A Real Milestone for the Blog

One of the reasons we started this blog was because eventually we will live full time in Preuilly and the Blog is a way of letting people get to know us. They can see that we care about our house and its history and we care about Preuilly and life in the area.

We've been really pleased by the number of local people who at least know about the Blog and approve, and some even read it every day. We do have quite a few regular and loyal readers too, from other places in France, Britain, North America, Sweden and Australia, which is very rewarding.

Perhaps the most rewarding of all is that sometimes people contact us by email* to tell us that they spent all their childhood summer holidays in Preuilly or had their wedding reception in a nearby château or are restoring a house in the Loire Valley like us.

Recently Mike and Cally Vaile emailed us to say that they had two watercolours by an English artist called John Louis Petit (1801 - 1868). The paintings are dated 1858 and marked 'Preuilly'. They are clearly of two churches, a subject matter that Petit tended to favour. (He was an Anglican minister, but never did any parochial work. His personal income was sufficient that he employed a curate who undertook all the parish duties, and Petit spent his time travelling and painting.)



It took Mike and Cally several years to work out which 'Preuilly' the paintings depicted (there are at least five towns in France called 'Preuilly'). Twelve months ago, unbeknownst to us, they came through town on a miserable cold dull day, and easily identified the subject of one of the paintings as l'Abbaye de St Pierre, but they could not figure out the subject of the second painting.


Eventually, their search lead them to our Blog. Following the initial contact, Mike sent photographs of the paintings and after an hour or so of trawling through our photographic archive, Simon spotted that the second painting was of Notre Dame des Echelles, and that we had a photo taken from virtually the same place as where Petit must have positioned himself to paint the building. (Petit always painted en plein air – and as a consequence died of a chill caught whilst out sketching – how romantic a Victorian cliche is that!)


Meanwhile, I had emailed Mike's photos to Bernard de la Motte, President of the Historical/Archaeological Society of Preuilly sur Claise and he came back to us, confirming that the second watercolour was Notre Dame des Echelles. He was very excited. Both paintings show the churches before significant alterations took place in the late 19th century.



In the case of the Abbaye, the original Romanesque tower partially collapsed and was re-roofed in 1867, in the Burgundian style with a tall peaked roof of red and green tiles. It is both garishly coloured and out of proportion in comparison to the rest of the building. Even in Preuilly's official literature it is described as 'ill-advised' or 'in dubious taste'.

The alterations to the Abbaye are reasonably well documented though, so the really exciting picture is the one of Notre Dame des Echelles. Bernard does not know of any other image which shows Notre Dame des Echelles with its clocher (bell-tower) in situ (except for a general view of the town which shows it tiny and distant) and prior to Mike emailing us, Bernard was unaware of the Petit paintings' existance.

Mike and Cally let us know that they would be coming through Preuilly again in late August. They arranged to meet Simon and Bernard, with a view to bringing the paintings 'home'. They very generously offered them to Bernard at the price they had paid for them originally. (Indeed, Preuilly is not the only French town to have benefitted from the Vaile's generosity in this way. They had bought a portfolio of Petit's paintings from a dealer who had got them from the artist's family, being themselves primarily interested in the pictures of Dover Castle in Kent. There were also a number of paintings of Caen, a town in northern France that was almost obliterated in the Second World War. The Museum of Normandy was delighted to take pictures that in many cases showed buildings that no longer existed.)

Petit's paintings are very detailed, and in extremely good condition (no fading, no foxing) and, we believe, a very accurate depiction. Bernard is 'sur un nuage' (on a cloud) following his acquisition. He tells me that the bell-tower was probably added to Notre Dame des Echelles when it was restored in the 15th century. The bell itself is the oldest in Preuilly, and still exists, in a not dissimilar clocher, atop the Mairie!

Bernard, like us, is amazed at the series of coincidences that lead to the creation, rediscovery and 'return' of these paintings. He says: 'Que dire par ailleurs de ce merveilleux concours de circonstances: découvert par des amis australiens, d'un couple d'anglais ayant acquis des dessins d'un peintre anglais ayant passé deux jours à Preuilly...en 1858 par hasard! C'est une merveilleuse histoire.' He will be documenting the paintings and their significance in the next issue of the Cahiers de la Poterne, the journal of the Société Archéologique de Preuilly.


We are very proud to have played a part in this story – indeed perhaps to have made it possible at all. This is the first real tangible benefit to the community of Preuilly-sur-Claise that the Blog has produced, and that is a great feeling.

Susan

*You can email us privately by going to our profiles, where there is a link to our email address.

(The photographs of the watercolours are by Mike Vaile. Note that they are covered by a protective film.)

Hay !

When my friends Rick and Helen were in Preuilly sur Claise, Rick was amazed by how much hay a small field can produce. In Australia during a drought hay is a very expensive commodity - as anyone who has owned a horse can attest.

So just for Rick a photo of some hay, now that the crop is in and under wraps.

This haystack was photographed near Chambon;


This is not, however the largest haystack in the area - and I am guessing that neither of the following (on one farm on the road between Preuilly and la Roche Posay) are the largest in the area, either.

Simon

Convolvulus Hawkmoth (Sphinx du Liseron)

Bringing in the washing in Preuilly is often an exciting wildlife experience.

A few weeks ago, I had to flick a Scutie (House Centipede Scutigera coleoptrata) off a pair of Simon's underpants before unpegging them. Since he has been bitten once by a Scutie, resulting in a very painful, swollen and purple finger, he blanched at the thought of what might have occurred had I not noticed the beast.

A couple of days ago though, he was engaged in the same domestic task and found something much more appealing clinging to a tee-shirt.

The Convolvulus Hawkmoth (Sphinx du Liseron) Agrius convolvuli is a large and very beautiful mottled grey moth, that appears in the late summer-autumn having migrated from Africa. They occur in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, but not America. They can be seen in the evening hovering in front of long tubular flowers, extracting the nectar with their exceptionally long tubular 'tongue' (much longer than their body!) – rather like the Hummingbird Hawkmoths I wrote about a few weeks ago. They are called Convolvulus Hawkmoths because their caterpillars feed on Field Bindweed Convolvulus arvensis. They don't breed very much in Europe though.

Simon got some really good photographs, and I was struck by how much like a fighting bull it looked from head on. When I looked it up to find out what they were called in French, I discovered that I am not alone in this impression – one of its French names is le Sphinx à cornes de boeuf! The beautiful patterns in its 'pelt' swirl and the 'hair' sits in different alignments just like in mammals, where the fur follows the muscle configuration. (Its other French name is the same as the English – 'liseron' is the French for 'bindweed'.)

With a wingspan of 80 - 120 mm (and generally over 10 cm), they are in the top three biggest moths that you could see in Preuilly. The Giant Peacock Moth is bigger, but the Convolvulus Hawkmoth's more common cousin, the Hummingbird Hawkmoth is only a quarter the size, at 40 - 50 mm across, and would be lucky to make it into the top 10 size-wise.

Don't forget to click on the images to bring them up bigger in a new window, to get the full effect of the patterns.

Susan

You call this Summer?

It has been a strange summer this year. Talk to anyone in France and they will tell you how poor the weather has been.

Yet, strangely, it hasn't rained all that much in Preuilly since June.

For sure every day lately, at about 11.00am it looks likes it is going to rain. Sometimes it looks like it is going to storm like it has never stormed before. Last Sunday at 10.00 it looked like the final apocalypse was going to arrive in the shape of a thunderstorm. I even got in the car to take photos of how dark and dramatic the storm was looking over the autumn landscape.

Not only did I not get any photos because the clouds had started to break up, but by 4.00pm it was as clear as a bell.

The storm that never was

This has played havoc with my painting regimen.

Last year I sanded back the oak windows in the house. The two windows downstairs were given two coats of undercoat and two coats of topcoat and look beautiful. The windows upstairs, however, were just rehung as is - reglazed and sanded, but unpainted.

In May this year Susan's mother gave them a first undercoat, but having an almost continual stream of guests ( not TOTALLY just an excuse), more pressing needs (like the front door and its associated leaks) and failure to guess what the weather was going to do has meant that the windows have remained unpainted - until now.

Yesterday morning I decided to risk painting the windows. The weather started clear but cool, so I started painting. The paint was a bit thick, but I decided it wasn't really a problem. Then I decided it was a problem and a dash of white spirit was needed to dilute it.

I had no white spirit, so I wrapped the paintbrush in clingfilm, closed the can of paint and drove to Gamm Vert, our nearest garden/hardware store (actually in Preuilly itself). Being Monday morning, they were shut. This meant that I had to drive to Yzeures and Bricomarche which I did. On the way back from Yzeures it started to cloud over. This was an annoyance, but as I had started, I was going to finish.

This meant that at 12.30, when all good Frenchmen were eating their lunch, I was still painting with my now beautifully dilute paint - and getting increasingly concerned about what the weather was going to do.

After tidying up and having lunch (during which I managed to get more tomato soup on my painting clothes than I had paint) I decided to take advantage of the approaching storm.

I did a hand wash.
Anyone who has hand washed any amount of clothing will know that the main problem is rinsing the soap out of the cleaned items. My method of coping with this is to wash the stuff, then hang it on the line in the rain.

Yesterday, as usual, it didn't rain. But at least the paint has dried.


Simon

An Ancient Monument

La Gargantua is a pleasant place for a picnic, sheltered all around by trees. Like many of this type of prehistoric monuments it sits on the promontory of a ridge. Probably it once overlooked the river valley, but now the trees block the view.

If you visit in the early summer, the skylarks in the fields either side of the track in to the site are performing relentlessly over the pasture, flying up and up and up, all the while sending out their (to my ears) rather raspy song, so beloved of English poets, then plummeting to earth with arched wings pulled back, tail erect, only to be replaced in the sky by their neighbour and rival.

If the weather is poor and picnicking out of the question, then you can do no better than to eat at La Gargantua, the little restaurant in nearby Charnizay. See my recent post about dining out with my coeliac brother-in-law for our own very positive experience (it's the little restaurant that was new to us).

Susan

The Boatbuilder's Yard

Up until the early 20th century, the rivers in the Loire Valley were an important link in the transport system, and there are many styles of boats unique to the area, often adapted to transporting quite specific cargoes.

One type of riverboat that you can still see are the small flat bottomed punts called barques. You can hire them in quite a few places and there are still a few workshops in the area making these boats in the traditional way. On the day Simon was passing this boatyard though, they were making a somewhat bigger river boat, probably to take small groups of tourists on short day cruises.

Although, given the seemingly never-ending poor weather, I did wonder if God had had a quiet word in the boat builder's ear...

Susan

Asterix Eat Your Heart Out

Out the front of Notre Dame de Paris is an imposing bronze statue of Charlemagne, mounted and attended by men with serious moustaches, in the sentimentally nostalgic and romantic style of the 19th century vision of Gaul. The statue is set very high on a massive pier, to add to its magnificent appearance.


I strongly suspect the costume designer for Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre modelled at least some of the wiley and courageous Gauls' outfits on the fine upstanding chaps in the statue, even though Charlemagne was several hundred years after the Roman's had given up and gone home.

I can highly recommend Astérix and Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre as a hilarious way to practice your French aural comprehension, by the way.

Susan

Buildings on the Market Place - The Dressmaker

Numéro 8, Place des Halles, Preuilly sur Claise has long had occupants selling goods that provide colour and fun in our lives. Now it is the shop window for the couturier Patricia Martin's workshop, but in 1920 it was occupied by a travelling showman.

According to Roger Lezeau, Monsieur Lechippre was, by vocation, a travelling salesman. He sold trumpets and tin drums and children's flutes (mirliton) made of cardboard decorated with ribbons of multi-coloured paper which ran onto the lips of the budding musicians, and many other things more marvellous still at all the neighbourhood gatherings.

His cry was, 'If you haven't seen Titi, you haven't seen the fair!' (Qui n'a pas vu Titi, n'a pas vu la foire !)

The preferred surroundings of Monsieur Lechippre were these festivals where one could ride on Lépine's merry-go-round with the barrel-organ that was decorated like a sultan and a sultana beating the measure to the sound of 'On the rolling sea, to the murmur of a perfumed breeze' (Sur les flots berceurs, au murmure d'une brise embaumée)...more often a flood of droppings from the goats that towed the merry-go-round.

But there wasn't a gathering every day, so between each of them Monsieur Lechippre stayed in his shop as if it were a penance. There he sold hairpins and combs displayed on cards carrying the words 'top quality' (extra qualité). He also sold squibs for 14 July and papier maché masks for Mardi Gras. He had 'sans état d'âme' three sons and two daughters. (I think this is meant to indicate that the children were either illegitimate or he did not have enough income to support them all properly - the expression means something like 'heartlessly' or 'without scruple'. One of our French speaking readers will no doubt help me out on this one.)

(Roger Lezeau's anecdote translated by me from his article in Les Cahiers de la Poterne, No34. Monsieur Lezeau was born in 1912 and is a great source of knowledge about the history of Preuilly.)

I assume Mme Martin is considerably more respectable than Mr Lechippre, but she too makes and sells items for dressing up and having fun in. I am looking forward to being able to place an order with her -- I see her clothes from time to time and like them very much (the simple but elegant wedding dress in this photo is quite plain and dull compared to some of her outfits, and I like a bit of colour and decorative stitching, me.)

Susan

And now for one of those neatly worded aphorisms (or maybe cod philosophy) that on first reading sound really good, but soon reveal themselves as utter tosh. Thanks to Wordsmith: Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations - Faith Baldwin, romance novelist (1893-1978)

Who are These People?

Big Black Beautiful Beetles

For some reason, there are some really big beetles in France. Many of the species also occur in Britain, but the French specimens are significantly bigger than their British brothers, and some species are particularly large, even for France, in the secret, mysterious and largely undisturbed patches of woodland in the Brenne. But you don't have to have privileged access to the nature reserves to see impressive local beetle species -- just step outside your door in Preuilly and check out the walls, bare ground and tree trunks around you.

Here is a selection of what you might see -- I bet you never realised beetles could come in so many different shapes:

Rhinoceros Beetle (Scarabée rhinocéros) Oryctes nasicornis - female. Well, alright, she's not quite black, but she is big -- about 35mm. I found her in the house in June. They are apparently very common in sawmills, as they breed in sawdust. Males have a much longer 'horn'.

Stag Beetle (le lucane cerf-volant) Lucanus cervus - perhaps the most magnificent of the big European beetles, this is a male. They are locally common, but more and more threatened, as they require standing dead wood in which they can spend 3-5 years as a larva. As a consequence they are protected in both France and Britain. They are very heavy and males are most often seen in this position, climbing a wall in the evening in order to launch themselves in search of females during May to August. They can be somewhat alarming in the air, as they fly with all six legs extended in a vertical plane with their body, and don't appear to have much steering or control. Simon and I have been 'chased' down the street by a very large one near our house, but this medium-large one was sitting on a wall near Jill and John's house in June. The size of this species varies enormously, and I have picked up especially large sets of antlers and elytra (wing cases) in the Bois de Las in the Brenne (not accessible to the public). All the French specimens I have seen are very much bigger than any I have seen in Britain.

Morimus asper - male and female. The female is big bodied with shorter antennae; the male is much smaller, but with enormously long antennae. They belong to that family of beetles known, for obvious reasons, as longhorns, and similarly to the Stag Beetles, are increasingly rare as they need standing dead wood to develop their larvae. We found this pair (and four of their friends) on birch logs in Haute Vienne in May.

Violet Oil Beetle (Méloé violet) Meloe violaceus - female, flightless, a parasite of bees (although adults eat the leaves of poisonous plants to keep up their supply of smelly, poisonous 'oil' which they can exude if threatened). Oil beetle larvae clamber up the tallest flower stalk they can find immediately that they hatch. They then hitch a ride on a visiting bee and get transported back to the nest, where they avail themselves of the nice warm home and the endless supply of free food. Once again, an increasingly uncommon species, but can be encountered quite frequently in the Forêt de Preuilly from April to July (this one is from June). Females are much bigger than males.

The Devil's Coach Horse (Le staphylin odorant ou 'le diable') Staphylinus olens - a large velvety rove beetle that hunts slugs and other invertebrates (I'm not quite sure what species the beetle victim is here). Like all rove beetles they are important processors of dead and decaying matter on the ground. Common in woods, gardens, outbuildings, hedgerows, from April to October. When alarmed it will raise its tail and look threatening, perhaps mimicking a scorpion. This one was on a track in the Forêt de Preuilly in July.

Dor Beetle (Bousier) Geotrupes stercorarius - Europe's largest dung beetle, often encountered on the forest floor or even in the street from April to October, but mainly a processor of cow dung, which it uses by digging a shaft under a cow pat and burying the dung which it then lays its eggs in. The larvae hatch to a ready supply of food. These beetles are the most brilliant metallic blue underneath, but it is almost impossible to capture this in a photograph. I found this one in the street in September.

Lesser Stag Beetle (La petite biche) Dorcus parallelopipedus - looks a lot like a female Stag Beetle, but has a much wider head, with no 'shoulders', and quite matt charcoal looking, rather than the 'polished mahogany' appearance of the Stag Beetle. Commonly found on oak woodpiles. Much more abundant than the Stag Beetle because it is much less picky about where it grows up -- Lesser Stag Beetles breed in rotting stumps. Once again the French specimens are significantly larger than the British ones. Adults are out and about from April to October. This one is from July in the Forêt de Preuilly.

Minotaur Beetle (le Minotaure) Typhaeus typhoeus - another dung beetle, this one is male and the species buries mainly rabbit droppings, but also sheep and deer, for the family larder. This one was photographed on the steps of the chapel at Chanceaux près Loches in May, but they are apparently mostly found in sandy places.

Susan

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

The American Museum of Art Garden at Giverny

There are two beautiful gardens with public access in Giverny. One is the garden of the French Impressionist artist Claude Monet, which is always packed and entry costs €5.50 per person. The other is the garden of the American Museum of Art, a foundation which aims 'to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of America's rich artistic and cultural heritage for the benefit of a diverse audience', and is free.

It is the American Museum's garden which is situated directly across the street from the carpark in Giverny, and I wonder how many visitors don't do their homework and believe they have visited Monet's garden, without realising that it is a 500m walk further down the street? It nearly fooled me, but I was puzzled by not seeing any of the views I knew from photographs and paintings, so eventually I resorted to reading the directions on the noticeboard.

Opium poppies and asparagus.

A nice mixed beech hedge underplanted with stachys. I'm a big fan of mixed hedges à la Hidcote, but in general, the French haven't got the hang of them. In the Loire I frequently encounter garishly combined reddish photinia, bright yellow euonymus and dark green laurel, planted alternately to produce a tricolor hedge. Hmmm...

A lovely pale yellow scabious, beloved of butterflies on a sunny day (which, sadly, this wasn't).

But the self heating bumbles were out, visiting the safflower.

A weeping pear encroaches on some water iris planted in a formal pool.

Susan

More Family Members Visit to Check Out What We Are Up To

We have just had my sister and her husband staying. They were our first proper guests, in that they stayed in the house with us, not at a hotel. They are used to camping, so the primitive bathing facilities, lack of running hot water and somewhat makeshift kitchen did not faze them.

They live in Australia, where Kathy works for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and John is an engineer in civil aviation, but they had been holidaying in Scotland. They flew in to Charles de Gaulle from Glasgow, then caught the train from CdG to Poitiers, arriving about an hour and a half before I did on the plane from Stansted, so that Simon only had to make one trip in to Poitiers to pick us all up. To fill in the time before I arrived, he took them to see Notre Dame la Grande.

Here they are a few days later, meeting one of the young Konik Polskis at the Réserve Naturelle de la Chérine. Because they were with me and I have permission to survey this paddock, they had the opportunity to come in amongst the herd, but members of the public normally have to restrict themselves to saying hello to the ponies over the fence.

After they left us they hired a car and drove down to Arcachon in Gascony for a few days, and now they are in the Dordogne, near Salat. I booked them into a chambres d'hôte (bed and breakfast) in Arcachon and explained that John is a coeliac (i.e. he is severely allergic to gluten, so cannot eat food made from wheat and other cereals). The hôte in question does not speak any English, and K&J do not speak French (apart from a six week crash course at night school to prepare for this holiday), so the arrangement promised to be interesting. All credit to the owner of the establishment though - he gave them a room which had its own kitchen so they could do their own breakfast. Kathy says the chambres d'hôte and the owners were lovely and they had a great time, although there was a good deal of 'je ne comprends pas' on both sides! They ate very well, including sampling the oysters that Arcachon is famous for. I assume the recent ban on their consumption due to the oysters absorbing the poisonous by products of algal blooms in the warm shallow waters of the Baie d'Arcachon is now over, perhaps because the weather has turned a bit cooler.

The painted tile panel at Tours station showing that Arcachon was once one of the destinations from this fine old station (now I think you have to catch the train for Arcachon at the other station in Tours, St Pierre de Corps).

We found that eating out with a coeliac in France was far less of a problem than we had anticipated. We ate at a restaurant where we are well known, another that we have been to often but are probably only vaguely recognised at best, and one small, bustling place that we had never eaten at before, in a tiny village, offering a set, no choice, lunch menu. In each case, the waiter took John seriously and suggested suitable menu items, sometimes dashing off to consult the chef just to be sure. Often it was a case of having a meat dish without its sauce. In the little restaurant that was new to us, this was slow cooked duck leg, which had produced a lot of its own flavoursome liquor anyway, and was just as delicious as the fully finished dish with its sauce slightly thickened and enriched with red wine. Nowhere was there any indication from the waiters that it was an inconvenience, but I did make use of the magic phrase 'pardon de vous déranger' ('pardon me for putting you out') several times.

K&J were a bit worried about how they would go once they didn't have me to act as intermediary. They had printed off some cards which explained John's condition (edited slightly from these ones so they were a bit less wordy) but were not really sure waiters would take any notice of them. Kathy tells me that once again it was no problem at all in Arcachon, so I hope that continues. It will be interesting to see what their experience in big bad Paris is, compared to little villages south of the Loire (i.e. comme chez les ch'tis - the sticks).

Susan

What M. Lezeau Said

M. Lezeau, a 96 year old local historian wrote to us a while ago and invited us to visit him in the retirement home where he lives, so last week we popped in. He is a real sweetie and delighted to see us, but said that he could only give us 10 minutes and suggested we come back the next day.

M. Lezeau senior was a hairdresser before he retired, and the family home, on Place des Halles, is currently for sale. I had been worried about understanding what he had to say about the history of our house, but in fact, he speaks slowly and clearly, so I had very little difficulty. He had considerably more difficulty with understanding us, as he is rather deaf. When we went back to see him, his son who speaks quite good English was there too, so things progressed smoothly.

M. Lezeau junior is 'in computers' and is a very jolly sort, joking and laughing with us and his father, who he called 'papi' (pronounced 'puppy'). We all got along famously. There was quite a few (perfectly good humoured) jokes about the English coming to reclaim their land (the Loire was long under the control of the English king, not the French). M. Lezeau junior also informed us he could tell we were not Americans because we didn't exclaim 'Oh my Gahd!' at every opportunity.* Two of M. Lezeau senior's grandsons teach at English universities (in Manchester and London), and he himself is a quarter English. His mother's father was English, but she grew up in Normandy.

M. Lezeau had very generously lent us his file on the granary, and by the time we saw him the next day I had read his notes and could ask sensible questions.

M. Lezeau told us that the Poupineau family had run a grain merchant's business from our property for at least three generations, originally as Poupineau-Bardon, then as Poupineau-Maurage and finally as Poupineau-Touchain. The front of the building is stencilled with Poupineau-Bardon Grains in several places, and we are told (by Bernard de la Motte, the President of the Historical/Archaeological Society) that the stencil itself is held by the local museum.

M. Lezeau says that only the middle opening at the front of the granary is original. It would have been a pointed arch, but the top of the opening has been truncated by a beam. I was quite surprised that the opening on the right is not original. M. Lezeau thinks it is an ugly opening, but actually, compared to mish-mash made of the opening on the left, it is extremely competantly done, and professionally finished. I think it must have been done a very long time ago (hundreds of years). The left hand opening is our front door and is very clearly not original.

At the back, the openings are more to his taste, and he feels are not only original, but of a style quite distinctly dating the building to the 13th century. The lintels with their crisply carved trilobe pattern are apparently the only examples of this style in Preuilly. Simon is in shock at this news - he thought the possibility of living in a 16th century building was responsibility enough.

It seems that there is a possibility that the building has always been a granary. M. Lezeau thinks the circumstantial evidence points to this. There is no evidence of subdivision of the interior; the floorboards are laid above what M. Lezeau calls a 'vide sanitaire'**; and the probable date of construction coincides with a time when the local seigneur was raising money for the king by means of taxes in kind. Thus the granary could have been a sort of secular tithe barn. Its position in the town also supports this theory. The main market place is just around the corner, and our granary may have acted as a sort of ancilliary to the 'halle centrale' (central market hall), which was not just the medieval equivalent of the shopping mall, but the administrative centre and law court.

The reason the seigneur, Geoffroy III, Baron of Preuilly, was busy gathering funds for his lord was that the King, Phillipe Auguste***, was engaged in defending the lands around Lille from the encroachment of Athon of Flanders and Anjou at this time. Athon*** was a crony of Jean sans terre (i.e. John Lackland - King John of Magna Carta fame). The French King hit upon the notion of calling upon the country folk as well as the more organised and wealthier townspeople to provide a militia, appealing to their sense of national pride. For the first time, a mixed army of volunteers and conscripts, cavalry and pikemen, went into battle for France.

So, whilst what we learnt about our property is all circumstantial, we did get a very interesting French history lesson, and met several more kind, friendly and charming French people in the process. Roger Lezeau's focus was entirely on the granary, and so he could tell us nothing about the house which is attached, and which we believe to be late 16th century (possibly earlier, according to M. Galland, our roofer, who felt that the arrangement of roofing beams indicated an older and once larger building).

Roger Lezeau has subsequently written to us again, giving us a little more history to help us set the property in context, and saying that he will add a postscript to his notes to include our purchase of the building.

Susan

*Whilst I have a certain sympathy with this remark, having seen busloads of American tourists in action, I should point out that the opinions expressed by people we meet are merely reported by us and do not necessarily reflect our own opinion...blahdeblahdeblah...you've all seen the riders at the bottom of emails...We have many fine American friends who seem to be able to get through entire weeks at a time without resorting to this particular exclamation, but if any of them are seriously offended, I hereby grant permission for them to refer to me, one time only, as an Antipoedean, which is an expression I particularly dislike.

**An architect friend who visited shortly after we had seen M. Lezeau said that the 'vide sanitaire' made sense, as it is a void under the building that ensures good air circulation. Above all, grain must be kept dry, and the 'vide sanitaire' (literally, sanitary empty space) is presumably a means of keeping the rising damp out of a stone building constructed before the advent of damp-proof courses.

***Wikipedia is reasonably informative about this period. Philippe Auguste is Philippe II of France, Athon must be Otton of Brunswick. Please don't take the history I have outlined above as definitive - I am merely repeating what I gleaned from Roger Lezeau's 'history lesson'. I may well have misunderstood or confused facts and episodes.

Two Really Big Things...

...that you can see at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Tours, for free, without even going inside the building:

The first is a very large Cedar of Lebanon in the courtyard, unusually well clothed right down to the ground, its lower most horizontal branches resting on the ground or on groaning props. It is impossible to fit the entire tree into one photo -- one simply cannot get far enough back.

Planted in 1804, it is about 31m high, 33m across and measures 7.5m around the trunk. If it were not in this enclosed space it would be even bigger, but because in time it would reach out to touch the museum walls, the branches are periodically pruned. Bad weather causes the curators to worry, as the branches will not stand the weight of too much snow, and there is already a great scar on its northern side caused by storm damage.

The second really big thing is a taxidermically stuffed Asian elephant. His name is Fritz, and he toured France with Barnum's circus. On 11 June 1902, he collapsed in the street outside Tours station, just as the troupe was catching the train to Saumur to put on a new show. Barnum, a consumate entrepreneurial opportunist, offered the beast to the City of Tours, pointing out that it would make a great tourist attraction if preserved (after all, Barnum was leaving town, and disposing of an entire elephant is a fairly time consuming and potentially expensive enterprise). They accepted and the elephant was sent to a taxidermist in Nantes tout de suite. Eleven months later he returned in triumph, transported up the Loire on the deck of a little steamboat.

His skeleton was preserved in the Museum of Natural History in Tours, but was destroyed when the museum was burnt down in the Second World War. According to the information board outlining Fritz's story, he was 80 years old and 3m high, with tusks 1.45m long and 5cm thick skin. His total weight was 7 750kg, with his skin alone weighing 1 100kg and each tusk 50kg.

Susan

Buildings on the Market Place - The Bank

Numéro 16, Place des Halles, Preuilly sur Claise is currently a bank, but in 1920 it was Boucherie Gaultier (Gaultier's Butchery).

According to Roger Lezeau, on summer afternoons Madame Gaultier senior used to come out to sit in an arm-chair on the pavement to digest her lunch, shoulders covered by a shawl (fichu).

(Roger Lezeau's anecdote translated from his article in Les Cahiers de la Poterne, No34. Monsieur Lezeau was born in 1912 and is a great source of knowledge about the history of Preuilly.)

Susan

Planting Saffron Bulbs

Now that I have created a garden, however much of a joke, it is inevitable that I am regularly tempted to put more plants in. My friend Jill, who has a beautiful little garden tucked away behind her house in Preuilly, gave me some irises. They are very tough and will be easy to move once we want to make the real garden, so they have gone in.

And on the first Saturday in July, M. Mériguet was in the market place, with his excess stock of saffron bulbs. He is largely responsible for the revival of saffron growing around Preuilly and the revival of the Saffron Fair. For the past few years, the third Saturday in February has been the date of the fair, when one can buy the dried orange stigmas for cooking and dyeing, followed six months later with a bulb sale on the first Saturday in July.

Saffron was once an important crop in several areas of France and an important source of tax revenue for the King. It was principally used as a dye stuff, but some was always destined for the pharmacopia or the kitchen. But by 1930, a series of hard winters, the cost of harvesting and processing by hand (it cannot be harvested mechanically), the exodus of the rural population to the cities, and the discovery of synthetic chemical dyes had finally killed off the industry.
M. Mériguet assures me saffron is very easy to grow and suited to the local soil and conditions. I bought 22 large healthy looking bulbs for €10 and planted them immediately (using the crowbar to lever a shallow hole for each bulb). M. Mériguet says they will flower in October, and multiply quickly.

Susan

Restaurant de l'Image in Routard

This year two restaurants in Preuilly sur Claise have made it into the Guide Routard Gourmand Centre Val de Loire. They are the Auberge St Nicolas and the Restaurant de l'Image. Routard is the infallible guide to un bon rapport qualité/prix (good value, good quality) dining relied upon by all smart travellers and visitors in France.

L'Image is run by the Chedozeau family and we dine there often. The entry in Routard says:

'Une sage institution qui doit son nom à une autre institution, catholique celles-la: Notre Dame. Pour ceux qui aiment bien manger, dans un cadre hors du temps, voici une adresse en or, avec habitués au bar à l'entrée, salle de resto aux papier peint et nappes rose (roses aussi dans les vases, et rose aux joues des convives)... Belle carte à l'ancienne et bonne surprises dans l'assiette. Des plantes, en rideau rouge pour séparer la salle, et dans un coin, un petit musée dédié à De Gaulle, entre autres. On croit rêver ! Restaurant de l'Image, 13 pl des Halles, menu 11€ midi, €17.50 soir.'

I translate this as:

'A venerable institution which owes its name to another institution, Catholic this one: Our Lady. For those who like to eat well, in a timeless tradition, here is an address worth its weight in gold, with regulars in the bar at the entrance, dining room decorated with rose coloured wallpaper and linen (roses too in the vases, and rosy cheeked guests)... A fine old style menu and nice surprises on the plate. The plants, a red curtain to divide the room, and in a corner, a little museum dedicated to de Gaulle, amongst others. It's like a dream! The Restaurant of the Image, 13 Market Hall Place, lunchtime fixed price menu €11, dinner from €17.50.'

We thought this was a charming entry and were really pleased for them, as they work incredibly hard and really deserve this nice review. Christophe, who works front of house, was typically off-hand about it, and grumbled that it would only lead to more work and they already have enough customers - any more and it is impossible for Jean-Michel, his brother the chef, to maintain the quality of the dishes served. He just rolled his eyes when he saw me copying down the entry in Routard.

Susan

(Picture taken by our friend Adrian.)

Sonner l'hallali

'Sonner l'hallali' is a French expression that means to announce your victory over (or your defeat of) someone or something. In its strictest sense it is the name of the call on the hunting horn when the prey is put to death. Like many of these sorts of terms, it is a contraction -- in this case of 'halez à lui !' (set after him! i.e. a cry ordering the dogs to go after the prey) and was originally used at the beginning of the hunt, not the end.


Its opposite is 'boire le calice jusqu'à la lie' (to drink the chalice to the dregs i.e. to suffer complete humiliation). As one of my 'learn-a-French-phrase-a-day' websites points out, there is a rather neat play on words going on here.

Susan

Not Sure This Was Quite What Led Zep Had in Mind*...

Simon came across this nun the other day. She was removing a tree from the river bank, which I suspect is stabilised by piles or some such, and having a tree growing through them probably weakens them. The convent is on an island in the river, in a village a few miles from Preuilly.

She is what is referred to in our household as a 'full-length' nun i.e. she is wearing a long veil and ankle length habit. This expressions comes from an occasion at Derby railway station in central England, when a friend grabbed me by the arm and hissed 'Look, there's a full-length nun on platform 7 -- that is so rare these days!'

This particular friend collects portraits of nuns. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was still surprisingly common for women from wealthy families to enter a nunnery, either because of a vocation or in order to retreat from the world for one reason or another. Their families often arranged for a portrait to be done, to hang in the family home. My friend's argument for collecting them is that they are often very fine technically, and sometimes by quite important artists, but because of the subject matter are largely ignored by collectors and neglected by the art historians. I went to see his latest acquisition last week, which he tells me may not be a real nun, but someone indulging in that other 19th century passion, dressing up. She certainly is very pink and pretty, so I am inclined to agree with him.

Full-length nuns and priests are not uncommonly encountered in France, out and about shopping for hardware in le Blanc, buying petrol at a motorway aire (service station); unlike in England, where you generally only see them in the confines of the cathedral close. It is one of those interesting cultural anomalies that in a country which is officially secular, nuns and priests are still part of everyday life, but in a country where the head of state is also the head of the church, to see a traditionally robed religious in the street is very unusual indeed.

In Australia, another type of nun will be remembered by anyone who went to a Catholic school -- the industrial strength nun -- those fearsome women who maintained discipline and standards in the classroom just by dint of a glance from their gimlet eye.

Industrial strength nuns must be closely related to battle nuns, and there are some fine examples of these portrayed at Fontevraud in the painted chapter house.

Susan

*For those of our readers so seriously uncool as to not get the reference, Led Zepplin are a legendary rock band, whose most famous song is called 'Stairway to Heaven'.

A London Lunch Hour

A couple of months ago I sallied forth from my office in the City of London, a rather grand looking building in the Baroque Revival style, erected by one of the great London Guilds in 1928 and now over-shadowed by the the Gherkin. My mission was to head across town to the City of Westminster, to the office of my old employer, and borrow a small piece of equipment that would allow me to check the moisture content of our French beams. Readers familiar with London will know that this outing actually just involves going Underground at Monument and emerging into the light again at St James's Park, a journey of 7 stops on the District line, taking about 25 minutes.

Having achieved my goal, and with the Protimeter safely tucked in my bag, I sat on the terrace of my old office building, chatting to ex-colleagues. As this was mid-May, the Household Cavalry were practicing for the Trooping the Colour and/or Beating Retreat ceremonies, giving us a free lunchtime show. This is one of the many things I miss about my old job.

Susan

PS The Protimeter results indicate that except for one corner of the barn, the moisture content in the structural wood of our house has finally come down to an acceptable level. The weather has been so wet for so long that even after the roof was fixed, the house has been slow to dry out. Even now we have to watch it carefully, but I think we are slowly, slowly getting there. Being able to install a heating system would help, but in the meantime, we are thankful for every sunny day that we can leave all the windows open.