A New Window on the World

On Friday the new lintel was installed above the office window. Yesterday we installed the new window, which annoyingly and typically, is about 1cm bigger all round than the old.

This was achieved with a lot of dust (when isn't there dust, I ask myself) by cutting back the bricks around the frame and removing another course of brick at the bottom of the opening.

Next thing to do was line the opening with some wood we just happened to have lying around the place, which was screwed into place.

Once that was done and squared to Stéphane's satisfaction the new window was slid into place, and the frame screwed to the wood lining the hole and the lintel.

All that was then left to do was make a new sill in concrete to bring the wall up to the bottom of the window.

The new window opens easier than the old window, closes a lot easier than the old window, and forms a barrier against wind and rain - something the old window had ceased to do aeons ago.

Simon

Glimpses 14

This is a Loire River Barge, taken from on high on the walls of the chateau of Chinon. The photo is slightly distorted because it has been taken through an old glass window.

These barges were built upstream, and then in spring they were filled with goods and sailed to Nantes or Saint-Nazaire. There not only were the contents sold, but the boat was sold as lumber. Then the owner would return home (presumably by foot or cart) and build another boat.

Simon

The Glanvilles Settle in for Winter

For butterflies to survive the winter they have to hibernate, or at least seek protection. A few, like Red Admirals and Peacocks, hibernate as adults, clinging to walls inside barns and garden sheds and hoping not to freeze. Some hibernate as eggs, hidden deep within the larval food plant, and others as pupae, ready to hatch at the first hint of nice weather in the new year.

A Glanville Fritillary butterfly feeding on Wild Oregano
Origanum vulgare (or l'origan in French) in August.

A few don't actually hibernate, but spend the winter as caterpillars. When it's warm enough they munch their way through a leaf or two, but if it gets very cold they go dormant until the freeze is over. Of course, they don't go about in the open in the middle of winter. They huddle together in groups, protected by leaves and a web which they produce to keep the cold and predators out.

The inside of a Glanville Fritillary butterfly 'creche'
(rather a lot of caterpillar poo!)

The Glanville Fritillary Melitaea cinxia (la Mélitée du plantain in French) is one species that overwinters as a caterpillar. They are common in our orchard, and when I was mowing the other day I accidentally disturbed one of their 'nests'. It gave me the opportunity to photograph the inside, with caterpillars in several stages of development. I covered them back up again as best I could and hoped that they can repair the web.

Glanville Fritillary.

Glanville Fritillaries produce two generations a year and lay their eggs in clusters on the underside of Plantain leaves, where the caterpillars hatch out and live communally in their homespun silk nest. When the caterpillars are mature they are red headed, but young caterpillars are pale ochre with dark heads. You can see both in the photo above. The young ones greatly resemble the plantain flowers in the spring. The species seems to benefit from traditional agricultural practices, as the nests are often found in fallow land and along rural tracks where the roadside vegetation is full of plantain.

Adult males often sit with open wings on these dirt tracks, or on the tips of grass seed heads. They are assertive, agile and rapid flyers, and quite agressive to one another.

Susan

Lintels

... or a lack thereof.

I mentioned yesterday that we are now working on the office, and we are replacing the window therein. This has thrown a curve ball at us, and although it is a problem we could do without, I am glad we noticed.

The old bathroom, sans tiles, temporary shower,
walls, and something very important..

Yesterday morning Stéphane removed the last of the tiles from the old bathroom wall, only to discover that the window has no lintel. This means that the window, complete with its 2mm thick old glass, has been structural and holding up 10 courses of brickwork

Neither of these windows have a lintel.
The old bathroom is the upper window

This meant we had to cut out a course of brick above the window, and replace it with a piece of solid wood. Luckily we have the piece of poplar that was previously the lintel to our old back door, so this was cut to fit and reused.

Cutting out the bricks. More dust.....

By lunchtime we had removed half of the bricks and slid the lintel into position (on the diagonal) and then cut out the rest of the bricks.

Stéphane says it's fun to stay at the YMCA

After lunch the rest of the bricks were removed. the lintel inserted and chaux'd in place. On Monday we start building a frame for the wall and tying the bricks back to it (much in the same way we did with the garage earlier this year). This is necessary because the brickwork isn't tied in to the older part of the house, giving us in effect a brick curtain wall that doesn't attach to anything.

The lintel being cemented in place

This has meant that insulating and wiring the office will take at least two days longer than we planned for, but I like the reassurance of knowing the wall is less likely to fall out one day.

Simon

Milestones

Yesterday we cleaned up one room, and started making a mess in another.

Finishing the wall between the bathroom and its
walk in wardrobe with lightweight concrete blocks

All the walls, floor, wiring, insulation and pipework is now finished in the attic bathroom, and Patrick starts doing the joints on Monday. This means that by the end of next week we hope to be painting in there. After that we have to tile the floor, and we can get the plumber back in to install the bath.

Looking towards the wardrobe from where the bath
will be. You can see the dust hasn't settled.

Immediately after sweeping the floor in the attic, we started work in what will be our "nerve centre". The room which was previously the bathroom and then our temporary bathroom will become a small office space, housing our main computer and all the other things that can clutter up a desk. From here we will have a wired network into three other rooms as wifi doesn't work well with metre thick stone walls (and I don't trust it anyway).

Before we could even consider starting that, we had to demolish the temporary shower and remove the old tiles from the wall. This created more mess, but we are used to mess...

I have also painted our new back door. It is now the same colour as the old door was, and I think it makes quite a harmonious blend with the rest of the building. The paint works really well on the exotique wood that BricoDepot and Lapeyre use for their doors and windows.

Which is just as well, because yesterday evening we bought a new window for the ex-bathroom/office as the old window is completely dead - the wood has rotted away and there is no putty around the glass. We bought the window at BricoDepot, in what is becoming a bit of a household tradition: rushing out to buy bits and pieces at 5 in the afternoon because we suddenly remember the hardware shops are open until 8.30pm

Simon

A Temptation

On days like this, the thought of
endless sunshine is really tempting.

Which is why I am toying with

the thought of this

That's right: 2000km (1,200 miles) in two weeks in a classic 1953 Traction Avant travelling across desert to the Atlas mountains. The map is here.

I don't think we will do the trip next year, but these are fairly regular occurrences, and the thought of Saharan sand dunes viewed through Célestine's windscreen is really tempting.

Simon

The Gift of Literacy

Susan mentioned yesterday that I had been inspired by a recent dose of Tintin comics - which isn't true: I haven't read a Tintin comic for at least two years.

I have, however, joined the bibliothèque as part of my birthday present from my parents. This is part of my attempt to learn myself French. There doesn't appear to be any point trying to teach me French as it doesn't seem to go in, and anything that does go in goes out again almost instantly. If I can learn it without noticing it might stick, so I am borrowing books and trying to read them. The pictures help, and I can borrow a whole series of Bandes Dessinés (comic books), which count as one book.

Not a Tintin book to be seen

Membership of the library is 15€ a year, and I can borrow three books, one CD and one DVD at a time. I forgot to ask how long I can have the books for, so I will have to trot out some mangled French (which the very nice librarian lady works hard to understand) and ask.

Bandes Dessinés are extremely popular in France (and Belgium) and are seen as just as valid as "proper" books. They range from Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix to reworked classics and serious history. In January the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée is held in Angouleme (in the Charente) and attracts about 250,000 people every year.

Simon

The Château de Cheverny: Magnificent and Authentic

Probably our favourite of the big châteaux on the tourist route is Cheverny. It's 17th century, so later than its rivals, but it has one great drawcard, quite rare amongst historic buildings, and particularly so in France. A major part of the interior decorative scheme is exactly contemporary with the building. Added to that, the building was completed in a single phase, and the result is a harmonious and classical exterior with a lavish and unrestrained interior.

Henri Hurault, the general and financier who built
Cheverny in the reign of Louis XI.

Henri Hurault, the man behind the creation of the building itself, looks a chirpy sort of chap, rosy cheeked and a bit mischievous. In fact, he was presumably rather a scoundrel, as the château was seized as punishment for his fraudulent activities. Henri II presented it as a gift to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. Practical businesswoman that she was, she promptly sold it back to Hurault's son. Thus, remarkably, with the odd hiccup here and there, it has stayed in the family ever since. The famous pack of hounds all have the 'V' of Vibraye clipped into their flanks and the current owner is the Maquis of Vibraye, a title the family acquired in the 19th century. In the corridor off which the private apartments are accessed hang numerous portraits of family members through the ages, all of them seeming to have inherited Henri's amused and benign expression. It is very appealing.

The richest and most sumptuous of the rooms open to the public is the King's Bedroom, hung with 17th century tapestries made in Paris and depicting the story of Odysseus' return from the Trojan War. On the highly ornate ceiling are paintings of mythological subjects by Jean Mosnier, an artist from Blois who is responsible for all the ceiling decoration and wall panels in this part of the château.

The King's Bedroom, with me gazing in
wonder at all that gilding.

The fireplace in the King's Bedroom
(la Chambre du Roi).

And if that wasn't enough, the Château has two more major attractions. The first is the pack of hounds which are on full view to visitors. They are big dogs and although most of the time just enjoy being together, there is a fairly constant jostling for position and rank to remind you that these are pack animals.

Plus, in a building near the kennels there is a museum dedicated to the Adventures of Tintin. Cheverny served as the model for Moulinsart (Marlinspike Hall) in the much loved comic strip.

Simon, inspired by his recent dose of Tintin comics,
has created this homage.

Susan

L'Art et Lard at le Petit Pressigny

Yesterday was the Fête d'Automne in the nearby village of le Petit Pressigny, home to our stone mason and our nearest Michelin starred restaurant. The festival has a well deserved reputation as being a cut above the average. Stalls selling artisanal foodstuffs in the market place are combined with artists displaying their work in gardens and barns all over the village. Le Petit Pressigny is tiny, so you can easily visit all the artists on foot, then come back to the market for a bite to eat. We opted, as we did last year, for pizza made by the people at the house on the hill, cooked in their 19th century wood fired bread oven. Then we had freshly pressed apple juice and some pâtisserie.

The view from behind le Petit Pressigny, looking out over
the valley it nestles in.

I discovered this elephant in a garage. It's not one of the

exhibits and it's not in a room.

Jacky Dallais' Michelin starred restaurant La Promenade, below. A 'two course' menu (which is actually entrée, main, dessert and amuses bouches) is €40 and the wines start at €19. It's extraordinarily good value.

We ran into quite a few people at the event, so it was pleasantly social.

First was Keir and her husband and their Bearnaise Mountain Dog, Grace. Keir is a blog reader who lives in the next département and recognised us from the blog although we have never met before. She had read Jim Budd's reminder that the event was on and remembered our report from last year and thought this might be a nice way to spend the day, especially as Grace doesn't like gunshots and Sunday is hunt day in Loir et Cher.

Then Sweetpea from the Village de Vaux blog, who was there on her own as husband Captain Sensible is away organising new windows for their current renovation project. Bloggers Tim and Pauline were next on the scene and we discussed the identity of a swarm of black and yellow flies they've been having. After that, Nicole and Alex, who run a gite complex and gardening business. Alex did our apéro terrace and back garden, as well as repairing our front courtyard with reclaimed cobbles.

There was Angélique, who runs a mobile organic grocery service, Madame and Monsieur C (he's on the council and they are both lovely people), our stone mason Monsieur Douady, Parisian acquaintances Anne-Marie and Bertrand (she observed that there was a lot of English being spoken in the street and she felt a bit like she did when they were in America, as she doesn't speak any English at all) and just as we were leaving, our neighbours Christine and Guy.

Susan

RIP Solomon Burke

Wine Making for Dummies.

At I understand it, wine making is really easy:

First you grow grapes, then pick them when they are ripe. Once they are picked you squash all the juice out of them. Traditionally this is done with the feet, but most people use a machine of some sort now.

Squeezing the juice from the grapes

It's not ready yet

After that you store the juice at a mildly warm temperature until it goes alcoholic.

The musts (grape skins and pressed flesh)
are used to fertilize the vines

Then you stick it into barrels or metal tubs until it develops some flavour. This is apparently the bit you need to be an expert to do.

Wine available to be bought "en vrac" (in bulk)
Take your own plastic container

At any time from this point you can drink it.

Perhaps you understand now why Susan doesn't let me make wine and we instead buy it from experts. These photos were taken at the Simoneau winery, Domaine de la Rablais at St Georges sur Cher, where Carine and her family are the experts and make really tasty and interesting wine. She took time out of a hectic day of picking and pressing to show us how they make their wines, which was extraordinarily generous of her.

Simon

The Tomb of Agnes Sorel

Susan wrote a while ago about Agnes Sorel, and a couple of years ago we mentioned she is buried in the church of St-Ours, in that part of Loches which is within the medieval walls.

Until Tuesday I have never managed to take a photo I was happy with of the effigy on the tomb of Agnes Sorel. Now I am happy.


Simon

Autumn Colours

Back in November 2008 Susan wrote about autumn leaves.

Well - it's that time of year again: here is the view from the Logis Royal in Loches, taken on Tuesday.

And while you're here, some music. To rock fans of a certain age, this will be very scary.

Simon

Montrichard

Montrichard is a really pretty little town on the north bank of the Cher River. We have driven through a number of times, but never remembered about stopping until we had missed the opportunity to get a good view. I think the problem is that you dont get the real impact of the view until you are on the quite narrow but very long (and busy) bridge - and by then it's too late!

On Monday we were working in the area: in the morning we had visited Chaumont in the pouring down rain, and in the afternoon we were at Cheverny and the weather was improving. By the time we reached Montrichard on our way back to Chenonceaux the weather had brightened considerably. As we were heading in the opposite direction to which we normally travel, I was able to cross the bridge, then park looking back at the town.

Montrichard from across the river.

The chateau in Montrichard is another originally built by Foulkes Nerra (discussed here and here) and dismantled in 1589 by Henri IV. It looks properly imposing and medieval, which is always a good thing.

The Chateau

The Bridge across the Cher

We have never stopped in the town itself and explored, which is a pity. The chateau looks well worth visiting, the streets narrow and old (and some are pedestrian only) and there are some large but interesting restaurants lining the quay, which for some reason always reminds me of a seaside resort. One day we really must make the effort and explore properly.

Simon

The Wildlife Photographer at Work

Simon photographing a female Adonis Blue butterfly.
Can you see her in the middle foreground?

The grass around the prehistoric monument known as the Chillou du Feuillet is cut short and is full of wild thyme. This is ideal habitat for a number of species of blue butterfly, and the day we visited there were quite a few Adonis Blues Lysandra bellargus (in French le Bel-Argus) present. The males were busy pushing and shoving each other out of the way, and the females were busy laying eggs. They were so occupied it was easy to get up close for photographs.

Here she is, abdomen bent down to deposit an egg on the grass.

Susan

Gathering the Nuts

A homegrown almond, still in its shell, with the leathery outer
pulled off behind.

Of course, the nursery rhyme is gibberish, with its talk of gathering nuts in May. Various dodgy theories exist to explain the words, but whatever those children were being encouraged to gather, it was unlikely to be nuts in May (and 'here we go gathering nuts in late September, early October' doesn't scan).

The rest of the almond crop, laughing at me from the top of the tree.
The black dots at the tips of twigs (and there's more of
them than you'd think) are the almonds.

I am working on gathering our small but interesting enough to bother with almond crop. Commercial harvesters use tree shakers, but they must be considerably more vigorous than I can manage, because after shaking the tree as hard as I could, not a single almond fell. They are clearly ready to pick, as the fleshy outer has leatherised and split. I did succeed in knocking down 3 directly with a long stick, but the rest are too high. I'm going to have to lug the ladder down there and have at them again with the stick.

Fallen hazelnuts.

No such problems with the nice, well behaved and productive hazelnuts, although I was beginning to think they were never going to ripen. The trees and husks show very little sign of yellow autumn colour, but they have all just fallen off the tree and on to the ground overnight, leaving me merely to rake them up. Simon and I will spend the winter cracking boxes of nuts in front of the fire. It doesn't seem to be a problem to share them with the squirrel, and we don't get too many weevils.

The trees are still green, but the nuts are ready to harvest.

We have a sack full of walnuts to shell too. They are not from our trees, but from our neighbour Edouard. They are last year's, but I assume will still be perfectly fine in baking and suchlike. Our own trees, hit by the late frost at the crucial moment, have about two nuts between the 7 of them.

Our two walnuts for this year are in this picture somewhere.

Susan

Les Chemins Blancs

Throughout the Touraine there is a network of tracks, giving public access to forests, agricultural land and riverbanks. These tracks are unpaved, and often hundreds of years old.

In Australia they would be called dirt tracks, but here they are les chemins blancs, because the calcareous rock and soil they are made from is white. Much of the famous pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, which runs through Tours, is via chemins blancs. Occasionally you see them referred to as les pistes blanches.

The sign says 'A white track. It's also rural heritage.
Respect it! Motorists - drive slowly!'

The term seems to be a quite specific and descriptive one. There are also chemins herbeux (grass tracks) and chemins forestier (forest tracks). In some places, where the soil is different, the chemins are rouges, not blancs.

They are very popular with mountain bikers (les vététistes in French, from vélo tous terrains or VTT) and in September every year there is a 30km night bike ride known as la Piste des lucioles (the firefly trail) from Mont-près-Chambord, so called because the riders career through the forest lit only by head torches.

Susan

Last Minute Feasting

Many places are reporting huge numbers of swallows and martins moving through, coming from the north and heading south for their winter homes in Africa.

Swallows and martins feeding over our sour cherry trees.

A couple of days ago I was surprised to see a large mixed flock of Swallows and House Martins concentrated over our orchard. They were, in the parlance of my childhood, 'going mental', hurtling from one side to the other, flittering at tree top level and sometimes even landing in the cherry trees - I'd never seen that before!

There are at least 5 swallows actually in the tree,
and the cloud of flying ants is clearly visible.

As I got closer, approaching by way of the haymeadow in front of the orchard, I realised there were huge swarms of flying ants. I could see columnar clouds of insects that hung in the air about a metre above the ground at the bottom, and snaking up above tree top height. I'm guessing they are either mating swarms or swarms of males, but I don't know enough about this group to identify them. I've asked an expert contact, but may have to wait a few days for an answer.

This is the quarry.

Clearly the swallows and martins were stuffing their faces as fast as they could. These sorts of swarms don't last very long (a few hours maybe) and those little birds need all the food and energy they can snap their beaks around if they are to survive the trip to Africa.

Susan

Poster Campaign

Simon has designed some lovely posters for Loire Valley Time Travel and we will be sending them out to friends and family all over the English speaking world to promote the joy of coming to France and seeing the Loire Valley with Célestine.

Poster 1

We hoped that our readers, even if we don't know them personally, might be happy to put up one or two posters as well. We are thinking of workplace noticeboards or at the college where you take your French lessons, or anywhere else people who are planning a trip to France might see them and be encouraged to book a day trip with us.

Simon has done 3 designs - one based on our logo (which Simon also designed) and two based on illustrations from an original Traction Avant owners' manual. Our favorite at the moment is poster 2, so that's the one we have made available for download so that it can be printed using an ordinary home printer. There are 4 versions of the design, each with different phone numbers so that people can contact us and not worry about the cost of a phone call to France. We have Canberra, Connecticut and London numbers in addition to our French number, or people can go to the website and email us.

Poster 2

You can download the posters from the following links:

Australia poster

Europe poster

North America poster

United Kingdom poster

Once the poster has opened in a new window right click on the image, "save image as" and download to your computer. You can then print the image using your computer's print program.

Poster 3

Let us know if you have managed to place a poster (especially if you've found somewhere really inspired) and Célestine will be pleased to show you a few of the sights around Preuilly the next time you are in the area. Let us know also which of the designs you like the best - if you want one of the other posters email us and we will send you a link to it. If you have any problems with this please let us know.

Susan

Things to Look Out for in and Around Preuilly in October

Crane migration: the cranes will be making their long trek back from Scandinavia down through France to winter in Spain. You can follow their progress on this website.

Ceps - the damp but still relatively warm autumn is the peak time for edible mushrooms. Look for ceps in pine forests, where they live in a symbiotic relationship with the conifers.

Looking out towards Bossay from Preuilly on an autumn day.

Saffron - the crocus which produces the expensive spice should flower and be harvested this month.

The dominant roadside flower will be the pale Yellow Toadflax Linaria vulgaris (la linaire commune).

Saffron flowers.

Birds of prey will be very visible - merlins, hobbies hunting linnets, sparrowhawks, buzzards and harriers chasing young away.

Anniversaries: one year ago we got our fireplace. Now we have insulation, the fire should heat the whole house.

Making apple juice at l'Art et Lard.

Fête d'automne - Le Petit-Pressigny's L'Art et Lard food and art festival on 10 October from 10:00 to 18:00. Come and wander round the village, into private gardens to see a wide variety of art work. There's a gourmet market, kids' workshops, trout fishing, an apple tart competition, and several options for lunch.

Susan