Les Orchidées

The Claise river valley has 34 species of wild orchids, out of the possible 41 species in Indre et Loire. The whole of Centre, with area roughly twice the size of Wales, has about 60 species - compare this to about 50 species in the whole of the UK. Many European species are chalk loving. Without even trying, we saw 8 species of orchid during our week there in May. We discovered by chance that the hill behind Chaumussay is an orchid hotspot, but we only needed to step out of our own back door to discover one species.

The ridge at Chaumussay in February

The mystery 'lilies' in our garden have turned out to be Lizard Orchids Himantoglossum hircinum - I was secretly hoping they would be orchids, and I hope M Galland doesn't squash them too fatally when work on the roof starts. They were not actually quite out when we left, so I had to remove and dissect a flower from one of the spikes in order to be positive. They have an extraordinary long 'tongue' (the lizard's tail, I suppose). In French they are Orchis Bouc or Loroglosse à odeur de bouc ('bouc' is 'buck', which means that their French name translates as something like Billy Goat Orchid, so guess what they stink of?).

I bought the excellent local orchid field guide Les Orchidées du Bassin de la Claise Tourangelle by Christian Mouline, and discovered that the Lizard Orchid is one species that has a high concentration in Preuilly - they clearly happily self-seed in peoples' lawns. They are quite tall and robust as wild orchids go - the ones in our garden are a good 30-40cm tall, and they can grow taller.

Monkey Orchid                                                                    Lizard Orchid in December












Chaumussay is the village on the Claise just downstream from Preuilly and on the limestone ridge behind, which has a dot on the grid map in the field guide for 13 species, we saw lots of Monkey Orchids Orchis simia (Orchis singe) - these get a big dot on the map at Chaumussay, indicating they are very common, Fly Orchids Ophrys insectifera (Orchis Mouche), a Narrow-leafed Helleborine Cephalanthera longifolia (Céphalanthère à longues feuilles), and Lady Orchids Orchis purpurea (Orchis pourpre ie 'purple orchid') - another robust species.

Fly Orchid                                                                            Narrow-leafed Helleborine












The hill behind Chaumussay is crisscrossed with paths to shrines, recreating Christ's journey to Golgotha. The paths are lined with Box Buxus sempervivens. Martine from Hotel l'Image had told us on our previous visit that Box is associated with remembering the dead, but I have not found out anything more about the connection.

In the other direction, upstream from Preuilly, we saw a slightly different group of species, on the mown road verge just outside of Bossay-sur-Claise, again on a wooded ridge. Here there were Common Twayblade Listera ovata (Listère à feuilles ovales - 'oval leaved orchid' - the English name is old English for 'two leaved'), Greater Butterfly Orchid Platanthera chlorantha (Platanthère verdatre or Orchis verdatre ie 'greenish orchid'), Monkey Orchids (which are just about ubiquitous - by far the most common species and to be seen wherever you go) and Man Orchid Aceras anthropophorum (Aceras homme pendu ie 'hanged man orchid' - more apt I think). The dots on the map indicate that there are 9 possible species on this site - but of course not everything flowers simultaneously, so we must visit regularly.

Common Twayblade                                                                Greater Butterfly Orchid

Having studied the field guide, it seems we have no orchids on the nationally protected list in the Claise Valley, but we have seen 2 of the species on the protected list for Centre (Man Orchid and Narrow-leaved Helleborine).

Lady Orchid                                                                                              Man Orchid












Military Orchids and Monkey Orchids are very closely related and can sometimes be very difficult to distinguish according to the books. Apparently the diagnostic for deciding which species you have is that the monkeys have longer willies than the soldiers.

Lady Orchid                                                                                        Monkey Orchid













The protection legislation states: 'In order to prevent the disappearance of threatened plant species and to enable the conservation of their associated habitats, it is forbidden, at all times, in Centre, to destroy, cut, mutilate, pull up, pick or pluck, hawk or peddle, use, put up for sale, sell or purchase wild plants or parts of plants of the species listed hereafter [and there follows a list of about 25 species of orchid]. The prohibitions against destruction, cutting, mutilation and pulling up are not applicable in the execution of current farming practices or exploitation of rural resources on land habitually cultivated.' (This is my own translation of the legislation and therefore cannot be considered definitive.)

Susan

[Note: this post has been edited to correct my original misidentification of some of the Lady Orchids as Military Orchids]

For more on orchids, please click here

The Church at Chaumussay

Election Results

For some reason this tickled my funny bone. This is the official notification of the winner of the French presidential election as given in Angles sur l'Anglin.

Simon

la Vie Prulliacien

We have just returned from a week in Preuilly. Once again we drove, and once again the car absorbed an awful lot of gear, including a 2 metre extending ladder.

We got to the house by 5.30pm, almost 11 hours after leaving home. Everything was in remarkably good shape, and the house didn't even seem to have become noticibly dirtier than when we left last time. Quite a feat, considering how large the hole in the roof has become. First stop was Intermarche (the supermarket) followed by Bricomarche (the hardware store). The weather was so pleasant (about 22c) that we had our dinner (a nice, fresh, meat and cheese laden salad, followed by strawberries) out in the garden.

One of the local lizards which join us for meals in the garden.

Sunday was spent cleaning, and tidying (as was the rest of the week, really) as until the roof is finished we can't really start on re-wiring or decorating. We did visit M.Galland to find out when we can expect the roof works to start, and he now says June. This means the roof will be off when my parents are in Preuilly. Hopefully. Or maybe even later, which I really do hope won't be the case.

As this was Susan's main holiday day of the year we didn't want it to be all work and no play, so we scheduled a half of each day for work and the rest being tourists. We had arranged with Liselle, a friend of mine from my days in Canberra (that's the capital of Australia, trivia fans) to visit for a couple of days. She arrived on Wednesday and threw herself into working on the house. While we worked upstairs stripping wallpaper, sweeping floors and making general improvements to the way the rooms feel, Susan was in the garden, using our new pick to fully uncover the cobbled area we found in the garden in February.

Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so we did some little trips around the area, visiting la Grande Pressigny, la Guerche, Chaumussay and Rouvray, taking time to look for orchids, for which the area is well known (more from Susan about this later). On Friday we went to Angles sur l'Anglin and the winery at Bossay. We also visited Loches for the Saturday marché, going on to picnic with our discoveries at Montrésor.

The Claise at Chaumussay

Liselle stayed at L'Image, which led to some interesting political discussions with Christophe (and because she speaks French , Jean-Michel as well). This was the week that Sarkozy was elected president, and the owners of L'Image hope this means that France will be made to work. Time will tell on that one - there is a lot of inertia to overcome. We are hoping it doesn't change France too much - but maybe at the moment that is just selfish.

Montrésor

We managed to eat at 3 restaurants this week; La Claise where we had pizza, L'Image where we tried to have a light dinner, but ended up eating far too much desert, and La Promenade, where we had the 18€ menu. While at La Promenade Liselle had some problem with the Visa card reader, later finding out (at L'Image, after they phoned their bank) that a lot of French businesses have been given new card readers, but few instructions in how to use them. There is an almost hidden slot at the side for cards which arent chip and pin. Once this is found, the card worked. I think this pleased her..............

On the way home Susan and I made a diversion via the aqueduct at Luynes.Next visit I will be travelling with my parents. I hope they love the area as much as Liselle did.

Simon

Yet more Roofs

It isn't a fixation, but when I was looking through photos I have taken in the 12 months since I first visited the Sud-Touraine theses roofs grabbed my attention. This was taken in June 2006 from our hotel window in Preuilly.

Jean Dufy

Place de l'Abbaye, Preuilly sur Claise (1940)

Preuilly sur Claise has it's own artist! Or at least it did for a while.

Jean Dufy was born in Le Havre in 1888, and in 1922 married Ismerie Coutut, who was born in Preuilly. The moved to Preuilly in 1939 and appear to have stayed there until 1948, when they bought a house in La Boissiere, a hamlet of Boussay. He lived there until his death in 1964. Both Jean Dufy and his wife are buried in Boussay.

Although I am not a huge fan of this style of painting, it would be nice to have a good print of one of his Preuilly sur Claise paintings in the house. So far the only print I can find is a painting of a vase of flowers.

Here is a catalogue of his works

Typically French

You still see adverts painted onto walls in France. It is one of those things that make it France, in my mind at least. I don't think there are any new ones, but plenty remain visible.

This one is on a wall in Loches.

Simon

Preuilly-sur-Claise; a mashup

Google Maps is getting to be real fun - and easily usable. I have created a mashup which shows some of the notable buildings and a couple of the views in Preuilly.

Just click on this link and it will open Google Maps in a new window, complete with clickable place markers.

Have fun!

Simon

Roofs

As we await the arrival of M.Galland I am becoming fixated with roofs. There are some beautiful roofs in France. This one is in La Guerche.

the Lavoir, Etableau

Many villages (and a lot of towns as well) still keep their lavoirs - the communal wash-house (laundry). This one in Etableau is on the smallest stream we have so far seen used for this purpose.


Simon

Our roof

M.Galland says he will be starting on the roof in May. As it is almost May now, I though I would post a photo of the roof from the inside. As you can see, it is all big beams pegged (rather than nailed) together

Moulin de Chanvre

A Mill typical of the kind we have around Preuilly. This one is on the road between Preuilly and Chaumussay.

In which we stay in the house for the first time

This was a long standing planned trip, partly in order to try put a little pressure on M.Galland (the roofer) to start soon.

We had booked on SpeedFerries, leaving on their first sailing of the new season. On the Monday before we left we received an email saying that the start of service had to be delayed, so we had to make alternate arrangements. Luckily I was able to book a ticket with Norfolk Lines, which is a longer journey (2 hours to Dunkerque, which also adds the best part of an hour to the drive) so all was not lost. The amended booking meant that we had to leave home at 3.30am in order to make our 6.00am sailing from Dover, which meant that by the time we arrived in Preuilly we had been on the road for 13 hours including a diversion through Rouen, a town which appears to have me totally jinxed.

Our first port of call was M. Bertucelli to check on the plumbing works, which we were assured were complete. This caused us to rush to the house, as the thought of having our own toilet was very exciting.

Arriving at the house, first port of call was to wonder at the new technology - a flushing WC. We flushed, and the cistern didn't fill up. I turned on the stopcock inside the house (which made no difference) so we moved outside to the external stopcock. This is a metre under a metal plate in the middle of our neighbour's driveway. I leaned into the hole to turn the water on......... and my mobile phone and hankie dropped out of my pocket into 6 inches of muddy water. I don't know if it was the sacrifice of my phone that caused the water to flow (could have been turning the tap on) but we now have tapwater and a flushing WC. Excellent!!

The next move was to set up our kerosene heater (donated to us from the junk left by previous tenants of our house in London). This meant a trip to Yzeures to buy fuel and various foodstuffs. It's always a pleasure to wander around a hardware store after driving for 13 hours...........

We had our first dinner together in the house, Vegetable soup, followed by bacon and beans and pastries for dessert. We weren't exactly warm, but the heater took the edge of what was to be a cold night.

It rained during the night, which meant our slumbers were accompanied by the sound of dripping water, but at least none of it entered the room we were sleeping in. We did decided, however, that we would erect our picnic tent/gazebo thing in the front room, and put the bed in there. This would provide us with a waterproof roof, and a lot more room so we could set up washing facilities. It also means that we can have our clothing in the same room we sleep in, making inter-room dashes in the cold unnecessary.

Friday was occupied with cleaning the front room, setting up the tent, moving the bed, putting a curtain over the space a door would normally occupy (and will, one day, occupy again). We also found time to visit M.Galland, the bank and the supermarket (and the hardware store). This set the pattern for the weekend - cleaning, visiting hardware stores, and plotting how we will proceed with the work.


The only real diversion came on Saturday, when we met the man from the dechetterie (the local dump, although it's more of a transfer station) whom our neighbours had organised to remove the piles of cuttings from our garden. He took a trailer of clippings to the tip, and we followed. He explained the system to us, and we trotted off to collect our own carload of stuff to junk. Most of it was "mixte", but we did have some glass, wood and cardboard which went in their respective skips, as did the old paintbrush cleaning mixture. As they say in the area; "Au pays de Descartes, je pense, donc je trie" (In the land of Descartes, I think, therefore I sort).

cowslips

We were amazed by how cold it was, considering how advanced spring seems to be. All the roadsides were covered in cowslips (coucou in French, the first of the wild primroses to appear) and the cherries and plums were blooming, as were the magnolias. Until recently, cowslips were big news in England, as modern farming techniques had destroyed much of their habitat. Thankfully they are on the way back in the UK, but we have never seen them in these numbers

On Sunday afternoon we rewarded ourselves with a drive in the country. as we drove on the road towards le Grande Pressigny (a trip we have done many times) I noticed, for the first time, the chateau at Etableau, a hamlet about 1.5Km from Pressigny. Why we have never noticed this before I can't say. It isn't as if it is small or anything..........

Etableau

We also saw a different view of the chateau at le Grande Pressigny, which makes it look like a cutaway from a Richard Scarry book.

Although it sometimes feels like we aren't progressing with the house, it is coming on peu en peu and we are getting a lot better idea of what it is we want to do with it, which is a lot better than acting before you've decided!!

Simon

Another French Classic

'nuff said!

The church at La Roche Posay

I have posted this picture just to show what the tower on the church at Preuilly used to be like. It was just a plain simple "Romaine" tower before it fell down at the end of the 19th century, to be replaced with the polychrome monstrosity that now graces it.

Simon

A French Classic

The Citroën 2CV, a French design classic. Designed in 1939 and in production from 1948 to 1990, it was capable of being driven across a plowed field without breaking any eggs in a basket on the front seat.

I would like one of these as a bit of fun. Maybe one day...........


The ad for the current Citroën is pretty good. The 2CV Parody is better........

A week spent cleaning

19 March 2007

I have just returned from 5 days in Preuilly on my own.

I had an email from my Canadian friends Don and Leslie, who were set to accompany a school group doing a "Canadian Battlefields" tour, to say that they would be visiting Paris, Rouen and Lille. I decided I would drive down to Preuilly, stopping off in Rouen on the way and we agreed to meet for dinner

A gratuitous picture of Rouen Cathedral
Rouen is quite possibly a pretty town. I hope the residents of Rouen like it, and can find their way around. I can't. I was so lost on Wednesday evening that I was beginning to doubt my own existence. The big problem as a tourist is that any map you buy or print shows road names. The street signs all point to places not shown on your map, but the street names are on metal plaques high up on building walls, and apparently painted over in 1935. This make navigating whilst driving nigh on impossible. I went around one roundabout 8 times. Once I went around it twice in succession, trying to work out which exit it was I had decided to take. 90 minutes later I was still lost. Then, heading the wrong way, I passed my hotel. This meant finding somewhere to turn around (almost impossible in a town that has trams). Still - I was only an hour late for dinner.

After dinner, I got (almost inevitably) lost again, heading towards Dieppe before finding somewhere to turn around.

Anyway..........

After a 4 hour drive the next day I arrived at the house in Preuilly. As soon as I arrived I decided I wasn't going to be staying the night. Even though it was midday I could see my own breath, and as I was recovering from a cold the chances of developing pneumonia seemed fairly high. Thus I booked into the Hotel L'Image for two nights.

After doing that I went back to the house and started work. I had taken a radio with me, so listening to the World Cup of Cricket on BBC Radio 4 Longwave I started to clean. This was the story for the next 3 days. 30 years of being uninhabited and uncleaned meant that just cleaning the surfaces was not enough. Everything had to be scrubbed a number of times, as well as treated with bleach. As we do not have running water yet I had to keep taking trips to the sports field to fill the 20 litre water bottle, which was not as much an inconvenience as it could have been, as the sports field also has a public toilet.

a kitchen then and now
As well as cleaning the kitchen I called into Bertucelli the plumbers to drop off the signed contract and find out when the work can be done. Although "yesterday" wasn't an option, after explaning that "Je n'ai pas une toilette" the urgency was understood and we agreed that the work would be done before Susan and I return at the end of next week. No more trips to the sports field then!!

To save on money I had bought a pair of small gas camping stoves, so I was able to use the kitchen for it's proper purpose. This was quite exciting, cooking and eating the first meal in the new house - even though by 7.00pm it was bitterly cold. By candlelight most of the blemishes of the years of neglect are blurred out and it looks like a real home.

I ended up staying at L'Image every night, as a beer or two after hours of sloshing bleach around was really nice. It also helped that they have heating and showers. I MUST contact Don and Leslie to tell that contrary to their suspicions, they didn't encounter the smallest bathroom in the world, but I do know where it is..............

I left Preuilly at 8.30 on Monday morning, pausing only in Rouen (to get lost - as is now traditional - looking for fuel) and arriving in Boulogne in time to do some shopping before heading to Calais for the ferry. Whilst shopping I discovered "Nectar de Rhubarbe" made by Les Vergers de la Feuille. It's a traditionally made, 1% alcohol, sparkling rhubarb wine, just perfect for lunchtimes. I have a feeling that if we can buy it locally it will become a staple.

Simon

Angles sur l'Anglin again

Another view of the ruined chateau at Angles sur l'Anglin

The church in Loches

This is the parish church of St-Ours, formerly the collegiate church of Our Lady. It was started in the 10th century and stands inside the old city walls of Loches. The church has an amzing polychrome roman gate - a painted archway to most of us - dating from around the time of the original build. Agnes Sorel (mistress of King Charles VII of France)is buried here.

This photo was taken on a beautiful warm May evening while we were watching the swallows and bats catching insects on the terraces leading to the old city.

Why France, and why Preuilly-sur-Claise....

We have been asked this question a number of times; parents, friends and stranger all want to know why a pair of Australians would move to London, and then 10 years later decide to move to France. I can't answer for Susan (I wouldn't be so bold), but the easy - and slightly trite - answer is "why not".

The long answer is more elusive:

We decided that we didn't want to be renting a house for ever in London, but we knew we could never afford to buy here without a massive mortgage. The trouble with mortgages is that they have to be paid back, and neither of us wants to be working for ever just to provide a roof over our heads. When we bought our houses in Australia, mortgage rates were over 16%, and the thought of exposing ourselves to that sort of stress was just too much.

We started our house hunt looking at places in the rest of England, but it quickly became obvious that no matter where we looked to buy here would involve a mortgage. We were considering Wales until we realised that we speak more French (in my case 2 words, in Susan's case quite a bit) than we do Welsh (none whatsoever), and we didnt want to be foreigners living in an enclave all our lives. We knew we wanted a garden where we could grow a lot of our own food, and do some sort of tourism based income generation.

The view from Preuilly-sur-Claise
I am not sure why we decided on central France, but all the properties we looked at seriously were in a band roughly following the Loire Valley. The closeness to airports with links back to London was a factor. The overriding consideration, though, was that we liked it first time we visited. It isn't an area you hear a lot of in the ex-pat press, but "the Loire Valley" has a ring about it. It has a really varied landscape (the only element missing being proper mountains), the big chateaux, working countryside, and Susan was excited by a couple of birdwatching reports she read about the Brenne Regional Natural Park.

When we first saw Preuilly it was with an estate agent when we went to inspect an old Boulangerie. That house didnt work for us, but the town held appeal. It isn't a tourist town, it is a proper small regional centre town, where people live and work. All the shops are there, and although there are some empty shops on the Grand Rue, it still feels like it has life in it. It helps that the people are friendly (although whether that is due to lack of a large ex-pat community of because of one we aren't sure), and seem interested in what we are trying to do. All the neighbours have stopped by to tell us we have a lot of work on our hands, but give the impression they are glad someone is trying to do it. There are some good restaurants nearby, some beautiful scenery (the rivers in that part of France are seriously pretty), lots of history.....

The Vienne river at Bonneuil Matours

Add on to that the fact we have found a house that appeals, and I think we have found our new home.

Simon

Another view of Montrésor

Roman Bridge

This is the "Pont Gallo-Romain" shown on the Michelin Map as just north of Loches. When you get there, it's a bridge, but no less impressive for that. Getting on for 2000 years old and still spanning a river, it isn't a bad piece of engineering.

Simon

Stencil, Preuilly-sur-Claise

In a previous life, our house was a grain merchant's. The barn was converted into a grain store, mainly by adding a massive amount of extra beams and bracing.

In a couple of places on the outside wall of the house there is a stencil, which we assume was meant to be applied to hessian sacks of grain. When we re-render the walls we are hoping we can retain at least one of these stencils as a nod to the house's history.

Simon

Le Lavoir, Preuilly sur Claise

A view of Preuilly from across the river. The small building in front is the public laundry. It's hard to believe, but this photo was taken in the middle of February.

The Marketplace, Pleumartin

Pleumartin is about 20km from Preuilly, and we travel through it every time we go to Poitiers. We have never seen the market here, so we don't even know if the covered market is used. It is very impressive, though.

The paperwork for the car

I spoke too soon.

Today in the post we received all the paperwork for the car transfer and our cheque back in the post.

It appears (I hope) that the person dealing with our paperwork in Tours has grabbed the wrong end of the stick and has started running.

What the letter is saying is that we need to complete all the paperwork needed to import the car into France. As the car is already registered in France, this would mean exporting it to the UK, doing all the changes necessary to make it comply to UK standards and then register it. We would then have to export the car from the UK to France, undo all the the changes done so that it can be registered in France again.

This appears unnecessarily complicated and costly. I hope a polite letter will solve this, as we have now passed our 1 month limit for doing this transaction.

Simon

Houses in La Guerche

Houses in La Guerche

La Guerche is about 10 Km from Preuilly sur Claise, and has a lovely small chateau. These houses appear to have been built into one of the outer walls of the chateau. The chateau itself is about 100 metres further on the right.

Simon

The Chateau and town of Loches

The Chateau and town of Loches

This was taken in March 2006, and probably will look no different in March 2056. Loches is about 35Km from Preuilly sur Claise, and has a really good Wednesday and Saturday Market

Simon

The Chateau at Montrésor

Montrésor is regularly promoted as "one of the most beautiful villages on France". It has a network of walking trails through the water meadows which give some great views of the chateau. This photo was taken looking up the main street.

Simon