Cleaning Tiles

I spent most of yesterday cleaning tiles, ready to reinstate the ceramic plinth in the salon. I had to remove between 8mm and 15mm of hard cement from a soft cement tile. This I achieved by using a grinder with a diamond cutting wheel and cutting the old cement glue off.

It was raining when we arrived at the house, and as cutting cement is a dirty, dusty job I set up a temporary shelter in the back garden. A bit of rope, and old tarpaulin, and I was ready to set up my equipment and start cutting.

It went better than I feared, the only real problem being cutting tiles to match the spacing of the floor tiles. Doing it with the grinder is a bit hit and miss, but I got one done. It looks quite good - certainly better than the rather haphazard job that was done previously.

I have yet to work out how to get around corners. If I had the right tool for the job it would be pretty straightforward, but I'm not that well equipped.

Today I am learning to do pierre apparent on the salon walls. I hope my back lasts...

Macaroons

Everyone today swoons over the colourful creations in fancy boutiques selling macarons in France, but the original macaron was more humble and rustic looking. That didn't mean it was cheap peasant food though. Originally they were made with a mixture of sweet and bitter almonds. Some poor baker's apprentice had to spend hours and hours grinding almonds into powder, and the sugar they contained was still an exotic luxury when macarons first graced the tables of French aristocracy.


It is widely believed that Catherine de Medici brought macarons to France. Sadly, her grumpy young husband loved the cakes, but couldn't stand her. Probably macarons in some form were already being made in high status houses and convents wanting to earn some cash. The first time they are ever mentioned in writing is around 1550, by that great gourmande, Rabelais. So I could claim that macarons come from the Touraine Loire Valley...although almonds do not do very well around here.

 

Almond blossom in our orchard. The almond is always the first tree to flower.

After the Revolution the south-west became the heartland of the macaron, where almonds do much better, and the museum dedicated to them is in Montmorillon. Today insufficient almonds are produced in France to meet the demand for macarons, and they are made with Spanish grown almonds. Controversially, one of the best known brands of macarons no longer even makes their product in France, but in neighbouring Switzerland!

 

Anyway, enough about macarons. Here is a recipe for a sort of hybrid macaroons. It is quite like the rustic macarons of old but with the addition of coconut, which we like for its texture. Macaroons are a sort of American version of macarons, but made with coconut rather than almond, and something any home cook can do.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
60 g / 2 oz /  ²/3 cup coconut
170 g / 6 oz / 1¾ cup almond meal
150 g / 5 oz / ¾ cup sugar

Beat the eggs, stir in dry stuff and mix well.

Turn the oven on at 180C (350F) and put baking paper on a tray. This allows the mixture to blend while the oven heats up.

After 20 minutes dip your hands in cold water and roll the mixture into 16-24 balls which you put on the tray and flatten slightly.

Put tray in oven for 15-25 minutes, then remove the biscuits from the baking sheet, and put on a wire rack.

Oh, and by the way, our President is called Macron. Equal stress on both syllables please.

The Bedroom Floor

The secret to getting stuff done quickly is knowing people who know what they're doing.

In 2010 I sanded the guest bedroom floor. It was not much fun, and the passage of 14 years means that doing the floor of the main bedroom was weighing heavily on my mind. And knees, back, lungs...

Luckily we have met a man who has the right gear for doing this stuff, so the bedroom floor is sanded and has received its first coat of varnish.

It's an odd kind of colour, but that's what happens when you sand very old, very dirty wood that has lived a life. The strange shapes on the floor are bits of brass, covering blemishes and splits in the wood. They are likely to be quite old.

Louise Dupin

On 8 March it seems appropriate to pay tribute to one of the Ladies of the Château of Chenonceau: Madame Louise Dupin.

Portrait painted by Nattier, in the Salon Louis XIV at Chenonceau.

Louise and Claude Dupin bought the castle in 1733 and she often stayed there in the autumn with her extended family and associates, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Madame Dupin and her husband held salons in Paris, attracting the greatest minds of the Enlightenment (Diderot, Voltaire, Montesquieux...).

She defended the rights of women both orally and in writing, and belonged to a minority feminist movement of the time, since she defended strict equality between the sexes, whereas the majority of feminists defended the thesis of the superiority of women over men. 

It is notably thanks to her skill that Chenonceau was preserved during the French Revolution.
Her last wish was to be buried in the park of Francueil, on the south bank of the Cher, in line with the castle. As she so aptly put it: "It seems to me that I will rest pleasantly here".

Sunrise

This photo was taken at 07:14 yesterday morning. A beautifully clear morning, but frosty.

That was, until the fog rolled in at about 08:00. And then it was gloomy for a couple of hours before clearing up again. It's the first day in ages where there was no rain at all, which is just as well, because the water in the Claise river hasn't subsided any.

The Château des Bordes

We quite often walk past the château des Bordes, also known as Bordes-Guénand, near Petit-Pressigny. We've taken photos, but never really thought about it beyond "we must look it up".

Here's what Wikipedia has to say in french (via ChatGPT):

The first known lord of Bordes was Guillaume Guenand in 1312.

In the 16th century, the d'Amboise family, inherited the lordship and decided to build a castle surrounded by fortifications, an entrance gatehouse, a secondary gateway, and moats.

During the latter half of the 16th century, the western part of the gatehouse was reconstructed by Philippe de Créquy, and his wife Urbaine de Montmorency-Laval. They added new windows and decorations to the upper sections of the staircase tower in the residence. Additionally, the farm in the courtyard, which already had a 15th-century dwelling, expanded with the addition of a dovecote.

In the 18th century, the residence was rebuilt on top of the cellar by the Bouthillier de Chavigny family. A pavilion was added to the southwest of the new residence at the end of the 18th century by Pierre de Gaullier, the lord of Bordes. During the 18th century, the chapel, forming a front part, was reconstructed, and the outbuildings were redesigned.

So I've looked it up now. 

A Quiet Change

I assume some sort of announcement must have been made, but I missed it. I understand why the change has been made, but I'm surprised there's been no great fanfare about it, because it's one of the causes celebre of recent times.

Bottle tops no longer come all the way off the bottle. They unscrew, then flip. It's to reduced the number of small plastics causing pollution. Milk, water, Coca Cola, all with the twist and flip lids. Then when they're empty they all go into the yellow recycling bag.

It may only be a little thing, but at least a start has been made.

March Views

Just in case you think all we do is work on the house...

I took these two photos at 08:00 yesterday morning on my way to work on the house.  I was home by 18:00 though, and didn't go back after dinner.

It didn't rain much yesterday. I don't think the Claise could take much more. This is the river at Humeau.

This photo was taken this morning. In a complete contrast to yesterday, not a cloud.

A Tale of Two Fireplaces

I wrote earlier about cleaning the fireplace in the bedroom, and discovering it's made from local stone.

It was blocked up a long time ago, we thought with foam blocks, but which turned out to be by the simple expedient of pulling down the metal shutter. At some later date someone had cut a hole in the shutter to take the chimney from a small wood burning heater, and this had subsequently been blocked with a foam sheet and plenty of spray expanding foam.

Yesterday was the day I decided it was time to clean this abomination. I wasn't looking forwards to it, nor did I have any plan.

Expansive foam is a tricky thing to remove so I started with that, slicing through it with a putty knife. Then, I just pulled at the metal shutters until they distorted enough to come out of their slots.

In a piece of excellent news, the firebox is in remarkably good condition, if full of stuff. The stuff was mainly rubble from when we had the top of the chimney rebuilt, old ash, cobwebs, two really tatty work gloves, and an almost new 8mm socket.

That filled three rubble sacks and two vacuum cleaner bags, and gave me an idea. But more of that after I try it today.

The second fireplace is the one in the salon that Mr Douady installed in 2009. It was looking sorry for itself, mainly through smoke and in ground ash.

I took a sander to it, and now it's looking much refreshed. Of course, that created more clouds of dust that I allowed to settle overnight before filling two vacuum cleaner bags. 

I'm getting good at dust, but the camera really doesn't like it. That's why some of the photos aren't really in sharp focus.

Not Quite Winning the Lottery

I was perusing Facebook the other day and I noticed that V'King stockage (another overstock shop like NOZ) had a "Vent de Colis Non Délivré".

This is where goods ordered online but not delivered for whatever reason - wrong address, no-one home, no such address - by DHL. I thought it might be a bit of a giggle so we popped in while we were in Loches. Everything is wrapped, all the labels are scribbled over, and there's no opening of parcels so it's a real lucky-dip. The price is 16€50 a kg.

Most of the parcels were obviously clothing or shoes, which makes it a real gamble. However, there were one or two smaller items in boxes I thought might have been electrical and worth a punt. We bought two packages which weighed 165grams and cost 2€72.

When we got home we had a grand opening of plunder. Neither of them was electrical, one being the latest super trendy face scrub (about 10€ on Amazon) and a rather natty men's leather bracelet and ring from the Netherlands (retail price 78€).

I'll be wearing the bracelet, but if any of our readers has pimples and wants to try Medián Green Tea Mask Stick, give us a shout.

Coucou!

This is our 18th annual cowslip photo. It was taken in Lisa and Simon's front garden on the 28th February. It's actually been flowering about 3 weeks, but this is the first time I've remembered to photograph it when it wasn't raining.

I think 18 years now qualifies it as a proper tradition.

Colours Chosen

After much debate and many consultations we have chosen the colours for our newly insulated rooms.

If you're going to go bold, go bold big time!!

A Wedding in Vouvray

Our friend Laetitia got married on Saturday. She asked if she could be driven in Claudette from the wedding celebration venue Domaine de la Roderie to the annexe of the Town Hall in Vouvray where the official wedding was taking place. After that we all went back to la Roderie for drinks and another, private, exchange of vows and the speeches. Finally there would have been a meal, but we didn't stay for that. Driving a Traction Avant at night in the rain is not an enjoyable experience, so we left at dusk to get Claudette back into her garage before dark.

 

Tables set for the reception.

The first photo of the bride was taken by me, as by the time she emerged at la Roderie the photographer had left for the town hall,

Laetitia seated in Claudette.

Wedding guests clustering around the entrance to the Auchan supermarket carpark, opposite the annexe to the Vouvray town hall where the wedding would take place. It looked like we were waiting to start a manif (street demonstration).

Claudette arriving at Vouvray town hall annex, driven by Simon and carrying Laetitia, her mum and her best friend.

The newlyweds and their parents (and nephew). At the end of the official ceremony the mayor chipped them for having just moved from Vouvray to Montlouis, the rival wine town on the opposite bank of the Loire!

The Mums have a word.

We were served mulled cider and hot chocolate under an awning at la Roderie while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive after a photo session in Vouvray.

The second ceremony, in the barn at la Roderie. Guests were given fleece blankets.

One got a good view of the 17th century barn roof construction.

Domaine de la Roderie https://www.laroderie.com/

Digging out Stuff

I spent yesterday working on the end wall of our salon. I'm about one third of the way through the first step, which is digging the crud out from between the stones. It has to be at least 30mm deep, and that's a lot of mud, plaster, and stuff.

You can see where I've been working, the section on the right is almost done. It's going to be tricky working near the ceiling, but I'll find a way. It's all been done with a chisel and hammer. I could use the electric destroyer, but I think it would be too aggressive.

The effect we're hoping to end up with is this. Our previous pierre apparent walls were done with lime and red sand. This time we're going to use white sand.

No Blog Post Today

That's mainly because I've spent the last two days making dust.

There's only so many things you say say about dust before descending into the profane, and all photos of dust look the same.

So instead, a photo of a bunch of rich fat Dutch blokes I took in Amsterdam last year.

Oh! How it Rained

It rained most of yesterday morning and afternoon, and the rain was accompanied by gusty winds.

The weather forecast wasn't looking promising by mid morning with the wind warning uprated from 80km/h to 95km/h, and it certainly felt like that on the road from Preuilly to Châtellerault. There was some flooding and a lot of debris on the road, and when we came out if the hardware shop it was absolutely hammering it down.

These photos of the Claise were taken a couple of days ago. If anything, the river is higher now.

Casting for Les Bodin's

Les Bodin's is a comic double act created in 1994 and based at Descartes. Comedians, writers and directors Vincent Dubois and Jean-Christian Fraiscinet have created the characters of Maria Bodin, a cunning and manipulative old widowed farmer in her 80s, and her gormless son Christian.

Every July for the past 19 years they have put on a big outdoor show called 'les Bodin's, Grandeur Nature' on a local farm. It has become a cult and is already sold out for this year.

The duo perform live as the characters at festivals and charity events around the country, and every so often they make a film or a television show.

I've never seen them perform, but it is clear they are madly popular in the district (at least with an older crowd -- I don't think the under 40s are so enamoured). My guess is that if you like British comedies like Mrs Brown's Boys, you would like les Bodin's if you were French speaking. I would also observe that the French taste in comedy can be remarkably unsophisticated...

Anyway, great excitement in Preuilly when it was announced all over Facebook that les Bodin's would be coming to town and casting 600 extras for their next movie. Hundreds of people duly turned up at the salles des fetes to try out as villagers, cattle herder, goat farmer, receptionists, militant ecologists, police officers, acrobatic dancers, musicians, marching girls, accordionist, tie wearing public servants, little girl and a teenage boy. Our friend Mathieu didn't even have to audition. The production team approached him at work behind the bar of his restaurant, l'Image, and asked if he'd play himself in a bar scene.

So I guess we'll go and see the movie once it's released. There will most probably be a special pre-release showing in the salle des fetes.

Renovation Update 2

Work on our house is progressing.

The plasterers have finished, but now the plaster has to dry. As is normal in old houses they have had to do a fair amount of thinking on their feet, the main problem being the ceilings. Of course, the house being a bit old nothing is either square or level, and in order for us to be able to open the windows a split level ceiling has been installed - a 5 cm higher section above the window opening.

In addition to working on the fireplace in the bedroom, I have done some further work on the stone wall in the salon. This is a dirty and dusty job, which involves removing layers of soot, grime and dust from the stone and cleaning the joints between them. Some of this appears to have been mud (I'm being polite) which either falls off in clumps or turns to brown dust. Most unappealing.

The electrician returned yesterday to do the lights (and light switch) in the salon then it's a couple of weeks of dirt, grime and dust before we start painting.

The wall mounted up lighters are in place

and they turn on (don't worry, they're not as

bright as it would appear in the photo)

Joy...