This Year's Orchid Score

This year we have seen 26 species of orchid. Last year we saw 8. It just goes to show we are getting to know the area and getting our eye in. None of the orchids we saw were in difficult to find or inaccessible places. In some places the common species are like weeds, popping up in lawns and gardens mulched with gravel, or right there in droves on the side of the road or in fields. We only 'cheated' once, by asking Tony Williams, the League pour le Protection des Oiseaux Officer at la réserve naturelle de la Chérine in the Brenne, where we could find the Loose-flowered Orchids and the Brenne Orchids. He pointed us in the right direction and as a result we now have good photos of the one species that can be seen nowhere else in the world. The result with regard to the Loose-flowered Orchids was somewhat less satisfactory. Tony warned us that they had virtually finished but we charged off to Rosnay Common to look and photograph anyway - shameless twitchers that we are! An hour later we were soaked to the skin by heavy rain and I had four deer ticks attached to intimate areas of my nether regions - but we did have photos of Tongue Orchids and Lesser Butterfly Orchids in their prime and a single photo of a faded, withered, very sad, and by this time, very wet, Loose-flowered Orchid.

Above is a shot of Bee Orchids growing amongst the Ox Eye Daisies, on an unmowed hillside block in Roux. This place is hidden from view from the track that runs along the bottom, but my mother and I happened to meet the owner walking his aged spaniel as we were photographing Bee Orchids and some unusually tall Man Orchids on the trackside bank. He very kindly invited us to go up into the field and we were delighted with what we found.

Actually, we didn't even need to go as far as the field on the hill to see Bee Orchids. This one was happily flowering in the gravelled garden of the gîte we were staying in. Notice that the upper flower is a mutation, looking rather like the form known as a Wasp Orchid. It is not uncommon for the form of the flowers on a single stem to vary like this.

Here is one of the Brenne Orchids. They are one of the dreaded Dactylorhiza genus, which are notoriously difficult to separate from one another, and often several species grow in close proximity and reputedly hybridise like mad with each other, with the result that it is often very difficult to know which species you have (although Quentin Groom tells me that they hybridise far less than is generally believed, but are extremely variable within species). Where we found these, we also found their close cousins the Common Spotted Orchid. The Brenne Orchid is even more closely related to the Robust Marsh Orchid, and until 20 years ago, was considered to just be a subspecies, so as you can imagine, they look very, very similar. I think I have the hang of separating them now though - the bracts (leaflets that sit behind each individual flower) are very long in the Robust Marsh Orchid and poke out quite noticeably from amongst the flowers, whereas the Brenne Orchids' bracts are shorter and more hidden in the flower spike.

More Dactylorhiza above - this time Heath Spotted Orchids on the roadside near Boussay.

I've now managed to sort out my confusion with the ladies, the soldiers and the monkeys, who also potentially hybridise like mad. The above is a Lady Orchid, and below a Military Orchid. Interestingly, it seems we get the ladies on one side of the river at Chaumussay, and the soldiers on the other.

The Monkeys just swarm about everywhere.

Here I am demonstrating just how big the Lizard Orchids around Preuilly can get. The tallest reaches my elbow, but they are such an ethereal collection of silvery pink streamers they are surprisingly difficult to photograph well. Strange that something that looks like it should inhabit a fairyland emits a pong on a hot day that I could describe to you exactly, but in the interests of polite society, will not. Suffice to say that regular use of a bidet would help.

In some cases we were able to find the very same plants that we saw last year, for example, a Man Orchid on the roadside just outside Bossay sur Claise, and this Helleborine (above). Last year there was some discussion on the blog about the precise identity of this plant from some experienced orchidophiles, but I am sticking to my guns that this is the Narrow-leafed Helleborine. It has no visible bracts; the leaves are narrow and the upper ones longer than the flower spike; the flowers are very white and reveal a yellow blotch at the base of the inside of the lower petal. Its rival, the White Helleborine would have bracts that are longer than the flowers; shorter, wider leaves and creamy flowers with an orangey yellow blotch.

This gorgeous colour palette is Early Purple Orchids and Cowslips on the roadside near Humeau.

And yet another Dactylorhiza. This one's a bit of a ring in - it was photographed next to a German forward observation post on the cliffs at Longues sur Mer, overlooking one of the World War II D-Day (Operation Overlord) landing beaches. In fact, this photograph was taken on the 64th anniversary of the Landings. It is a Common Spotted Orchid, which we also saw in the Brenne, but they are much more common in the departément of Calvados (where this one is), far to the north of us.

This is a Tongue Orchid, one of the specialities of the Brenne. They like damp grassland and are what is referred to as a locally common species; i.e. they don't occur in many places, but where they do, you have to be careful where you put your feet because there will be so many of them you are bound to step on them.

This Violet Limodore is one of two parasitic orchids we came across. The other is the Bird's Nest Orchid. This one above was growing right in the middle of the path on the hillside behind Chaumussay. We visited it every few days so that we could make sure we got good photos once it opened. Very sadly, we never got those shots of it in its glory days. One day we visited, and found that someone had cut it off close to ground level. I cannot tell you how shocked I was. It appeared to be a deliberate, but pointless act. The stem had clearly been severed with a blade, and the flower bud just discarded on the path. This plant is totally protected in the region of Centre, so to cut it off like this is illegal.

Susan

(Note that all the links to photographs illustrating species were taken by us unless I have obviously linked to a website to provide further information.)

[This post has been edited as both Prof Richard Bateman and Quentin Groom thought the Longues sur Mer orchid was Dactylorhiza fuchsii, not D praetermissa. I am certainly not going to argue with Prof Bateman, who is a world expert from Kew and whose name appears as the first to describe more than one species of orchid in my field guides. Quentin Groom is the BSBI European species beginners referee for photographs, which means his knowledge is also very extensive. I am very grateful to both of them for taking the time to look at my photos, especially Prof Bateman, who was extremely busy at the time with some urgent research work. He joked that maybe the orchid seeds had come across on a squaddie's boot. I would also like to thank Quentin for his interesting and helpful comments regarding the identification and biology of Dactylorhiza spp.]

For more on orchids, please click here

The Street of Doves

I have no idea why.

I know the word for dove is colombe.

And yet.... I have always assumed that rue des Douves was the street of doves.

It isn't - It's the street of the moat. Apparently, when the chateau had a large curtain wall (which also served as a town wall) it had a moat inside the walls. The rue des Douves follows the line of this ditch.



Simon

A Roadside Surprise

In May I drove from Preuilly sur Claise to Paris to pick up Susan and her parents. Instead of using the advice most of the mapping websites give, I decided to avoid l'Aquitaine until it became silly to do so.

This took me from Preuilly to Loches, then Montrichard, joining the Autoroute at Blois. This was a new route for me, so I was totally unprepared for the sight which suddenly appears as you crest a rise at Montpoupon.


Honestly - sometimes it can just take your breath away, this driving in France lark.

Simon

The Sliding Bath

No doubt some of you will remember the bath.

When I wrote about it earlier I tried to post an animation and was defeated by Blogger.

This time I think I have it right. Click on the image below and the animated gif should open in a new window

This wasn't a problem with new technology as Susan suggested (I've been doing this for ages) but a problem with the way Blogger/Picasa stores images.

Simon

Buildings on the Market Place - No 18

In 1920 this premises on Place des Halles, Preuilly sur Claise, was a barrelmaker's (tonnelier), from a long line of barrelmakers from the same family back to the 18th century. Today, the shop sign says Cordonnerie (shoemaker) and the window says 'affûtage' (knives sharpened), but I think the place is empty.

Roger Lezeau says that Monsieur Boutet, who later moved to premises directly across the road, made barrels, boisseaux (a small cylindrical barrel that held a bushel of grain) and repaired chairs. In 1920, one did not buy wine by the litre already sealed. Nearly every shopkeeper and worker owned their own little parcel of vines. Also in current usage were casks (hogsheads), half barrels and tubs of different sizes and styles for gathering the grapes (de barriques, demi barriques, de baquets à oreilles, dits 'basses', et de bassicot pour vendanger). (Note that 'baquets à oreilles' translates literally as 'buckets with ears' ie tubs with handles, but they were called 'basses'.) Boisseaux were also transformed into infantry drums under Louis XV, after being painted in the colours of the Colonel of the regiment.

Monsieur Boutet repaired chairs, but he didn't have the skills to make the very pretty models like those sometimes made of mahogany by Gilbert further up the street in the 19th century.

Monsieur Boutet therefore left this place to a certain Mironeau, a distributor of the new reaper binders. (Monsieur Boutet laissa donc la place à un certain Mironeau - I think this just means Boutet moved out and Mironeau moved in, rather than Boutet gifted the place to Mironeau.) Mironeau was an insane alcoholic who almost killed his young wife by first shooting then stabbing her. She was saved by his worker Albert Pioffet, who managed to divert the blade with his arm. Mme and Mr Mironeau were going to leave for Paris until the wife dispatched her husband with a pistol shot. The inhabitants of the area testified in her favour and she was acquitted.

(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. Apologies for any mistakes, but these little anecdotes are a great way for me to practice my French.)

Susan

[Note: post edited to reflect some points made in the comments.]

Towers of Tours

Not the cathedral (although that is pretty impressive), but the staircases.

A number of building in Tours have an arrangement similar to that I think our house originally had. The staircase, instead of being built inside the house, is in what amounts to a tower against one wall.


My reasons for thinking this is that our staircase has its own roof - it is a hipped roof that covers only the staircase, most easily seen in the long distance shot from across the valley before the roof was replaced


If it's true, this is quite exciting for me. One of my criteria when we were looking for houses (and one I thought we hadn't met) was that it should have a tower. Now, not only does it appear to have a tower, but it has a hidden tower.

We know that the house is a lot older than its facade and the roof structure gives the impression of being 15/16th century (according to the philosophical roofer). This could be yet another clue in helping us decypher the story of our little piece of history.

Simon

(of course, this will be even more exciting when we have a staircase to go into the tower, but until then............)

Three Gates

Feeling pleased with myself

And why not?

On my only attempt at a recipe blog I have managed this:


Does this make me an acknowledged world expert in something? I certainly appear to have landed in exhaulted company.

Simon

The Suburbs of Preuilly

In a comment on a previous post, John wrote about la Garenne and I responded that I am sure I knew the map he was talking about.


This is the large hand drawn map in front of the Post Office in Preuilly sur Claise. It's quite an old document - the adverts next to the map are advertising businesses that closed a number of years ago - and it shows what at first appears to be suburbs.

No - they're not really suburbs, but what else would you call them? (Sub-suburbs?) They aren't the parishes - Preuilly once had 6 parishes, including Notre Dame and St Nicholas - although one of those parishes shows as a name on the map. I think they are communes that have been absorbed into the town. As you walk around town you can see little signs -the sort you get on the roads in the country poiting towards little clusters of houses off the road - with some of these names on them. (Like this one, photographed in midwinter 2006. I looked through 12,000 photos I have taken and this looks like the only time I have caught one of these signs!)


(this is a matching cross to one I posted earlier)

Simon

Gare de Tours

In June I caught the bus to Tours in order to catch the Ryanair flight to "London". I mentioned at the time that I had failed to get any pictures of the rail station - something I have now remedied.

When Susan and I returned in July we travelled all the way from home in London to home in Preuilly using public transport. (Do low cost airlines count as public transport? Don't know....)

This meant we had a 4 hour sit around in Tours, some of which we spent sitting around, and some we spent exploring.

The station is lovely, and to my eyes, quite tropical looking. (Can't explain that one, but it looks like the kind of place that adventures start - to be truly convincing, however, it does need palm trees).

The interior is a revelation to anyone who is used to the London termini - not claustrophobic and cluttered with information boards, cafes, Sock Shops, takeaway shops, record shops, electronics retailers and newsagents - and no ticket barrier. Just a lovely open space with one newsagent where they don't appear to be almost ashamed of the trains - there they are, all on display. Typically, I didn't take a photo of this, apart from one of the tiled panels on the walls showing where you can get to.

It isn't as if it is miles from anywhere, either - this is the view of the cathedral from the station entrance. You will notice the evidence of an integrated transport system - La Loire à Vèlo* will rent you a bike, sell you a map of cycleways, and send you on your way.

I know it would be slower than catching a bus, but I do wish there was an easy and cheap way to make this the place we arrive in Tours. The railway to Preuilly stopped running in the 1940s, and getting to Tours involved a change of train at Port a Piles, but there is still something exciting about railways. I am still a train fan at heart.

Simon

*that's your actual French, that is.

Papering over the cracks

The French have the same passion for wallpaper that the English have. (This is something a bit foreign to Australians, so we notice it.)

Our front room had dry lining that was wallpapered. What we weren't expecting (once we had removed the dry lining) was to find another 3 layers (and evidence of more) on the walls under the lining. Unfortunately, I was in "doing stuff frenzy" mode when I was working on the front room, so the removal of wallpaper wasn't as systematically archaeological as it could have been.

These are, however, the wallpapers we have:

This is the first layer, pasted directly on white plastered walls

Layer 2

The third layer (with evidence of layer 4 at the top)

The dry lining

Luckily, when we bought our house, although it had wallpaper, none of the rooms had wallpaper across the ceiling. This is something I have only seen in France, and is usually done with psychedelic floral prints from the 1980s - up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side.

We will not be papering at all. The walls will be drylined with plasterboard and limewashed. We will be attempting to do taste...........


Simon

New Businesses in Town

When we first saw Preuilly, we we a bit worried by the number of empty shops on the Grande Rue.

Since then a few shops (one of the charcuteries and the newsagent) have shut, but one or two new businesses have taken their place. Two of these are Immobiliers (maybe the French village's "Shoe Event Horizon" equivalent) and of no real interest to us now, but the third is Le Twenty, Preuilly's new internet cafe/restaurant.

This is good news. We now have somewhere to go at any time of the day to have a coffee, crepe or ice cream for very reasonable prices. We first went there with Susan's parents in May, and I have since been back to use the internet connection.

You can find it on Google Maps here. This may be a good time to point out we are on Google's "Street View", as a special happening for the Tour de France.

Simon

The Bathroom Floor.

The saga of the bath is now done and dusted, and is a story improving in the retelling.......

One of the reasons for moving the bath was that, TARDIS like, it seemed bigger than the room containing it. The other reason was the bathroom floor. Bouncy - spongy even - and full of old borer holes, it had to go. This was a decision well made, as during the process of moving the bath I put my foot through a floorboard. (You can see the floorboard in question just behind Adrian in this pic.

All this rot meant that the old floorboards came up pretty easily, leaving this mess:

This presents me with a small problem.

The "floor" you can see is plasterboard, nailed to nasty cheap bits of pine, and forming part of the dining room ceiling. The nasty cheap pine is nailed to other bits of nasty cheap pine, which in turn is nailed to what passes as joists. One of those joists (the one in the middle of the above photo) is half a tree that at one stage appears to have acted as a roof beam. It is let into the stonework at either end, and rolls quite alarmingly.

The other joist (the one against the wall) isn't attached to the wall, and bounces a bit. This is not a good foundation for a tiled bathroom floor.

You can also see a length of orange plastic conduit. This is what the French use when doing electrical work - no doubt this will not be the last time it makes an appearance on the blog.

My current plan (the latest in a long line) is to use joist hangers to support new joists 2"x6" (bastaing 50x150) at a 400mm spacing, over which I will put chipboard sheeting specifically designed for wet area floors (something like this). All the masonry hangers I have seen so far get built into the wall - I can't work out yet if I can bolt joist hangers to brick walls, or whether this will tear the walls down. (The latter is an important consideration. I don't think Susan would appreciate me drilling our house to bits in the guise of fixing it.....)

Simon

In Praise of Bread

Bread - the one absolute staple of French cuisine.

Like most things French, bread is not just a simple matter of water, flour, yeast, and common salt - although by law these are the only ingredients allowed in the item labelled "pain".

The traditional french loaf is not the baguette, nor is it the croissant, or even the "pain a campagne", it is the boule. A round loaf, usually obtainable in two sizes, the petit boule and the boule, a good boule stays fresh a long time - essential back in the days when you made your own bread, because you don't want to have to bake every day. When bread started to be baked commercially, the shops you bought the bread in were called boulangerie. (The traditional boule was naturally levened in the fashion of a sourdough rather than the modern variety using baker's yeast. Interestingly it still stays frsh quite a long time..........)

It is, though, the baguette most people think of as being the archetypal French loaf. Indeed, in some places a baguette is called a "french stick" or "french loaf". This is ironic - the all pervasive baguette only came about as the result of a technological advance made in Vienna and a law passed in 1920. In some places in france, the baguette is still known as a "vienne" (In Preuilly a vienne is the sweetened version with sultanas).

The technological advance necessary was the invention of an oven with steam injectors, perfected (or at least made reliable) in Vienna in the mid 19th century. The law was one which stated that bakers couldn't start work before 4.00, thus making it impossible to get a traditional loaf made before opening the shop for trade at 6.00. I am not sure how it is possible to make and bake a baguette from scratch in this time, nor if the law was a labour law or a law passed for the convenience of those trying to sleep.

What I do know for sure is that is is extremely difficult to stop eating good pain, fresh from the boulangerie and still warm from the oven.

This is the wrapper one of our local bakers (the small boulangerie at 4 Rue Chaumont Patin) uses to wrap bread. I guess it is the equivalent of reading the Cornflakes box.



Simon

Pictures of Preuilly*

Thanks to one of Bengt and Suzanne's neighbours, I have found a new view over Preuilly. It is on a ridge that extends east from the chateau, and is quite possibly a ruined wall or the top of a defensive ditch. It gives the best views over Preuilly I have yet found. The view from the Chateau is possibly better, but I am quite sure I will never have a chance to find out.

It is interesting how different a place you know quite well can look when you change your viewpoint.

Preuilly sur Claise

The eastern end of the abbaye, and the "new" bridge over the Claise.

This house is for sale. Very cute, but I think it may be a money pit - even more so that our house!

Simon

*Whenever I type this, I sing The Who song of a similar name to myself. Yes, I know it is pronounced differently, but it amuses me...

A Change of Scenery

For the last 3 months I have been sleeping on a sofa-bed in our "small room", which Susan and I first equipped in February this year.

This has been pretty good to me - the room is cool during the evenings, is REALLY dark when I close the shutter, and because it is at the back of the house, is even more quiet than usual. (The only noise we get is the poubelle collection on Thursday morning at about 5.30).

Before we moved into the small room we had been camping in a tent in the front room.
Now I have done some work in the front room - I removed the panelling in September 2007 and the old wiring in may 2008, so last week I swept, re-swept, vacuum cleaned (6 bags worth in a room 5mx5m over the course of 2 days!), then hand washed the floor tile by tile with a soft sponge and very little water, followed by rinsing with an almost dry cloth with vinegar on it. I have also effected a temporary fix on the side door, which had a 2cm gap around it after I removed the panelling.

This has been so successful, I have decided to move back into the front room - now the room looks like this:

I have run an extension cable through the holes in the wall the permanent wiring will eventually go through, put a bed and a sofa in there with a couple of lights - and all of a sudden we have what almost looks like a studio apartment. Next move is to buy some cheap curtaining (and some nets for the front window) and I will have a home away from home, rather than what looks like a refugee camp. (The more observant of you will notice that I put the bed in there before I washed the floor, and that one section of dry lining remains. I am not sure why that panelling remains - but I probably had a good reason when I did it!)

This means that Susan's sister and brother-in-law can stay in the small room on an airbed when they visit at the end of the month - our first house guests. The fact they are staying means I have to sort out the bathing/washing thing soon, because we can't rely on invites from friends to use their bath if we have guests.

Simon

Yet more Tour photos

As if we hadn't already seen enough. Here, for instance, and even here.








Well - it isn't as if Preuilly is the centre of world attention all that often!

In a previous post I mentioned the man from Vittel spraying the crowd, but didn't post a photo. Here it is:

You can see Bengt taking evasive action ("proctecting my camera", apparently).

Simon

*EDIT* Talk about bad manners!! Ken has posted video of Preuilly from the air on his "Living the life in Saint-Aignan " blog, and I forgot to mention it. For the next 5 seconds I will sit myself on the naughty step.