La Fête de la Musique

Every year the whole of France celebrates the summer solstice with La Fête de la Musique. Every town and village will stage some sort of live music for the community tomorrow.

Les Débranchés last year in Preuilly -- an ideal choice for the event if only the weather had co-operated.

Last year the weather was cold (people were wearing overcoats!) and threatening to rain. Preuilly had a good three piece band who played jazz and blues, but the event was not a great success. I think people stayed home because it was outdoors and the weather was poor. It was a shame for the band and the organisers.

Fête de la Musique in the town hall square 2013, Preuilly-sur-Claise.

Let's hope this year will be better!

It is a blues band, starting at 7pm and there will be food and drink available. See you in the Hotel de Ville car park!

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A la cuisine hier: Chicken and spring cabbage soup, made with red lentils, celeriac, carrots and homegrown onions.

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Au jardin hier: The tomatoes are beginning to flower and those from the aged orchard neighbor are looking most robust. A few baby zucchini are beginning to form, and tiny little peppers. The beetroot and chard are looking excellent and we will soon be able to cut leaves from them. The celery is looking fine, but it's way too early to tell if it will turn out alright. The aubergine seem to be alright but are still being munched by something eating their leaves -- no flowers yet. The potatoes are powering away, with lots of leaves on thick stems, starting to flower. The 'wildflower' mix sown amongst the potatoes is also starting to flower -- just Californian Poppies so far, but a mystery pinky-purple thing not to far behind. I picked a couple of meals worth of broad beans, a few strawberries and a punnet of perfect Géant sweet cherries. That will be it for our sweet cherries this year and we ate the lot after dinner. The onions and garlic are just about ready to pull. Various berries have well formed fruit but will be a while yet before they are ripe. Plums, apples and pears looking good.

Cicadas Say Summer

For many people, especially in the southern half of France, the sound of cicadas buzzing in the trees is the sound of summer, and there is a saying il ne fait pas bon travailler quand la cigale chante ('it's no good working when the cicada is singing'). Even in the initially pathetic excuse for a summer that we had in 2013, the cicadas emerged on time in late June and zzzzzzzzed away. This year's summer has been fairly iffy so far, but yesterday I heard my first cicada, right on cue. During the warmer months I often hear them in the orchard, accompanied by the Field Crickets Gryllus campestris, but whereas I see the crickets every day sitting in the entrances to their burrows in the potager, the cicadas remain invisible up in the trees.

A female Tibicina haematodes (la Cigale rouge in French) photographed on a redcurrant bush in late June last year in a friend's garden in le Grand Pressigny. All the photos are the same species (and probably the same individual). This species is large, about 30 mm long.

Like so many creatures today though their numbers are in serious decline, especially in the south, where habitat loss due to vineyards being planted on large areas of the native garrigue is the main cause. There are about 20 species present in France, but only 2 or 3 are large, noisy and abundant. Like other true bugs, they suck sap from plants through a hypodermic needle like mouthpart. They are incapable of jumping, but can sit for hours completely still and camouflaged, their wings folded over their body pitched roof fashion. Only the males 'sing', producing the sound from an unique and elaborate system of 'cymbals' at the base of the abdomen. The males contract and release muscles connected to the 'cymbals' 300 - 900 times a second in order to produce the sound. To amplify the sound, their intestinal organs are pushed towards the tip of their abdomen, leaving most of their abdomen hollow and acting as a resonator. Each species has a different sound or pattern of buzzing. 

Their life cycle includes adults which can fly and nymphs which live underground. Once emerged as adults they have 2 - 3 weeks to live. In contrast, their life underground is of at least 2 years duration. Adults and larvae look more or less alike, with robust digging front legs and bristley faces. Since they are no use underground the wings remain vestigule and 'under wraps' until the adults emerge. The adults have very good sight, but the larvae are blind, although the eyes are there, behind a protective cuticle dome.

Females lay eggs inside plant stems or under bark. The larvae hatch as tiny things barely 1.5 mm long and head for the ground to bury themselves. Over the next couple of years they grow, moulting periodically as they outgrow their exoskeletons. They burrow through the ground looking for vegetable material to eat, their front legs excavating using their built in pick and shovel arrangement and their back legs pushing. They identify their surroundings using their facial bristles. They prefer dry soil, but when it is too dry and hard to dig they pee on it to moisten it and make digging easier.

After their 5th moult they spend 8 - 10 months in a sort of suspended animation, then another month preparing to metamorphise, changing from white to brown and green and positioning themselves vertically just a few millimetres below the surface of the soil. When ready to emerge as adults the nymph climbs above ground a short distance to split open the exuviae down the back. They are very vulnerable to predation by ants and wasps at this moment. After a few hours their exoskeleton has hardened and their wings pumped up and useable. Now they can fly to a nearby branch, sing and take their first meal of sap.

The males 'sing' to attract the females. Both sexes have 'ears' on the underside of their abdomen, very sensitive to vibrations and acting like sound mirrors. Once they have mated, the female will lay 30 - 50 eggs by inserting the very hard tip of her abdomen into a plant stem and depositing an egg.

Source: Biologie et Comportement des Cigales de France, M. Boulard, OPIE, 1988.

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French Expression: En déplacement = on a business trip. I learnt this expression when one of our winemakers used it to explain why they would not be available one day. Now I use it when I explain to our laitiere (milk lady) that we will be away with clients so I don't want her to leave any milk.

The Organ at Candé

This mahooooosive organ is in the Library at the chateau of Candé. It was made by the American company Skinner and is one of only a dozen or so of their organs still in working order. It is listed as a French national monument in its own right. The organ can not only be played by a musician seated at the keyboard, but it has rolls that can be inserted and turn it into a self-playing instrument. We've only seen it open a couple of times, so Simon took the opportunity to take a photo last time we encountered the technician servicing it.

According to one of the gardeners at the estate the organ can be heard several kilometres away! The pipes stretch up into the attic, so it packs quite a punch. I'm not sure it would necessarily be a terribly pleasant experience sitting in the library with someone playing at full whack.

The organ is yet another of the incorrigible Charles Bedaux's modern gadgets, installed in the 1930s to keep the glamorous household entertained.

A Visit to Chambord

 Me in a Rosalie in the grounds of the Chateau of Chambord.

We had a few days off in early May so decided to visit Bracieux and Chambord, to try out a restaurant there and check out the progress with the building works on the chateau. We had heard it was covered in scaffolding and wasn't worth visiting, but in fact the scaffolding made a relatively minor impact on our day. We hired a four wheeled pedal powered 'Rosalie' for €20/hour and set off round the grounds. Unfortunately for Simon, the pedals on my side stopped working after about 20 minutes. I thought the thing was rattly and noisy and would recommend hiring regular bikes or walking as a more peaceful way of progressing.

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Botany Outing: There will be a general botany outing on Saturday 21 June to see the notable plants of the Pelouses des Hauts de Bertignolles. Meet at 14.30 in Candes Saint Martin in the carpark on the left bank of the Vienne. Organised by the Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine.

Buildings in Bracieux

Bracieux is a town in the Sologne, near the Chateau of Chambord. There are some attractive buildings there, and some decent restaurants.

 A very spick and span looking timber framed house with brick infill.

 The covered market. Some elements are clearly 19th century, but others may be earlier.

 Covered market interior.

One Last Look at Uluru

When it rains the dark stain is the route the water takes to drain off The Rock and into a series of basins it has carved out for itself.

The Family Rocks

Me, my sister and brother-in-law walking the base of Uluru in April 2006.

Tulip Mania

If you didn't make it to the Chateau of Cheverny in April, this is what their 60 thousand tulips in the park looked like.

Horsepower in the Vineyard II

Claudette parked next to Vincent Roussely's delivery van at Domaine du Clos Roussely. The delivery van dates from the 1980s (!!) and has the same motor as Claudette (who is from 1956). The day we visited Vincent was having trouble starting the van and Simon was very pleased to be able to pass on a tip which helped.

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WWII Anniversary: The last cabinet meetings of the Third Republic of France were conducted on 12 and 13 June 1940 at the Chateau of Cangé in Saint Avertin (now a suburb of Tours) after the government  fled Paris.

Re-roofing a Tower

Last month we encountered these guys re-roofing a tower in Montrésor. The half cone shape had been formed with lengths of curved wood. The guy in the flat cap was engaged in rasping the surface smooth before terracotta tiles were fixed.

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Botany Outing: There will be a general botany outing to look at wild flowers of agricultural land and pond plants on Sunday 15 June. Meet at 10.00 and/or 14.30 at La Morellière, Saint Laurent de Lin, home of Dominique Tessier (I can provide a phone number if you require it). At Chateau la Vallière take the D749 towards Bourgeuil. At the Croix du Chêne Pilé crossroads take the Saint Laurent du Lin direction. La Morellière is about 1 km on the right. Bring a packed lunch (many people will bring something to share). People can come for either the full day, arriving at 10 am, or half a day. If you are just coming for the afternoon arrive by 14.30, or get there an hour or two earlier and join the group for lunch.

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French Expression: Désormais = from now on. This seems to me to be a somewhat formal word, the equivalent of 'henceforth' in English, although in more mainstream use (journalists use it both in writing in the newspaper and spoken on the television).

Elderflower Syrup

Two years ago I had the idea I might like to make elderflower champagne, but common sense got the better of me, and last year I made elderflower syrup at this time of year when the elder trees were nicely flowering.

The substantial Elder Sambucus nigra in our back yard when we bought the house.

Elderflower syrup is easy peasy, and does not involve having to check the bottles every day.

Ingredients:
10 - 15 elder flower heads
Zest and juice of 4 lemons
500 g sugar
500 ml water

Method:

1. Strip the flowers off the stems and mix into the lemon zest and juice in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Put the water and sugar in a saucepan on high heat, stirring until it goes clear and boils.
3. Allow this simple syrup to boil rapidly for a minute then pour it over the elderflowers.
4. Cover the elderflower mixture and set aside to infuse for several days.
5. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag and bottle the resulting syrup. Keep in the refrigerator.
6. To make into a refreshing drink, mix with fizzy water in whatever proportion is to your taste.

The drink is really a glorified traditional lemonade, but you can tell it's got elderflower in it. The flowers give it a floral fragrance and an extra citrusy note that is more orangey than the lemon. Of course, you need to collect your flowers from somewhere pollution free. I got mine from trees along the bief (millstream) in le Petit Pressigny. Choose heads with flowers that are freshly opened and have plenty of pollen.

The recipe makes just under a litre of syrup.

I had an interesting experience a few days after making this last year. I was wine tasting with a client at Chateau Gaudrelle and was really struck by how much their sparkling Vouvray Brut Millesimé 2011 reminded me of the elderflower syrup I'd just been making. After spending a few days with the aroma filling the kitchen and pantry, my brain immediately and automatically made the connection when I first put my nose in the glass of wine.

Yum

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French Expression:  Au fur et à mesure = as it goes along / as and when. For instance, if you have a buffet, people can serve themselves au fur et à mesure. The expression indicates something happens slowly, progressively, gradually, evenly. A lot of the time it just means 'as'.

The Offal Butcher

At Loches market there are many butchers trucks. They sell the usual beef and lamb, a couple sell horse and goat, some specialise in poultry and rabbits, others in pork. This one specialises in offal. Not just tripe as the name suggests, but feet, heads and innards of all sorts. As you can see, there is a queue for his products.

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French Expression: Valoriser = to add value to (either by developing something or by educating people so that they hold something in higher esteem). It is often used by heritage and nature conservation organisations as one of their missions.

Mum at The Rock

Here is my mother taking a break at Uluru in April 2006.
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French Expression: Gaspillage = waste. I'm hearing this word a lot lately in the media, in relation to food waste (gaspillage alimentaire). In this sense perte (= loss) is synonymous, and my aged orchard neighbour often gives me things that he says would otherwise be perdus (= lost). I don't recall him ever using gaspillé (= wasted).

In the Cave Like a Wave

Standing in a cave at the base of Uluru, looking up at The Rock.
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French Expression: Quasiment = practically/virtually (in the sense of nearly). This is a word I hear often on the news and in documentaries (eg le lynx pardelle ne mange quasiment que des lapins = the Iberian Lynx eats virtually nothing but rabbits). A peu près means the same thing (as in à peu près parfait = practically perfect).

Carpet Beetles Beware

Although small (only 5mm long from head to tail) the flutter fly Palloptera muliebris is distinctive and easy to identify. Not only are their pretty tortoiseshell banded wings unmistakable, but their behaviour is odd enough to make you notice them.

It is not uncommon to find them inside, marching along an invisible grid pattern on a wall, gently waving their wings and turning abruptly at right angles every 10 or 15 cm, as though doing some sort of drill.

Until recently it was assumed they came inside by accident, the way some hover flies do. So little is known for sure about their lifecycle that entomologists are just guessing, but there has been a suggestion that they may be predators of carpet beetles. This would mean the flies are coming inside deliberately, to lay their eggs so that their predatory larvae can hatch near a ready supply of food.

So, my advice if you see one of these flies in your house -- just let it get on with whatever it is doing (and check under your oriental rugs for woolly bears). The presence of a predator usually indicates a good population of prey.

Botany Outing to the Pelouses des Grandes Fontaines, Bléré

Botanists looking at grass.

On Sunday 18 May the Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine met for an outing at the Pelouses des Grandes Fontaines near Bléré. The main objective was to see the limestone grassland orchids, but like all limestone grasslands, there are many other special plants there.

Adonis Blue butterflies Polyommatus bellargus were abundant on the site. This one is female.

It's quite a big site (70 ha), on two dry rolling slopes with a depression cutting through the middle that is much wetter due to the presence of springs. These springs, which feed a small stream called the Herpenty, also supply the town of Bléré with its water, thus the site is protected by the local authority to maintain the high quality of the water. As a nature reserve the site is not fertilized and it is forbidden to dump any sort of waste there.  The plants and soil bacteria on the site help purify the water that falls as rain into the system, by filtering out for their own use such pollutants as nitrates, phosphates and organic material.

This abundance of plantlife is growing in soil only a few centimetres deep. The underlying limestone breaks through in patches (eg on the left) allowing you to see just how thin the soil is.

These dry grasslands weren't always in such good condition. They have undergone a period of carefully managed natural regeneration. They will always have to be managed if the grassland is to remain. The natural succession is for bushes and scrub to take over. As a consequence the site is mowed and grazed (by sheep and horses) as appropriate, and the invasion of scrub is kept to a minimum. Thus the grassland offers a sanctuary to many species that are threatened or have disappeared from other places. It is rather similar habitat to the Puys du Chinonais that the club visited two years ago.

A Green-underside Blue butterfly Glaucopsyche alexis -- an exciting new species for me and a chalk grassland specialist like the Adonis Blues.

Brome grass dominates the dry limestone grassland which was once used as pasture, before the days of intensive arable farming in the area. On one side of the site there are hundreds of Pyramidal Orchids Anacamptis pyramidalis. My friend Jean, a formidable botanist, commented to me that this protected species, which is a species more commonly encountered in the south, is extending its range and increasing in abundance because it favours dry slopes such as motorway embankments. Orchid seed is so light the turbulence created by passing vehicles can carry seeds as far as 50 km to establish new colonies.

Amethyst Broomrape Orobanche amethystea, a parasite of Field Eryngo Eryngium campestre, seen here clearly associated with its host. This was another exciting first for me. Broomrapes are notoriously tricky to tell apart and this one could easily be confused with Common Broomrape O. minor.

One of the other members of the club told me a great story, nothing to do with the site. He lives next door to the pharmacy in his town and in France people are encouraged to take fungi to the pharmacist to be identified and pronounced safe to eat. Paul, my friend, happens to be a fungi expert, so the pharmacist often calls him in to confirm an identification. He says that its got to the stage where locals are not just bringing in fungi, but all sorts of natural history for identification. The other day he was called in to identify a mating pair of Great Peacock moths Saturnia pyri. He doesn't mind -- he's retired, he is pleased people are interested enough to ask, and he got some great photos.

 One of the many Pyramidal Orchids on the site.
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French Expression: Oui s'il vous/te plaît = yes please. This is the expression to use if you want seconds of dessert or more to drink. Saying 'oui merci' will likely get you passed over as 'yes thank you' doesn't exist in French, having been interpreted as meaning 'thank you, I've had sufficient'.

Incoming!

Simon shot these pics of a Starling coming in to its nest in a plane tree in Chanceaux près Loches earlier this month.

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French Expression: C'est comme ça = that's just how it is (shrugging is optional).

Media Scrum, Candé, 3 June 1937

Click on this rather unpromising looking image and it will take you to the British Pathé website and a video of some rather random images of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's wedding day. You will see French gendarmes strolling about, cameramen lurking in the shrubbery desperate for any glimpse of activity at the chateau, journalists along the roadside waiting for the action to start and scenes of Monts as it was between the Wars. Briefly, at last, you get to see Wallis and Edward and their hosts Fern and Charles Bedaux and the crowd of locals waving the happy couple off. There is no sound track, it's 8 minutes and 20 seconds long.

Of course, all this media and public attention was nothing compared to what the Duke and Duchess would have excited had they got married where they had wanted to, where most of their glamorous friends lived (or at least, played), on the Riviera. However, apparently George VI put his foot down. It was bad enough that his selfish irresponsible brother had abdicated his responsibilities to marry a twice divorced gold digging commoner, but to have the wedding turn into a media feeding frenzy on the fashionable streets of the Riviera was too much. The wedding must take place somewhere out of the way and unknown.

Luckily for them, their acquaintances the Bedaux owned the ideal place, hidden away in the hopelessly rural profundity of the Touraine Loire Valley.

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Cheese Fair: The annual Foire aux Fromages will be held Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 June in Sainte Maure de Touraine.

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French Expression: Moi non plus = me neither; moi aussi = me too.

The Nature of the Touraine Loire Valley in June

Sunrise 6am, sunset 10pm.

Hawk Moths will be on the wing. The most commonly seen is the Hummingbird Hawk Moth Macroglossum stellatarum, but there are several species that you may encounter. The confection in pink and mustard (below) is a Small Elephant Hawk Moth Deilephila porcellus, photographed in our backyard last year. The name comes from the resemblance of the caterpillars to an elephant's trunk, not because the adult moth bears any likeness.

Newly fledged baby birds will be sitting around in gardens looking vulnerable. This one is a young Black Redstart just outside our back door on the day it fledged from the nest in our graineterie.

If you are lucky you might get to see a cicada, but mostly you will just hear them. This one was lurking in the redcurrant bushes at a friend's house in late June last year. It's a female Tibicina haematodes (la Cigale rouge in French).

Average maximum temperatures should be in the low 20°s and average minimum about 16°, with more than 200 hours of sunlight for the month.

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French Expression: Pile-poil = spot on/within a hair's breadth.

Wind Sculpture

The action of grains of sand blown in the wind has formed these sweeping sculptural shapes at the base of Uluru.

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French Expression: De bon matin = first thing/bright and early. 'Bonmatin' (good morning) as a greeting doesn't exist. One always says either bonjour (good day) or bonsoir (good evening), depending on time of day (and that's another question to wrestle with -- at what time of day should one switch to bonsoir...)

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Orchard News: I am delighted to report that the Pyramidal Orchids Anacamptis pyramidalis have doubled their numbers to 5 plants this year, in 4 spots in the orchard, quite spread out. My botany club friend Jean reckons that Pyramidals are increasing their range and distribution in France due to their propensity for turning up on autoroute embankments. The turbulence from vehicles is carrying them ever further, and he thinks the nearly microscopic seeds sometimes travel 20 - 50 kilometres in this fashion before landing and starting a new colony.

As I suspected would happen, we have lost all the crop from our Burlat sweet cherry -- they dropped from the tree or the birds ate them before they were ripe. I doubt we will fare much better with the others as they ripen (Burlat is always the earliest). The sour cherries will make up for it to some extent though.

I've picked this year's supply of grape leaves for dolmades and have pickled them in brine ready to use.

The white Ebenezer onions are starting to go to seed and the garlic is nearly ready to pull. The potatoes are thriving, looking most lush. Some critter has been eating the aubergine leaves -- I would suspect Colorado beetle, but the potatoes haven't been touched (however, Edouard told me ages ago that the doryphore has gourmet tastes, and will always go for aubergine in preference to potatoes -- they are the same family). Slugs or snails have eaten the melon seedlings, but the cornichon and zucchini don't appear to be to their taste.

Looking Into the Cave

I assume this cave in Uluru has been formed by the action of the wind.
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French Expression: De bon poil = chirpy/chipper/in a good mood; en forme = in good health.

Chambord Under Scaffolding

This year the Chateau of Chambord is undergoing a facelift. When we visited a few weeks ago it looked like they had completed the left hand side of the roof and there was scaffolding on the central lantern. The cleaned stone is a lovely creamy colour.

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French Expressions: Bobo, which is a contraction of bourgeois-bohème = trendy middle class urbanite; BCBG, which stands for bon chic, bon gout (or sometimes genre) = stylish, with good taste (and from a 'good' family/well brought up). You can also have bon chic, bon ton which means the same thing.

Horsepower in the Vineyard

 The other day we visited Domaine de Clos Roussely, the organic vineyard run by Vincent Roussely above the small village of Angé on the Cher. To our delight there was a pair of draft horses working amongst the vines. They were ploughing between the rows to rip up grass and wildflowers which were getting really rank. 

The vines are 3 weeks in advance of normal due to the unusually mild spring. The advantage of using the horses to weed rather than a tractor is that the horses don't damage the tender growth on the vines. They also cope better when the lush weed growth tangles up the plough.

 Jean Pierre and Urbani, a 4 year old Belgian, come striding down the slope.

Vincent never tires of reminding people to look around. He points out that the valley is rich, there are crops, woods, fields with animals, vineyards  He sees it as one of his responsibilities to show visitors the biodiversity, maintaining it and valuing it, and to encourage people to take the time to admire this extraordinary natural wealth.
 

He also sees his mission as improving the reputation of Touraine wines. He reminds us that it isn't that long ago when they were just considered table wines, but now they are good quality. He's just won the new Touraine Chenonceaux classification for this parcel of sauvignon blanc, which he hopes will help when competing against major appellations with a long and well known history.

This is what the vineyard looks like once the horses have finished. The vegetation is controlled mechanically rather than sprayed with herbicide. Biodiversity benefits, and therefore the grapes benefit. The ploughmen and their horses will visit the vineyard several times during the season.

 Urbani poses for a portrait. He is a thoroughly aimiable beast.
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French Expression: Rouler à toute allure = flat strap/full pelt.

Jamming the Classics

Here is a video Simon made of the Bouchon du Blanc (heritage traffic jam in Le Blanc). It was organised by the Teuf Teuf Club, and was very well attended and run. Everyone had to register prior to the event and send a cheque which covered snacks, lunch and drinks (€30 a head). Those of us participating in the scenic drive around the Brenne prior to lunch were told to turn up at the Parc d'Expositions in Le Blanc between 8.30 and 9.30 to get checked off the list and pick up an info pack with details of the route.

The soundtrack on the video is entirely 'natural'. The music you hear was coming from loudspeakers parked on the back of a vintage truck in the centre of town.

The group of around 100 cars was split into two and each half set off in opposite directions. The idea was to minimise traffic disruption on narrow rural roads by having a circuit which some people did clockwise and others did anti-clockwise. We went anti, out through le Blanc, Rosnay, past the Top Secret Submarine Communications Base, through Le Blizon, Le Maupas and Le Temple, ending up at the half way point, La Gabrière, where we parked up and enjoyed rillettes, terrine and boudin noir doled out from the back of two vintage trucks and washed down with wine. At this point a couple came up to us and introduced themselves. They were Chris and her husband, who live nearby and had come out to see the cars. They read the blog and recognised us!

Ensuite, reprendre les véhicules pour continuer cette ballade ! Then, back in the cars to continue the circuit!

Past the étang at Le Gabriau and through the lieu-dit Le Bouchet, where the Maison du Parc is situated, into Douadic then back to Le Blanc for lunch. It was a most scenic drive and our motorcycle outriders who were there to ensure no one got lost were thoroughly competant.

Lunch was a buffet of salads with charcuterie and chicken thighs, followed by cheese and green salad, then strawberry tart. Musicians were on hand to entertain with lively songs and half a dozen particularly impressive vehicles joined us in the hall. These included the vintage police and fire vehicles, still registered to the local gendarmerie, but living in the museum and in full working order. They were attended by enthusiasts dressed for their role. I didn't see a single real policeman for the whole day. All the traffic direction was managed by re-enactors. Charmingly, when the musicians played a popular dance tune, a couple from the table behind us spontaneously got up and danced. I love the way this happens at French gatherings.

Once coffee was out of the way, the real business of the day commenced. The 'policemen' nipped off on their vintage motorbikes and vans to get into position in the middle of town. Then the rest of the participants followed, with numbers swelled to about 150 cars. We did a sort of figure of eight until there really was a traffic jam in town, just like the days when those travelling down from Paris to the Mediterranean met those travelling down from the mountains towards the Atlantic coast on the first day of the summer holidays in 1965. Very soon old vehicles (including Claudette) were over heating and pulled over on the side of the road with the bonnet up. Everything came to a halt, people abandoned their vehicles and went and had a beer. A huge crowd had gathered by this time, so the centre of Le Blanc was heaving. None of the photos give you a sense of how many people were there, but seriously, it was jam packed! The photos also don't give a good idea of how people dressed to match the era of their car.

After an hour or so of extremely good natured traffic jamming, vehicles were asked to park normally, and more beer was consumed. Then around 5pm, it was broken up, with some people going home, others heading back to the Parc d'Exposition for a pot d'amitié (friendly drink). We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and think the concept is brilliant.

Look Out for Ground Beetle Larvae

I think this...

...will turn into this (or something very like)...

Now is the time you might see larval ground beetles in the garden. The one above was photographed in our orchard in early June last year and the adult only a couple of metres away from the same spot in September. Large larvae like this are the gardener's friend, being voracious consumers of slugs and snails, just like the adults.

I think the species is Violet Ground Beetle  Carabus violaceus.

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Botany Outing: There is an orchid and general botany outing on Sunday 1 June to les Coteaux de Sainte Maure. Meet at 14.30 in the carpark at des Passerelles in Sainte Maure (formerly the parking for the 4 routes). Organised by the Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine.

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French Expression: Si cela vous convient =  if that suits you (as in 'I'd like to come over on Thursday, if that suits you').

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Heritage Traffic Jam: The Bouchon au Blanc on Sunday was terrific fun -- more than 150 pre-1970s cars making mayhem in the centre of Le Blanc, just like the good old days when everyone set out on their holidays on the same day and those going south met those going east-west at Le Blanc. Simon did a quick post about it yesterday and more will come when Simon has prepped the movie and the photos and I have time to write it.

We popped in to the polling booth on our way to Le Blanc and did our civic duty at the Europeans.

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Latest Buzz: Some of you may have noticed reports of a Harvard study a couple of weeks ago claiming to have definitive proof that neonicotinoids are the root of all evil when it comes to bee health. Once again we have a study which has been uncritically picked up by mainstream media because they can catastrophise about the future of bees and humanity in a way that their readership has come to expect. If you are interested in such matters, please read this critique of the study, which points out some fairly obvious flaws in the science. I do not wish to sound like an apologist for neonics, but seriously, although they are not helping, they are not the main problem, and no credible bee researcher would link them to colony collapse disorder. Honey bees are mainly suffering because of varroa mite, and bees in general are suffering because of habitat loss, which means that they starve. Canola flowers are all very well, but their season is short and with intensive farming there are no crop margins to take over feeding the bees. Basically, if you are not concentrating on habitat loss you are just fiddling at the edges of the problem for wild bees and honey bees are a domesticated animal and there is a husbandry issue with them.