to emergencies outside of the département, offering their services in New Caledonia, Mayotte, the Pyrénées-Orientales and our neighbouring département of Vienne. As well, they have gone to Libya and Colombia to provide training. At home they have improved their service by modernising vehicles and adopting a video detection system for forest fires. Volunteers have been encouraged and there are now 592 young firefighters (Fr. jeune pompiers, a sort of cadet scheme for teenage volunteers).

Froid-Poitou

This is the vintage refrigerator in one of the food preparation rooms in l'Image Restaurant. I suspect it is not as old as you might think. I'd say mid-20th century, but it might date from the Seventies, or even Eighties. 

I'm intrigued by the mirror on the middle door.

Francois Pouzioux, who is named on the black plaque as the maker, died in 2004. His company still exists in Chatellerault though, still specialising in commercial coldrooms and fridges.

It was the material used to line the fridge that initially made me suspect it was of a later date than you might think.

The fridge is oak on the exterior. Pouzioux were certainly making fridges that look a lot like this in the late forties or first half of the 1950s. I know that because I found one for sale, with a three digit phone number listed on the maker's plaque, which allowed me to date it. The phone number on the one in l'Image is longer, which means it is later than that. I could of course email Jean-Michel Chedozeau, who owns the fridge, or indeed Pouzioux, and ask. But where is the fun in that?

Seven New Windows

It's taken a couple of years from grant application to installation, but we finally have seven new double glazed windows. We had hoped to have new shutters too, but Batiment de France refused our request to switch from 19th century louvred shutters to simple plain solid shutters and it was too expensive to include new shutters in the project.

The new window in our dining niche/my workspace.

Our grant, through a government agency known as ANAH, pays for a percentage of the work on the understanding that we improve the energy efficiency of the house sufficiently. So the full project included a new hot water system and in the future insulation and dry lining of our sitting room and bedroom. 

One of the masons and one of the joiners remove the crappy old side door into the sitting room. It had been glued shut to prevent drafts and probably hadn't been opened for forty years.

We chose Brice Bois Concept for the windows and have been very happy with them. They are based in Loches and have been easy to communicate with, and perhaps most importantly, understanding of our financial constraints, especially once Covid hit. 

The joiners struggle to remove the non-standard old window on the street front of the sitting room.

Brice Bois came and measured up then sent us a quote which we passed on to ANAH for approval. Brice Bois have the required RGE certification and approval wasn't a problem. We signed the agreement and paid the deposit, which Brice Bois passed on to the window manufacturers. 

I hid in the attic while the joiners worked.

Once the windows arrived there was a bit of negotiation. We needed to get the mason to come to replace wooden window sills with stone, and to change a door into a window. I couldn't get the mason to commit to a date and Brice Bois didn't have the space to store the windows. So we agreed a compromise. We paid the balance of windows materials portion of the bill and took delivery of the windows, on the understanding that the installation would be at some later date.

The masons at work on a couple of windowsills.

So the windows sat in our barn for a year, propped up against a pillar and covered by a tarp. Finally we agreed a date for installation in the last week of March. It had to be no later than then as Brice Bois was in the process of restructuring their organisation and needed to finish all the jobs on their books before 1 April. We had to return from the Netherlands a couple of days earlier than we'd planned in order to be here when the windows were installed.

One of the joiners (Fr. menuisier) applying finishing touches to the new bathroom window.

The blokes from Brice Bois were quiet, competent and polite. We were very impressed by their skills and can do attitude. They had made sure to talk to the mason so they knew what he was doing and what they needed to do on the relevant windows. None of our windows are standard and I'm sure they were faced with some challenges. They just quietly problem solved, with no teeth sucking, no complaining and no swearing. They even fixed our back door, which had started sticking due to the house moving in the dry weather.

Exterior view of the new window and windowsill for the dining niche.

After three days they had taken away the old windows and we had seven newly installed double glazed windows. The next day I paid the final balance of just under €2000 to cover the labour. The total bill came to just under €9500, with the most expensive window being the big front sitting room window at €1700 and the least expensive being the dining niche at €750. The window frames are pre-painted in 'pebble gray', one of the Batiment de France approved colours, and made from exotic hardwood. The mason's bill will, I think, be about €1500 and the limestone for the windowsills came from a quarry in Vienne.

The mason finishing off the windowsill for the side of the sitting room.

The next challenge will be getting the sitting room and bedroom insulated and lined. We have twelve months to complete the work to ANAH's satisfaction before our grant will be rescinded. Wish us luck!

The joiner working on the front sitting room window.

But for now we are just grateful to have windows that are easy to open and close, don't leak and don't let in draughts. After all, in France, one is taught to have an absolute horror of les courants d'air. That's why they all bundle up in scarves, even in high summer...*

Further Reading: Brice Bois Concept website (in French) [link].

The mason was Franck Sully from Martizay [link]. 

The stone came from the Carriere de Tervoux [link].

The new side window for the sitting room, exterior view.

The new side window in the sitting room, interior view. My insistance that this window opened either by tilting in at the top or by swinging on its side hinges meant that we had to go up a range for all our windows, making them more expensive.

*JOKE. A gentle dig at the French penchant for wearing enormous, and to my mind thoroughly inconvenient and uncomfortable, scarves.  I should also point out that the French will open all the windows once the temperature gets above about 15C, to air the house and to fling all their bedding out onto pigeon poo covered windowsills to soak up a load of vehicle emission particulates. Go figure.

Fleur de Loire

Pauline telling Rosemary and Hervé about the historic pillars in the bar.

Fleur de Loire is a new 5 star hotel with a 2 star Michelin restaurant at Blois. The chef is locally born and raised Christophe Hay [link], who is the only chef in the Touraine Loire Valley who has more than one star. We were invited to visit along with Loire ConneXion, on an outing organised by Summer Jauneaud, who is Loire Valley Concierge. Pauline Bernard the General Manager took us around and it was a very useful and interesting visit. 

The chef's Maserati in the courtyard. It is the only car allowed to park here. Guests cars are parked by the staff in a carpark hidden behind the eastern wing of the hotel.

It's a hotel for people who don't do the outdoors, although ironically it is perfectly placed for the Loire a Vélo cycle path. I've no doubt that the hotel does a great job of attending to their guests well being (Fr. bien etre), and this focus is just as is should be according to the latest industry trend reports. The main attractions are the Michelin starred restaurant and the Sisley spa [link]. There is a second restaurant too, with magnificent views over the Loire towards Blois, and a €75 a head gastronomic menu [link]. The decor is all soft purpley beigey blue greys that reference the river, with lots of black and white photos, mostly taken by Christophe Hay himself, and works of art by featured artists which change regularly [link]. The 112 staff wear turquoise uniforms and there are 44 rooms.

The Sisley spa.

The building is U-shaped, with an open courtyard facing the Loire on its left (south) bank. It was built by Gaston d'Orléans, the troublesome brother of Louis XIII (the king in the Three Musketeers) and up until now has been a hospice of one sort or another (most latterly an aged care home).

The Kiosk a patisseries [link], with a lovely view of the Loire and Blois.

The project has cost 9 million euros.

Wagu style beef, produced near Angers, on display in the Amour Blanc restaurant.

A typical room (not a suite, which we didn't see), with a view over the Loire.

Red wines in the 'cellar', a controlled atmosphere storeroom in the Michelin starred restaurant.

The Michelin starred restaurant.

Table setting in the Michelin starred restaurant, on the 'Chef's Table'.

The view of the Michelin starred kitchen that diners get.

The Michelin starred kitchen.

New Windows

Over the last couple of years we have been wading our way through the administrative processes and vagaries of the construction industry, working on a project to get a bit more of our tatty old house finished, with a grant to cover some of it because we meet the government criteria for improving our energy efficiency. 

The blokes from Brice Bois Concept bringing in our new bathroom window.

Yesterday seven new custom made double glazed windows were delivered. They look fantastic and we've paid for them (€7431), but we don't know when they will be installed. This is because installation requires the mason to come and adjust three of the window openings. Last time I spoke to him it was 'not before June'. I think we will count ourselves very lucky if he comes in the autumn.

Meanwhile, the windows are carefully stored in the graineterie. Makari, one of 'our' young Ukrainian refugees, came over last week and helped me clear a space. Now I have a big pile of stuff for the tip to deal with.

Shopping in Loches

Loches, Chatellerault and Le Blanc are all small or medium sized towns about half an hour a way from Preuilly sur Claise. Of those three, Loches is where we shop most often. The shops in the centre of the old town are mostly independent and interesting. Their survival is boosted because people come to the excellent twice weekly market, and take the opportunity to shop beyond the market in the boutiques that have a bricks and mortar presence in the centre of town. Here is a somewhat random selection of shops in central Loches that I photographed back in January.

Creamery, selling all sorts of dairy products.

Household linen shop.

A long established family owned hat shop, which also sells handbags and gloves. Good quality, and prices reflect that.

People queuing outside my favourite bakery. The queue isn't just down to Covid19. There isn't much room for customers inside.

Second-hand clothing shop. Popular, I hear, with the teenaged daughters of friends, who like the savings and the ethics.

Artisan jeweller, producing nice, unique, silver items.

The excellent Picottie's kitchenware shop.

Wine boutique.

Music shop.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel 

 

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UPDATE: RESPONSES TO COMMENTS

chm -- 'Dressing' is franglais for 'walk in wardrobe'. The shop sells second-hand clothing.

Colin and Elizabeth -- Loches has a lot of very nice independent boutiques.

Les Fours Banaux

Bread has been a staple in France for centuries, and central France is the biggest producer of wheat in Western Europe.

 

Street sign.

If you lived in or near a village in feudal times then you were obliged to use the four banal, the communal oven, which was owned by the local lord, who charged a fee for access to the oven. The lord was responsible for the maintenance of the oven, and he had to make sure that bread was baked perfectly, otherwise he was fined. But on top of taking one sixteenth of his peasants’ grain production as a general tax, he took another one sixeenth as a fee for the use of the four banal. In addition, the lord would have owned the mill where everyone had to get their wheat ground into flour. Those who lived close to the oven were disturbed by the endless comings and goings as well as the noise and heat of the oven or ovens. Those who lived further away were annoyed that they could make the most perfect dough, but by the time they had brought it to the oven in summer it had over proved and by the time it arrived to be baked in inter it was too cold. The baker put in charge of the communal oven had to be available day and night in case someone turned up to bake their bread.

Four banal below the chateau in Le Grand Pressigny.

The first four banal appeared in the Middle Ages in Paris near the Tour Saint Jacques [link], and they quickly spread throughout France, in populous communities becoming huge complexes with enormous and multiple ovens. These fours banaux are similar to the smaller private ones in construction and use in the 19th century. Not just bread could be cooked in these ovens, but gratinée style side dishes of vegetables would commonly be placed in the oven to brown and cook in the cooling bread oven after the loaves had been extracted. If you ever see a dish on a modern menu that is something a la boulangere, it will be one of these homely comforting old meals. Old favourite traditional desserts such as clafoutis were also cooked this way.

The oven and wood store in the four banal in Le Grand Pressigny.

After feudalism ended in France commercial bakeries started springing up everywhere and the boulangerie, named after the traditional round boule loaf, was born. At first they had big brick ovens and baked all the same breads that everyone had always baked at the fours banaux. They would also take housewives’ gratin dishes and cook them at the end of the baking day, for a small fee, as at this time many village houses did not have ovens at all and were cooking on stoves. 

 

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

The Terracotta Tile Factory

Recently I've had a number of conversations about terracotta tiles, both roof and floor versions. I thought I'd refresh and repost what Simon wrote in July 2009 about going to a local manufacturer of tiles. Sadly, since then this factory, making terracotta tiles in the traditional artisanal way, has ceased operating.

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Tomettes are terracotta (in french terre cuite) floor tiles. They come in a variety of sizes and shapes, dependent on location; the traditional shape in Provence is hexagonal, but around here the standard is for square tiles about 20 cm (8 inches) across for the ground floor, and 16 cm (6 inches) across for upstairs. At one time every large town had its own tomette (and roof tile) producer, with the result that every town had tiles of slightly different size and thickness. This can make repairing an old tomette floor very difficult - finding a match for your old tomettes can take a long time and you may have to be content with the next best thing.

We don't have that problem. The floor of what will one day once again be our kitchen is covered in fairly modern glazed tiles, but we have decided that tomettes would look a lot better and be more in keeping with the general age and appearance of the house.

Susan choosing tomettes.

After talking to John and Jill and Pierre-Yves and Sylvie we decided to visit Terres Cuites de la Lorne, a traditional tile making concern about 40 km away from Preuilly sur Claise just outside of Ruffec le Château in la Brenne. This factory is an accredited supplier of traditional artisanal terracotta floor and roof tiles and bricks for historic buildings. They make a range of less expensive machine made floor tiles as well as handmade carreaux vieillis and these square tomettes come in three sizes, priced at €45 per square metre for machine made and €61 per square metre for handmade (which is much the same price as for salvaged tomettes). The clay they are made from is sourced locally at Ruffec or Pouligny.

After much discussion - in hushed English between ourselves and in broken French with the staff from the factory - we decided to buy the old style handmade tiles. This was the most expensive option, but we felt that it would be more in keeping with the character of the house. We placed an order for 30 square metres of the 16 cm (6 inches more or less) square tiles, with 4 metres to be collected within a week, and the rest to be delivered.

Empty tile boxes waiting to be loaded from the kiln.

When we placed the order we asked for the 16 cm tiles because the waiting time for the 20 cm tiles is 6 months. Only later did it occur to us that as we will be laying the main body of tiles after the mason has been in April next year a six month wait wasn't the issue it might have been.

Roof tiles being stacked in the kiln

 

Last Thursday after visiting the decheterie we returned to la Lorne and picked up 4 metres of 16 cm tiles for the area under the stairs and changed the rest of our order to 20 cm tiles. The area under the stairs has to be laid before the staircase goes in, and we decided that if we are slightly creative with laying the smaller tiles the change in size will be a bit of a decorative feature rather than a sign of not being able to make up our minds...

Loading our small tiles into the trailer

The factory is really interesting: big lumps of machinery and huge ovens, stacks of tiles waiting to be fired, tiles in between firings, and tiles baked and waiting to be sold. It would be great to visit there when production is underway, but the first time we visited they were stacking the kiln with roof tiles, and the second time they had just finished a firing and were letting the oven cool.

The unbaked tiles are grey, but after firing the colours
range from soft pale peachy pink to brick red and brown.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Tapped

When we created our kitchen we decided that it would be nice if the kitchen tap did more than one thing, so we opted for an Ikea unit  that combined an ordinary mixer tap with a handheld spray unit. Unfortunately, after 7 years of use the tap let us down and developed a leak, a constant dripping whilst off, and a more persistant stream of water running from the handle when in use.

As these units are all modular, we called in to Ikea to buy a pair of new cartridges, one for the tap selector (tap or handheld) and the other for the mixer. Imagine our surprise (and my crossness) when they told us the units were no long manufactured.

This meant replacing the tap, something we got around to last week. We had bought a new unit from Leroy the Magician (Leroy Merlin), but when I unpacked it I looked at the space I would have to squeeze myself into under the sink and decided it was time to GTMI*.

So it's now done, and we have a new, less complicated tap that claims to use less water. It also takes up much less space, and so far I haven't missed the hand-held spray.

*GTMI = 'Get the Man In'. The man in question was Gille Barré, a plumber from Martizay, recommended to us by Antoinette.