Prickly Pear

Australia has had its fair share of disasterous plant introductions and its fair share of disasterous attempts at control. One disaster that has had a happy ending after all though is the prickly pear story.

Prickly pears Opuntia spp were introduced at the time of the very first white settlement. The idea was to break the Spanish South American monopoly on cochineal. This red dye is produced from a scale insect that feeds on the prickly pear and was required for making British military uniforms. Initially the plants remained well behaved at the coast, but then someone planted them at a homestead garden in the bush. At some stage several different species were introduced and other people planted them as stock proof hedges or emergency stock fodder. Once they got inland, before anyone could draw breath, the prickly pear had multiplied in the wild and rendered useless a huge swathe of southern Queensland. There are old photos from the early and mid 20th century showing the extent of the problem. Where once cattle grazed, now there was an impenetrable forest of cacti, covering over 24 million hectares and spreading at a rate of a million hectares a year.

Remnant Tree Pear Opuntia sp specimens in the Belah Casuarina cristata (the tall dark trees) and Wilga Geijera parvifolia (the bright green shrubs) scrub between Goondiwindi and Millmerran.

The government of the day was desperate. They organised programmes of control, trying burning, poisoning and physical damage or removal. Nothing worked, and frankly, when you read the litany of poisons used, it is amazing the whole area isn't completely toxic to this day! Reminiscent of the phylloxera outbreak in France at much the same time, a reward was offered to anyone who could eradicate the cactus. Like the phylloxera reward, it has never been granted, as the pest has never been completely eradicated.

Finally, however, in 1912, the Prickly Pear Travelling Commission was formed. Their objective was to identify possible biological controls by visiting countries where the cactus was indigenous and obtaining species that would be safe to introduce into Australia (ie be prickly pear specific and not move on to other plants). Enter the Cactoblastis moth and its caterpillars, as well as a dozen other natural predators of Opuntia spp. After researching the effectiveness of the predators, it became clear that the Cactoblastis moths were the star prickly pear destroyers. After the First World War the government set up a Cactoblastis moth breeding centre and eggs were distributed to landholders with instructions for their use. Within a decade the problem was under control!

These photos of the roadside vegetation were taken while we were queuing for roadworks. Note the wizened plant in the left foreground -- the Cactoblastis have been at work.

I am very familiar with the prickly pear and its amazing story, as we lived on a farm within the affected zone. There is a memorial to the Cactoblastis moth in a town not far (in Australian terms -- it's 170km away) from where my parents live. So now you know why I am so horrified when people tell me they have smuggled cacti or other plants intercontinentally.

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Concert: There will be a concert in the Abbey in Preuilly starting at 5 pm on Thursday 15 August. A trio of cellist, flautist and pianist will play works by Mozart, Handel, Haydn, Debussy, Fauré and many others. Reservations advised.

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Ile de Ré Reflections: the island's snails seemed to find our tent irresistable. This one thought it would be safe in Simon's cap, another made it to the very centre of the tent roof outside, where we couldn't reach it. Yet another managed to emigrate, coming home with us in our swimming gear bag to be discovered when I unpacked.

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A la cuisine hier: The liqueur de noix has developed a scum. At first I thought it was growing some undesirable fungus, then I realised it was a slick of walnut oil. The vin de noix smells divine -- really rich and walnutty.

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Orchard News: I mowed 2 more small sections of orchard yesterday. My aim is to get it all done (except for a strip for Wasp Spider Argiope bruennichi) before early autumn when Alex will come to do the annual end of season mow to set it up for winter. You should have seen his face when I told him it hasn't been mowed since the last time he did it! 

I was joined by a very yellow female Great Green Bush-cricket Tettigonia viridissima, who looked just like a yellowing leaf, and rushed towards me when I knelt down to photograph it. It zipped up my knee and over my shoulder, sat there for a while, then flew back down to the grass. I'm not quite sure what the attraction was -- probably I was a good hunting stand. Also hunting in the potager was a female White-tailed Skimmer Orthetrum albistylum dragonfly and an extremely muscular looking robber fly, Pogonosoma maroccanum, hunting bees. The robber fly is a bee mimic, black with golden 'fur' and weightlifter's thighs. It had better eyesight than me, and refused to co-operate for photos. No matter how much I sneaked up on it, it always saw me first and moved. They seem to specialise in bees as prey. Fortunately, given the poor quality of my photos, it is a striking and unmistakable species and I identified it easily. A nice new record for the orchard.

On the way down to the orchard I passed our firewood merchant, energetically weeding his potager (he does most things energetically). He tells me all his tomatoes (cent pieds! that's '100 plants'!) have blossom end rot. According to him all the treatments that worked on this fungal disease are now banned, and anyway, he didn't want to be treating tomatoes intended for his personal consumption. We took the opportunity to discuss the coming winter's firewood supply and I have ordered 10 stères to start with, but we will probably need about 14 by the end. He said he'd used an unusually high quantity of firewood last winter, not because it was particularly cold, but because it dragged on for so long. He asked me if we had storage space for 10 stères all at once and I said I thought we did. We've used all of last year's firewood...because winter dragged on for so long...

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A Bush Town

Goondiwindi is a typical bush town. It's in southern Queensland, on the border with New South Wales. The name is pronounced 'gundawindy', and the place is frequently referred to as Gundy.

The main street. 

You can tell this is Queensland and not New South Wales because it doesn't have stupid reverse angle parking. The street is this wide because in the old days you had to be able to turn a bullock team around in it (the central island with its palm trees is a relatively modern addition).

The old and the new. 

On the left, a traditional weatherboard house on stumps (to protect against termites originally, and in this case raised up on metal stilts to provide usable semi-openair space underneath), an architectural style known as a Queenslander. On the right, a modern lowset brick home with an enormous footprint taking up the whole plot.

A nice old home, hunkered down under its verandah, which performs the same function as shutters do in France, providing shade and protection against weather good and bad.
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Ile de Ré Reflections: I've no doubt that plonger is strictly interdit, but I was quite pleased to capture this young rebel in mid leap from the sea wall.

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Orchard News: I picked our entire white nectarine crop yesterday. This amounted to two fruit. Delicious, but sadly meagre. The yellow nectarines and the pears seem to have stalled. They are all very small and rock hard.

In the potager I dug some potatoes, also with a disappointing result in terms of yield. I didn't weigh them but I reckon 5 plants have given about 10 serves of potato. I dug a few leeks as well, small but going to seed. The first tomatoes have been picked, mostly cherry types, but one largish variety which is very firm and dark red (it's lost its label, so I don't know what it's called).

The orchard is a sea of flowering Wild Carrot Daucus carotta (aka Queen Anne's Lace) at the moment. Normally the flowers that make up each umbel are white, with a few red ones making a little spot in the centre. I was interested to see that one of my Wild Carrots has almost entirely dark purply red flowers, with a few white ones in patches in the umbels. I've never seen one like it before -- perhaps I'd better patent it and make my fortune.

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Black Traffic Day: Yesterday Bison Futé, the traffic info site, was predicting a particularly black day on the roads, with holiday makers travelling in both directions (home and away) in great numbers. By 8am France Info radio was already talking about tens of kilometres of traffic jams throughout France. Last Saturday had close to record traffic, and today is expected to be similar.

The Garbos

The garbage is collected in Preuilly around 7 am on Thursday mornings. Until about 12 months ago it was a 4 am collection, so I'd never met the garbos. A 7 am collection means that I am up and about and it's light enough to take photos in the summer, so I did. They were highly amused and asked me if it was because they were so irresistably attractive. I assured them that was the reason I rushed out to photograph them, and told them they'd soon be world famous because I would put the photo on the blog (although, just between you and me, I think they may find they have serious competition in the form of Laurent the maître-nageur, but he's only here for the summer, so I guess they have the advantage there...).

They work for the rather Bondesque sounding Smictom, whose company motto is 'Au pays de Descartes, je pense, donc je trie' ('In the land of Descartes, I think, therefore I sort') which has always made me giggle.

One of the differences between life in Europe and life in Australia that amazed me when we first moved was that people put their garbage out for collection on the street in plastic bags, with no other protection. Nowadays people often have wheelie bins, but 16 years ago when we first arrived in London, the dustmen, as they are quaintly known there, just wanted to be able to grab the bags and sling them in the back of the lorry (as they would no doubt call it). As you can see in the photo, the Preuilly garbage truck has the facility to tip a wheelie bin, but of the three households who put their waste on that corner, only one uses a bin. It is very rare that a bag gets ripped open in the night by wandering wildlife or dogs.

The 50 litre yellow bags are for recycling (most plastics, metal, tetrapaks) and the 25 litre black bags for anything unrecyclable and I pick up our allocation from the council once a year in March. Newspapers and magazines and glass must be taken by the householder to the recycling bins located in several places around the town. We compost our food and garden waste and some paper (and burn woody garden waste in the winter). The rest goes to the local tip, sorted into various categories for recycling and run by the superbly organised and neat and tidy Didier.

The usual French word for household rubbish is poubelle, after Eugène Poubelle who introduced the idea of rubbish bins in France in the 19th century, but more formally it is ordures ménagère. Sometimes you also see déchets ménager. The tip is the déchetterie and the bottle and paper bank is a station de récyclage.

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Picnic in Chaumussay: We had a shared picnic in Chaumussay yesterday to celebrate our friend Pauline's birthday. We supplied a fougasse and some limoncello and blueberry cake along with sparkling and liqueur Vouvrays (note for future reference: Chateau Gaudrelle Brut Tendre is a perfect match for fougasse topped with salt, onion, olives and cheese). Tim made potato salad, cucumber salad and chickpea and spätzle salad, Pauline made an eggah and an apricot clafoutis and they brought a sparkling rosé. Niall and Antoinette brought ham and a Spanish omelette (tortilla). It was lovely, and we recommend the picnic ground in Chaumussay, which has good picnic tables, a large shelter, a barbecue, recycling and rubbish bins and a secluded setting on the River Claise.

Cucumbers were handed out. Cucumbers are the new lettuces.

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Answers to Yesterday's Quiz: Have been posted at the bottom of yesterday's post. No one earned all 6 points, but Tim was awarded 2 points for getting quite close.

A Few Words About La Sologne

France is a country of many parts, each having little resemblance to the others. The terrain is different, the people are different and the conditions of life are different. Most of these districts, which carry a general name but have no visible boundaries, are well known to tourists, notably the ever popular Riviera. Nothing could be more unlike than the Ile de France, with its plains rolling away to the horizon, and the towering Pyrenees.

But unless the voyager has some specific reason for going there, or happens to find himself on the great highway known as Route Nationale 20, it is unlikely that he will hear of La Sologne. Even in that event he will little suspect what lies on either side of the road, for hundreds of square miles of forest, swamp and jungle, are not what he would expect to find in the heart of a country wherein agriculture is a basic industry.

To paint a pen portrait of this strange land of nearly a million and a half acres will not be easy, but we must try, for the reader should know something of it from the outset. Apart from being a land of moods, La Sologne takes care that you do not see all her face at one time. At every turn the scene is different, yet there is no particular view to remember. Indeed, from La Ferté St Aubin in the north (on the map you will find it about twenty-five miles south of Orleans) to Vierzon in the south, a matter of roughly forty miles, the traveller by road may think the countryside monotonous. Actually, it is one of the wildest, and for that reason for some people one of the most fascinating, stretches of country in Western Europe.

For the most part La Sologne is true forest, with stands of oak, chestnut, birch, fir and pine. The ground underfoot may be arid, supporting a tangle of heather, sometimes waist high, or it may be a reedy swamp extending for miles. There are jungles of scrub and undergrowth that are literally impenetrable. Everywhere trailing brambles drag on the feet. Scattered over the whole area are lakes, large and small, more than a thousand of them, dark, solitary, tranquil, fed by furtive-looking streams that glide mysterious courses through the labyrinth. Over all hangs a brooding silence that seems to fall from the sky, and at sunset creates a haunting, often sinister, atmosphere.

This is not to say that so vast a tract of land is uninhabited. On the main road that cuts through it like a knife from north to south there are one or two small towns and villages, and on either side of it you will find an occasional farmer scratching a living in a clearing; for the soil is poor, and in recent years a great many of these homesteads have been abandoned. Apart from the diehards fighting their losing battle with nature, the only man you might meet, except in the shooting season, would be a forester or a gamekeeper. The visitor might walk all day long, as has the writer, without seeing a living soul or hearing sound of one. A man seeking solitude will certainly find it here.

For the bird-watcher it is a paradise, but let him beware of snakes, one species of which is venomous. The lizards are harmless, as are most of the wild creatures that have here found a safe retreat; and that includes the great deer as well as the smaller roe. An exception can be the sanglier, the wild boar, an ugly beast that can weigh up to hundreds of pounds and has tusks that would rip a man to pieces should he fall foul of one in a nasty mood. But even the sanglier, left alone, is not to be feared. By day he retires to the thickest jungle, and there, unless disturbed, he is content to remain until nightfall, when he emerges to foray for food. Upset or wounded, like all his species, he can be a devil incarnate.

In the autumn hunting seasons La Sologne is the Mecca of sportsmen, for game abounds—pheasant, partridge, woodcock, snipe, wild duck, and the like. There are fish, too, in the lakes—enough to satisfy the most ambitious angler. Areas of ground are rented by those who can afford them, and this, in the 19th century (when men had money to spend) produced what at first seems a startling paradox in the form of hunting lodges of a size and splendour seldom found elsewhere—mansions of forty, fifty, or even eighty bedrooms. Some are still occupied; others are empty and have fallen into disrepair, with roses, long untended, fighting a hopeless battle with the weeds.

How did this wild place come into existence? Standing within the forest with the smell of rotting leaves in the nostrils, a buzzard circling overhead and a fox slinking across a glade, one has a feeling that this was how much of Europe must have looked ten thousand years ago. It is said that during the wars of the Middle Ages, and after, when the land was a prey for marauding gangs of disbanded soldiery, the people who dwelt here—those who had not been murdered—fled, leaving the ground to go back to swamp and forest; and since that time the huge sum of money that would be necessary to drain it and restore it to cultivation has not been available. So it remains as the visitor will find it today, a land which Nature has won back from men in spite of their machines.

The men who lived in the region during the Dark Ages have left their marks, although these are fast disappearing. One comes upon crumbling, overgrown ruins; fortified, moated sites that once were castles, and even churches. Old foresters whisper darkly of underground passages, too. But the hand of death and decay has fallen heavily on these relics of a forgotten past, and sympathetic nature is fast burying them in a shroud of moss and ivy. Even the rabbits have gone, wiped out by the deadly myxomatosis; and how many there must have been may be judged from the fact that at one time the district exported three million a year. Now the burrows, like so many of the homes, are empty.

La Sologne has had more recent troubles, and if one other thing was needed to complete the atmosphere of tragedy and chill the heart of the visitor it is there. Graves. Graves, sometimes solitary, sometimes in long rows. Little white crosses, everywhere. Usually there is just a name, or names, and below, those significant words that speak for themselves: Mort pour la Patrie: Morts pour la Liberté de leur Pays: or, Morts pour la Résistance. The visitor will come upon this melancholy harvest of war everywhere, in the woods, the fields, or by the roadside. Under each cross lies a Maquisard, one of the boys or girls (many were students) who refused to be conscripted into Hitler’s forces. As one enters La Ferté St Aubin in the north, by the roadside lie forty-five.

La Sologne, by reason of its nature, became a hiding- place, during the occupation of France by Germany, for the Maquis, as they were called, or the Résistance. When they were caught they were shot out of hand. The German method employed to find them was to infiltrate a collaborator into the forest. He would pretend to be a Maquisard, or an escaped prisoner, and having been received by the boys and girls in hiding would later slink away and betray them. To such base treachery can human beings sink. Did I say human? Inhuman would be a better word. So their victims were shot, peasant, priest and pupil, men, women and children whose only crime was patriotism. Many died shouting defiance at their murderers, and today, should you pass that way, you may see where they lie. There are British names among them. But times are changing, and perhaps these things are best forgotten.

One need not be too depressed by this, for as an old Maquisard told the author simply, but for this sacrifice how would we know of their courage? Courage of the highest order was needed by these Davids to defy the invading Goliath.

So who wrote this?

• 2 points to anyone who can name the author. 
• 2 points to anyone who can name the book this is from. 
• 2 points to anyone who can give me the year of publication.

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A la cuisine hier: A gigantic chicken tajine which should give us about 8 generous servings with couscous.

Chicken and mushroom soup, made with the scraps of meat from a carcass, frozen homemade chicken stock and whatever likely looking vegetables I had in the fridge (it's mostly mushrooms...).

A fresh coconut processed using these excellent instructions. I have frozen the flesh in shreds, and will use it from time to time on my morning muesli.

Gherkins (from the market, not homegrown, but produced locally) sliced and salted, put into a pickling liquor made from my friend Sweetpea's homemade vinegar plus some sugar and spices.

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El Dorado: The couple who took over in February this year at La Claise restaurant as was, renaming it El Dorado, seem to have packed up and pushed off. The restaurant has been empty for a few weeks now. We hadn't even got round to trying them -- maybe that was the problem -- not enough people got round to trying them...

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Answers to Quiz Above: The author is Capt WE Johns, the book Biggles Takes Charge and the year of publication 1956.

Tim got quite close and picked up a lot of useful clues without quite getting the answer, so he gets 2 bonus points for sound reasoning. 

Wild Swimming and Weirs

Recently we went to a barbecue at the family home of someone whose property extends right down to the river Claise in Preuilly (well, technically Boussay, as not all of Preuilly's houses fall within the communal boundary). It gave us an opportunity to get up close and personal with the weir that serves the Moulin de Chanvre. The Claise is an unclassified river, so the landowners either side own to the middle of the river. This gives them fishing rights, but also the responsibility of maintaining the weirs, sluices, side channels and river banks on their patch.

Fancy a swim? You can go from here right into the centre of Preuilly.

Martin, our host, told us that he learnt to swim in the pool below the weir, and that both sides of the barrage are safe (there's not much flow, and it's not very deep, so no worries about undertow). One side of the property includes part of the old Roman route between Preuilly and La Roche-Posay. Technically, Martin's family own the remains of the Roman / Medieval bridge, which form an island in the middle of the river.

Martin and me, sangrias in hand, standing on the weir and discussing the finer points of river management.

I was tempted by the idea of wild swimming, but I expect the water is fairly cold. Last time I went wild swimming, in the Northern Territory nearly 10 years ago, I was horrified by how feeble I was against even the most gentle current too. There's lots of water lilies to get entangled with in some places, not to mention submerged fallen branches. Plus, Martin tells me that the river now has silure, huge catfish sometimes a couple of metres long, which eat everything in the river. He says he no longer gets moorhens, as the silure have eaten them, and I don't fancy sharing the water with them. (Mind you, they will take coypu too, so there is some benefit to having them...) He also told me he has often encountered snakes in the water, which didn't surprise me -- couleuvres (grass snakes) often swim, and will hunt frogs. They are no threat to swimmers though.

The weir was completely restored a few years ago by the owner of the Moulin de Chanvre. They didn't receive a grant to do so, but the job has been done to the highest quality and will no doubt last for many years to come. This plaque is charmingly discreet and modest. Note the photographer's temporarily abandoned sangria glass...

When he was young he used to catch eels and crayfish by setting out bait overnight and retrieving the catch before school. The crayfish have all gone now too. His father was the local vet, and the property has always been run in a way that respects nature. Martin has allowed the small stream that runs down the slope through the property to join the river to become full of vegetation so as to be a haven for wildlife. He's rightly proud of the fact that he can live with 'untidy' fringes to the garden and scythes rather than motor mows the grass.

We felt really privileged to be allowed to share this special place and learn about it from someone who has known and loved it all his life.

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Swim Safely: I wrote this post before hearing the news that 15 people were drowned in France over the weekend. Mostly they were swimming in the sea, outside the flags of supervised beaches, and were pulled out to sea by currents or caught by undertows. There have been 91 drownings in France so far this year, and the authorities are so concerned that they are thinking of introducing penalties for those who refuse to come out of the water when asked to do so by the lifeguards.

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Outraged!: Outraged I am...The weather cooled down to the extent yesterday that by mid-afternoon I had to change into a long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans and shoes, from my short-sleeved shirt, linen trousers and sandals. It's early August! The weather should definitely be short sleeves and sandals temperatures. But the rain was very welcome...

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A la cuisine hier: Cherry sponge pudding, made with some of our homegrown frozen sweet dark cherries. Delish.

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Bakery Tools at the Museum

One of the categories that the Poterne museum in Preuilly has a very good range of is tools from all the local trades. These two examples below are specific to the bakery business.

Mortar and pestle for making almond paste.

Once upon a time pastry chefs and confectioners pounded their own almonds to make paste for their goods. Almond paste had been a stock in trade of the patissier since Renaissance times.

Wooden grain shovel.

The grain shovel is made from a single piece of fruit wood. Tradition forbade the use of a metal shovel - presumably because of the risk of sparks, which could cause an explosion in an atmosphere full of flour dust.

The museum is manned by volunteers and only open in the summer holidays, Tuesday - Sunday afternoons.

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Guided Walk: There will be a guided tour of the Abbey of Saint Pierre in Preuilly followed by a walk around the town to learn about its history and architecture. Meet in front of the Abbey at 3 pm on Saturday 10 August. Afterwards there will be refreshments offered. The commentary will be in French, but if you are interested in architecture the walk is still worth doing.

Peak Insects

Late July is peak insect period. Many species of butterflies, dragonflies and flies especially are at their most abundant in July. When I do my butterfly transects for STERF I always return along the transect photographing everything else that I couldn't afford to pay attention to when I was counting butterflies in a strict time frame.

So here are some of the photos I took on my late July survey.

This little beauty is a male Small Spreadwing Lestes virens, warily keeping an eye on me. Spreadwings are often called emerald damselflies, for obvious reasons, as they all have gorgeous metallic green bodies. There were several species in the long grass and rushes Juncus spp along a damp ride in the Besom Heath Erica scoparia scrub. They are completely camouflaged in the rushes, and the Small Spreadwings particularly like this type of heathland habitat.

A male Ruddy Darter Sympetrum sanguineum (below) posing on a twig. Many dragonflies, especially males are easy to photograph because they return again and again to the same perches.

A wool carder bee Anthidium sp collecting pollen on Field Scabious Knautia arvensis. They are fierce little creatures, defending their patch of flowers against all rival pollen collectors, including the much bigger Violet Carpenter Bees Xylacopa violacea. They are not aggressive to people though, and generally just ignore photographers. Anthidiums collect pollen and carry it in the hairs on their belly (you can see the white pollen load this bee is carrying). I always think it makes them look rather like they are wearing a nappy. These are one of the bees that if you are lucky will use a bee hotel if you make one for them, and you may see them collecting fluff from plants such as stachys (lamb's ears) or the undersides of vine leaves to construct their nests.

One of my favourites, the Broad-bordered Bee Hawk Moth Hemaris fuciformis nectaring at Verbena bonariensis in a friend's garden (not one of my butterfly transects, but taken the same day as my July survey...). The next day, in another friend's garden I saw a female ovipositing on Snowberry Symphoricarpos sp, a garden plant native to America. It is in the same family as honeysuckle, one of the BBBHM's caterpillar food plants, so I'm guessing the caterpillars will be able to survive on it.

A male parasitic fly Ectophasia crassipennis  (below) nectaring on Wild Carrot Daucus carota. These flies prey on shield bugs, especially in the family Pentatomidae.

A female robber fly (below) from the Tolmerus atricapillus group. This group of species is very difficult to separate from one another just by photos. The English name for T. atricapillus is Kite-tailed Robber Fly and they hunt other flies, much like miniature dragonflies. This one was particularly confiding and used my recording sheet as a lookout point, taking very little notice of me. It was a bit tricky getting a photo of it only using one hand to operate the camera while the other held the clipboard and all the while trying not to disturb the fly.

Roadtrip Reflections

Nothing in front of us and nothing behind as we drive the 100 km straight through the Pilliga Scrub. It may look scruffy and dusty, but it harbours more than 900 plant species, around 40 mammals, 50 reptiles and at least 15 amphibians. It is the largest remaining remnant of semi-arid woodland in New South Wales. Many of its plants are dependent on bushfires to regenerate. One of the dominant species is White Cypress-pine Callitris columellaris, which yields a termite resistant wood. My house in Australia was built of cypress-pine, and they are beautiful cone shaped dark green trees. Simon finds the drive through this forest, which we have both done many times, unbearably monotonous and closed in with vegetation. I, on the other hand, love the particular mix of native trees here, and like to look out the window at all the different subtle colours and leaf types.

 Currently this woodland habitat is under threat from coal seam gas* exploration and extraction. It was also where we saw our one and only feral goat of the trip. Semi-arid areas of woodland and pastoral properties, such as the Pilliga region, are the principal strongholds of feral goats in Australia. Although we only saw this single goat, I would not have been surprised to see more. I definately noticed a real proliferation of domestic goats closer to the coast, which did surprise me. There were a few herds of mohair producers, but also quite a number of herds of dairy goats. This latter is a new development as far as I know (ie since we left Australia, so within the last 15 years).

*For fairly sensible overview of coal seam gas, shale oil and gas and fracking see here, with good technical explanations for the lay person.  Bear in mind however that the author is connected to Santos, the parent company of the mining operation in the Pilliga, so conservation issues are subtly sidelined. For the conservation view point, read the Wilderness Society's latest press release on the Pilliga.

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Ile de Ré Reflections: At first I watched this boat with interest -- clearly Bond villains off on some nefarious business to foil the good guys. Then I realised there were probably way too many teenagers on board for this to be a likely scenario...

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Brocante: Anyone who knows me knows I find brocantes some of the most tedious places on earth, but I am pleased to report that this year's annual brocante, held yesterday down on the plan d'eau in Preuilly revealed a generally better quality of merchandise than the usual tat. It is clear that drinking glasses and sundae type dessert glasses are the next big collectible. There were lots of sets of glasses in good condition and not outrageously priced. There was also a lot of galvanised metal containers of one sort or another, and very few ridiculously overpriced chipped and cracked salt glazed earthenware storage jars. The range of goods on offer was relatively limited, with no specialist napery stall nor anyone just selling old tools. I didn't see anyone attempting to flog the free plastic toys from cornflakes packets, and most stuff looked as if it was in reasonable condition and would likely work.

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Farming News: Many farmers took the day off yesterday due to the storm in the night and the subsequent damp. The day before yesterday though they'd been harvesting as fast as they could in the heat and dry. Headers and their accompanying grain trucks and trailers were everywhere, in the fields and on the roads.

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Orchard News: The apples are starting to colour and the Hamburg grapes look magnificent (although still bright green). I'll be digging potatoes and lifting leeks when I get a chance in the next few days. I'm pleased to see that various things are moving in to the 'bee hotels'. To be honest, I don't know what the creaturs are as I have never seen them, but more and more holes are being blocked up by bits of dried grass and other vegetative matter. Maybe leafcutter bees...

Rusticated Romanesque

These two buildings sit side by side on George Street and Martin Place in central Sydney. You can see that similar materials have been used in their construction, and in fact, they had the same architect, although he was working for different clients.

 2 Martin Place (this is in fact the back of the building)

The architect was Austrian born American, Edward Raht, who introduced something called the Federation Romanesque style to Australia with his design for the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States of America in 1894. After working in Melbourne on the Equitable Life office there, he returned to Sydney to design the Bank of Australasia building on the corner of George Street and Martin Place (2 Martin Place) in the same style. In both cases he used hard dark trachyte stone from Bowral, rusticated (as if rough hewn) to give a sense of solid mass and conservative power, supported by steel frames. Both buildings are apparently beautiful inside, with extremely high quality materials and workmanship, but I find them stupendously ugly on the outside, particularly 350 George Street, with its 19th century pastiche of decorative devices and curiously squat proportions. The colour of the trachyte is very heavy, accentuating how firmly the building is planted on the ground and is intended to dominate its surroundings.

350 George Street

The Bank of Australasia became the ANZ Bank in time, and they still occupy their building. Equitable Life became National Mutual, then they moved out of their building in 1977. In 1984 it was completely renovated and the Société Générale moved in. Both buildings are reported to be in very good condition, and have retained their functional integrity.

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Ile de Ré Reflections: Pavement hollyhocks rule the island's narrow cobbled streets in mid-summer.

Gatekeepers Rule But Emperors Rock

This (below) is one of my most important butterfly transects. One of the purposes of the national butterfly survey (STERF) run by the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris is to monitor the state of butterfly populations in cultivated land. This transect is a track between two fields, this year planted with barley and sunflowers. The butterflies aren't very interested in either of the crops. What is important for them is the pair of wildflower rich ditches and the grassy track which separate the fields and leads to an area of forest. So this is a rather rich transect, full of grassland butterflies in the summer. I have other transects bounded by crops which do not have such good field margins, and the constrastingly low numbers of butterflies recorded from these transects is obvious. The tendency with modern farming is for more and more land to go under the plough and for crop margins to become narrower and narrower. As their habitat reduces the numbers of grassland butterflies has plummeted, many species by as much as 70% in the last decade. Butterflies are being starved out of existence in some places.

I am very pleased indeed, however, to report that after the most dismal start ever to the butterfly surveying year, at last we have butterflies in good numbers. Some species even appear to be having an exceptionally good year after all, but there are still some strange absences. Gatekeepers Pyronia tithonus are so prolific I had real difficulty counting them properly, I've seen more of the rare and protected Large Blue Maculinea arion than I've ever seen before and the cheeky Large Skippers Ochlodes venutus are flitting about everywhere.

Marbled Fritillary Brenthis daphne, nectaring on some brambles, and if female, no doubt she's laid a few eggs as well, since the caterpillars eat bramble leaves.

On the other hand, I have recorded almost no other sorts of skippers, nor Small Heaths Coenonympha pamphilus, which should be so common you are disturbing them with every footstep through the grass. Half the fritillary species are missing, with virtually no Knapweeds Cinclidia phoebe, no records at all of Glanvilles Melitaea cinxia or Heaths Mellicta athalia and only a few early season records of Violets Clossiana dia. However, the lovely Marbled Fritillary is having a good year and I have recorded it on several transects. The Adonis Blues Polyommatus bellargus seem to be absent at the moment (like the Violet Fritillaries they were present earlier in the season), but Common P. icarus and Provencal Short-tail Everes alcetas numbers are building up.

I recorded 196 Gatekeepers over 10 transects in late July, and this pair are clearly intent on making more! I have a feeling they are going to oust the ubiquitous and usually abundant Meadow Browns Maniola jurtina from the top spot as France's most common butterfly this year.

The star butterfly! This (below) is a female Purple Emperor Apatura iris, come down from the treetops to imbibe minerals in a slight damp patch on a track. They are not rare but localised and hard to see. I had got in the car after finishing a set of transects which are close together and was just about to drive off when I noticed a large butterfly on the ground. That's one of the things you really notice about them -- they are large (for a European butterfly -- all you Australians with Orchard Swallowtails Papilio aegeus in your backyard can stop scoffing...). The Purple Emperor's wingspan is about 40mm, so they are about the same size as the Silver-washed Fritillary Argynnis paphia and their behaviour and appearance is distinctive. The males are the most amazing irridescent purply blue, but even the females have a silky lustre that is something special. This time I was really lucky with the photographic background, as they may be beautiful, but they have rather low habits. They don't care what the source of the mineral salts is, and are most often observed sitting on a pile of dog poo.

I was equally pleased to see a number of Large Blue females ovipositing on Wild Oregano Oreganum vulgare flower buds at another of my transects. This transect is a well managed stretch of rural roadside, extremely botanically rich, and hopefully the host ants the Large Blues require for their remarkable life cycle are also present.

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A la cuisine hier: The liqueur de noix has reached the 'you have got to be joking!' stage, as Simon pointed out to me yesterday. It looks like a batch of primordial soup, just waiting for a lightning strike to kick start life on earth. I now have two batches on the go, due to additional walnuts kindly provided by Antoinette. They seemed to be a particularly lively lot, hurtling all over the kitchen in a bid for freedom as I chopped them open, and I have combined them with red wine, sugar and spices to make the cheaper and less alcoholic version, vin de noix.

The windfall apples have been boiled up and are being strained through the jelly bag to make pectin for next year's jam. It keeps well in the freezer.

Over the past 3 days I have scrubbed the terracotta tile kitchen floor and reapplied the colour reviver and hydrofuge/oleofuge products. Water had stopped beading on the surface, so it was time. I did each stage on successive evenings so it had overnight to dry each time.

Wildlife Watching in the Touraine du Sud in August

August is a good month for mammal spotting. The population will be at its peak, with youngsters becoming independent, but prior to the hunting season. You will notice rabbits and hares, roe deer, hedgehogs, red squirrels, badgers, martens, mice and foxes are much more visible. Sadly, at this time, the roadkill numbers increase dramatically, especially badgers and hedgehogs.

Scarce Swallowtail Iphiclides podalirius is not scarce at all, and the somewhat paler second generation, like this one below, will be flying.

One day in August you will notice that the swifts have gone (in fact, I'm beginning to wonder if they have already left, since I don't think I've seen one for a couple of days!). No more screaming scimitars in the sky. I miss them and look forward to their return next spring.

Wild Angelica Angelica sylvestris, with striking dusty purple stems, is one of the later flowering umbels, found in damp places.

If you have orchids in your lawn it should be safe to mow over them at the end of the month because the seed should have matured and been dispersed.

 Huge adult Stag Beetles Lucanus cervus are still out and about, arriving in their ludicrous out of control way at the lights if you have a barbecue, or just going about their business on the forest floor. This one's a female, so she doesn't have the impressive 'antlers', photographed in the Fôret de Loches.

Usually the first half of the month is hot, but it will cool down to pleasantly warm in the second half. According to Méteo de France, today is set to be a record 37°C.

We're Excellent!

Unlike many anglophones (Brits especially) who move to France we are not of pensionable age, so we needed a way of earning an income. When we moved here our original idea was to live in the graineterie and rent the house out as a gîte (holiday self-catering accommodation). But we soon realised just how many people were doing that and that one gîte couldn't give us a livable income. We decided to do something that could link into the tourist industry here, but acting as a complement to the holiday accommodation sector so that we worked as partners (as the French like to call separate but collaborating businesses).

Luckily, some serious periods of thought (and the need to justify having a Traction Avant) bought us to where we are now, and three years in the hard thinking is starting to pay off. We have been extremely lucky with our clients, who have been interesting and interested people, fun to spend the day with, and that makes our work so much easier.

Most of our enquiries about tours come after people have read our reviews on TripAdvisor, who have just awarded us a Certificate of Excellence. It means that we are rated amongst the top 10% of attractions listed on TripAdvisor. This is due to our clients who take the trouble to post a review about us on the popular travel forum. They have consistently rated us as excellent (with one exception out of 33 reviews, who thought we were very good).  This is very reassuring: for us in that it shows us we are apparently doing the right thing, as well as for our future clients when they are searching for something special to do in the Loire Valley.

You hear a lot of negative things these days about TripAdvisor, and some travellers don't trust the reviews to be genuine. Rumours that fake reviews are written by professionals abound, and we receive many offers from professionals to write more reviews (these hit the spam bin so fast it's a wonder we don't get whiplash). Furthermore, they wield a lot of power, as a single negative review can have a big impact on business. Although we ask our clients to write a review, what they say is entirely up to them and personal to them. Fortunately, the one time we had what looked like a negative review, we realised that the client had mistakenly reviewed us when she had actually used a different group, who have a guide with a similar name. We let TripAdvisor know and they immediately removed the review. What a relief!

On the whole, I think TripAdvisor is a useful tool for the canny traveller, who knows what they like and is willing to take the time to read between the lines of other people's reviews. What do you think? Do you use it, and how do you sift the useful information from the irrelevant?

Practising Sexual Confusion

One day in April we arrived at the Chateau Gaudrelle winery and were met as usual by their intern Cristina. We asked where Alexandre was, as it is always nice to catch up with the owner if he is around.
'Oh', said Cristina. 'He is out in the vineyard practising sexual confusion.'

I'm afraid we just fell about the place.

Photo courtesy of Chateau Gaudrelle.

What Alexandre was doing was hanging plastic dispensers of a product called RAK® (developed by BASF Crop Protection) on the vines. It allows him to combat the damage caused by Vine Moth caterpillars without resorting to insecticides. By broadcasting a pheromone that matches the chemical attractant produced by the female moths when they want to mate, the males don't know where turn and in their confusion fail to mate. Failure to mate means failure to produce caterpillars. Alexandre says the product is extremely well regarded in the industry.

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Lecture: As part of the Archaeology Festival de la trace aux gestes there will be a lecture on the Paleolithique population of the southern Touraine. Friday 2 August at the Salle des Fêtes in Preuilly, 6 pm, free (in French).

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Disconnected!: All the internet connected to Preuilly-sur-Claise's interchange died at 11am on Sunday. Antoinette in Charnizay rang Orange and was told 'Wednesday at the latest'. Yesterday at 17.00 our internet connected but with no access to the world wide web or email. At that stage we had Skype only but hopefully by the time you read this we will be back online properly. Thanks to Alex and Nicole for the access to their wifi over the last couple of days.

What's Wrong With These Photos?

We bought these dishwasher tablets for the bargain price of €1.25 in Leader Price in Chatellerault. Can you spot the anomaly?

Roadtrains

 B-Doubles parked on the roadside in Dubbo at lunchtime. 

(The western plains of New South Wales, December last year.)

Roadtrains, that is to say, multi-trailered articulated trucks, are a fairly well known Australian phenomenon. In the years that we have been away they have come to dominate the roads as never before. The trucks are getting bigger (now the largest in the world) and they are being allowed ever closer to urbanisation. In Queensland and New South Wales they are limited to 35m long, but in the Northern Territory they can be 55m long.

A roadtrain of the type known as a triple. 

We followed him out of Goondiwindi on the Queensland / New South Wales border and later encountered him creeping along at walking speed with one of his many wheels on fire.

Everyone on the main rural roads is limited to the speed of the roadtrains. You can't pass them because you rarely have enough visibility ahead to do it safely (due to heat shimmer), and even when you do, the roads are not quite wide enough to pass a gently swaying roadtrain. The roads are often on levee banks because the land is flood prone, there is no hard shoulder to speak of, and the bitumen ends abruptly in a sharp drop off. The roads are all undulating because of damage caused by the heavy vehicles and in some places because of retro installation of culverts. The biggest trucks are nearly 200 tonnes, although most are about half that weight. The roadtrain drivers' technique for staying stable is to ever so slowly increase speed all the time, which straightens out the trailers. Slowing down is done very gingerly, because of the risk of jack-knifing. Never argue with a roadtrain...

Surprisingly, this makes driving these roads a very pleasant experience (if you discount having to spot emus, kangaroos, feral pigs and goats or domestic sheep and cattle with a death wish on unfenced roads). Everyone just puts on their speed limiter or cruise control and hums along for kilometre after kilometre. This is in complete contrast to the insanely hyper city driving in Australia. We nearly got collected in Canberra because we stopped for a red light -- the car behind us had to swerve wildly and dash through. Clearly it is considered ridiculous to stop unless the light has been red for some seconds. Everyone drives with their foot flat to the floor, alternating between accelerator and brake.

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Ile de Ré Reflections: A ketch glides into the harbour at Saint-Martin-de-Ré, almost silent its motor was so quiet.

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Orchard News: The paulownia has lost a few small branches in the storms, and one of the nectarines has lost the half dozen almost ripe fruit it had. I've propped up a branch of the laden old nectarine by the potager gate, as well as a branch on our Melrose apple. The Reine de Reinette apple has lost some fruit, but none of the other apples have and neither have the pears. I picked the last worthwhile sour cherries, so that's cherry season over for another year. I'll make a last precious batch of sour cherry syrup, and some pectin with the windfall apples. One of the cherry tomatoes has some colour, and they have survived the wild weather very well. The front of last year's compost bin has collapsed. The whole orchard was strewn with poplar leaves, which have come from the plantation by the river, a good 200 m away.

Up at the house the c.2.5 m tall hollyhocks have all taken a dive and I have tied them up in preparation for the next round.

Café Omega, Moree

When we pulled in to a motel to overnight in Moree, in central New South Wales, on 29 November 2012 we had no idea that the morning would reveal a vibrant café scene. Having travelled through Moree many times in the past we were dubious that this country town of not totally salubrious reputation would deliver anything worth reporting on. But these days it seems that there are a number of proper cafés in town, including one run by the Aboriginal community. We checked the internet to find somewhere to have breakfast, and one place in particular stood out -- Café Omega.

We really liked the nod to Australian heritage with the corrugated iron wainscoting.

We were delighted to discover that Café Omega has been thoroughly and professionally conceived, from its layout to its menu. It is a striking step up from any of the other inland cafés we set foot in. For a start, the interior isn't a deafening cacophony of chairs scraping, screaming steam injectors and ever escalating conversation. Someone has thought about the acoustics and got it right.

Might have to steal this idea...

Second, it was obvious that a wide range of the community uses the place, from young women with children, older women with their mothers, and the most significant social shift of all in Australia, older men coming in for a coffee rather than repairing to the pub for a beer. Customer and work flows had been carefully thought out so that they worked smoothly and there was a central aisle to the L-shaped counter at the back. Beyond that were toilets and the terrace (which was too hot to consider using the day we were there).

Grilled bacon, tomato and cheese strips on good chunky white bread with strong café latte. This was the only good bread experience I had in Australia. Bread in Australia is still generally ghastly, but the bacon seems now universally superb (a completely different product to when we left Australia in 1997).

Finally, and most importantly, the food and the coffee were excellent, and came in reasonably priced, generous servings. The story of how this place came to be in this unlikely setting is told here, in a newspaper article. It must have been a tremendous risk at the time, to upstakes from more civilised parts and return to Moree with the idea of opening a café, but Charles Budway's vision has been achieved. We wish him bonne continuation.

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Ile de Ré Reflections: A view of harbourside buildings at Saint-Martin-de-Ré.

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Farming News: The wheat harvest must have begun, as the main thoroughfares of Preuilly have spilt red grain scattered all over them and there is a steady stream of trailers full of grain being towed to the silos in town.

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Weather News: Another big 3 am thunderstorm this morning, this time with less sound and light, but more lashing winds. Instead of being over in less than an hour, this one lasted at least 3 hours. I spoke to Charles, one of our wine growing friends yesterday, and he said they were very happy. They may have lost 50% of their harvest to hail in June, but now the weather is hot and it is raining at night with no hail. Perfect for swelling and ripening grapes. They want this weather to continue for another couple of months, and I don't suppose too many people would argue with them.

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Yesterday's Quiz: The answers are now added to yesterday's post. No one was awarded any points!

Mystery Chateau Interior

2 points if you can name the chateau where this photo was taken.

5 points if you can correctly and fully identify the group of objects on the table (material and place of origin will earn you points, as will any other interesting snippet of information regarding them).
*Answers below.
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A la cuisine hier: Raspberry coulis. The raspberries came from our orchard neighbour, who picked them yesterday evening. They were over ripe and he made sure I knew I must cook them immediately. He said there was une livre in weight (a pound) in that old fashioned way they have here and they were €3. You do not ask for un demi-kilo of fruit at the market, that will not be understood, although you can say you will take cinq cents grammes.

Liqueur de noix. This is what the Italians call nocino and many people know it by that name, not realising that the French make it too. In the Touraine the green walnuts are ready in mid to late July for making this magic elixir. This year I was nearly too late and some of the shells inside their green overcoats were a bit more woody than I would have liked. I haven't been able to make it since 2009 due to a lack of suitable walnuts. My original brew has almost run out. It was a traditional recipe but this year I have got a bit adventurous and the mix is 10 green walnuts, chopped (cue walnut bits whizzing all over the kitchen), a used vanilla bean, half a star anise, 5 mixed peppercorns, ½ cup orange syrup, ½ a cinnamon stick, ½ cup white vermouth, 1 cup vodka. Now it gets to sit on the bench festering in a jar for a couple of months. Theoretically it should be ready for Christmas, but if it is anything like the last lot it needs 3 years to really round out the flavours and be drinkable. It's useable after two, as an addition to other things for a hint of indefinable nut flavour in cakes and desserts or poured over icecream, but the real test is if you can drink it straight and genuinely enjoy it.

8 jars of Sour Cherry and Redcurrant Jelly. The combination is much nicer than either fruit on its own, a totally zingulatory experience (sorry non-anglophone readers -- that isn't a real word, I just made it up...) Think sour rainbow straps, sour worms or bonbons aigre-doux.

Fried Rice. I often cook extra rice for a meal so that I have leftovers for fried rice the next day. By the way, has anyone noticed that ordinary long grain rice is almost impossible to get in France now? This is only a recent phenomena, of about 6 months. I can only easily get fragrant Thai and stupid parcooked long grain (what is the point, why is it yellow and why does it take the same amount of time to cook as regular rice?). Basmati is getting less easy to obtain. When I can get ordinary long grain, it is different to what I used to get. The new rice doesn't look as good, is fatter, seems to be more fragile both cooked and raw and breaks up easily. Does anyone know what is going on?

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Orchard News: Pears are looking good and some nectarines will soon be ripe. The tomatoes all have fruit (still totally green) but we clearly aren't going to get any zucchini or aubergines.

A badger (I presume) has dug out a Red-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus lapidarius nest in the ground by a fence post. There is a neat hole about 30 cm deep and 20 cm in diameter, with a number of dead bees at the bottom, and some more bodies in the excavation material. The nest is still clearly operating at some level though, as half a dozen bees entered and left by two different entrances as I watched.

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Weather News: There was a tremendous thunderstorm at 3 am this morning. The booming and banging and brilliant flashing was most impressive. When I went to buy bread this morning though the baker had been alarmed by the ferocity of it all and had not switched his ovens on, in case there was a power surge that blew everything up, so there will be no bread until lunchtime. Our dishwasher has had one of its periodic flashing lights conniptions, so I'm guessing that was the storm.

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Quiz Answers: The chateau is Azay-le-Rideau, in one of the downstairs rooms decorated to acknowledge the Biencourt family occupancy.  The objects on the table are Imari ware porcelain bowls imported to France by the French East India Company from China in the 18th century. Imari is a Japanese ceramic style from the 17th century, later copied by the Chinese for the export market and also copied by European manufactures in both porcelain and stoneware. These 5 bowls were purchased at auction last year in Tours from the descendents of the Biencourt family for €2200. They are not perfect, having a few chips, but they are nice objects with a real connection to the chateau.

No one really even got close, although chm's guess that they might be stoneware (faïence) was good thinking. So, no points to anyone. Better luck next time!