Days on the Claise

2026 Holiday Day 7

2026-06-10T09:06:52.771+02:00

Fritzlar to Hamburg

Yesterday was a day of travel. Not many pictures because we got confused in Hamelin, and just as well. We spent an extra hour in traffic at 15 kmh on the Autobahn.

I'm not sure he needed that trailer for that load

Distance covered 410km

Cumulative total 1591km@ 55km/h

2026 Holiday Day 6

2026-06-09T09:00:00.000+02:00

Fritzlar.

We're in Fritzlar because it's where my paternal grandmother's family came from before moving to London in the late 1890s.

We met up with Stefanie, the town historian and director of the town museum, whose office is the the building in which my great grandfather was born. She showed us both that building and the town museum, even though the museum is closed on Monday.

Stefanie was incredibly generous with her time, and we have to thank my cousin Linda for arranging it.

The house in which my great grandfather was born

Susan and Stefanie

Fritzlar Cathedral. The tower on the right collapsed during a thunderstorm in 1868 killing 21 people.

One of the dead was my great-great-grandmother

Susan and Stefanie spent a lot of time talking about how you deal with uncomfortable local history.

The answer to yesterday's question. I was looking out of the window in our apartment circled in red,

2026 Holiday Day 5

2026-06-08T09:00:00.000+02:00

Aachen to Fritzlar via Cologne.

Currywurst for lunch, eaten standing up in Cologne Station

As it was a Sunday all the big trucks were parked

Fritzlar: the view from here to there

...and the view from there to here.

Can you work out where our accommodation for two nights is?

Distance covered 281km

Cumulative total 1181km@ 54km/h

2026 Holiday Day 4

2026-06-07T09:00:00.000+02:00

Aachen and it's treasures.

The cathedral. The domed part is Carolingian

That's handy. A larger than life reliquary

Aachen town hall

The inside of the Carolingian dome

Added bonus: goth samba

The car stayed at the hotel, and we caught the bus.

2026 Holiday Day 3

2026-06-06T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a relocation day, not far, just from Tervuren to Aachen. As it's only 111km as the crow flies I thought we'd take the opportunity to get lost and see some interesting things we didn't have plans to see. We managed the first part of the equation, including 2½ turns around Maastricht, with the added bonus of an excursion into the forbidden zone. Oops.

The second part wasn't as spectacular as we had hoped. Hey ho.

We're now in Aachen for two nights. Today our plan is to get seriously early mediaeval.

Life on the road. We picnicked by the autoroute.

Distance travelled 169km

Cumulative total 907km@ 53km/h

2026 Holiday Day 2

2026-06-05T09:00:00.000+02:00

Troyes - Brussels

After fields of opium poppies, we started seeing big things.

The Woinic Sanglier is 10 metres high and weighs 56 tonnes

The Lion Mound at Waterloo

Distance travelled 377km

Cumulative total 738km@ 58km/h

Insects on the Eperon

2026-06-04T09:00:00.000+02:00

On a recent outing to the Eperon de Murat nature reserve I saw a range of insects.

Forest Fly Hippobosca equina (Fr. Mouche plate).

A blood feeding parasite of bovines primarily, but often also found on horses and dogs. It causes no discomfort to its hosts and is not a vector for disease. They do tend to freak people out though because of their scuttling movement.

Golden-ringed Dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii (Fr. Cordulégastre annelé).

A dragonfly that breeds in small fast tumbling streams often on hillsides. It is present throughout most of Europe but always uncommon.

Female Beautiful Demoiselle Calopteryx virgo (Fr. Caloptéryx vierge).

This species also likes small cold swift streams and is very sensitive to oxygen levels in the water. Numbers are dwindling as water is increasingly warm and eutrophic (full of algae that use all the oxygen).

Male Beautiful Demoiselle.

Males are very territorial and are often to be seen perched on vegetation along the banks of their stream. Their flight is languid with quite slow wing beats, so people don't always recognise them as damselflies.

Dance flies Empis sp and pollen beetles Meligethinae all over Bath Asparagus Ornithogalum pyrenaicum. The dance flies are predatory. Bath Asparagus is foraged in the wild and sold as a great delicacy in fresh markets for about 15 euros a small bunch during its brief season.

A small carpenter bee Ceratina sp on Field Scabious Knautia arvensis.

These bees nest in hollow plant stems, making cells containing a stock of pollen for the larva, and divided by plant pith.

Ferruginous Bee-grabber fly Sicus ferrugineus on Field Scabious. This fly is quite common throughout Europe but so weird looking that people usually don't know what they are looking at. They have strange yellow swollen heads and sit with their abdomens curled up under themselves. They are parasites of bumble bees.

Female Azure Blue butterfly Polyommatus bellargus (Fr. Azuré bleu-célèste) ovipositing on Horseshoe Vetch Hippocrepis comosa.

They are a species of hot dry calcareous grasslands, quite dependent on sheep grazing to keep the habitat suitable for them. Where they occur they are usually abundant, but because of destruction or degradation of their favoured habitat their population is declining.

Rusty Tussock moth Orgyia antiqua (Fr. Etoilée) caterpillar on Downy Oak Quercus pubescens.

This is a species that will eat a wide variety of plants, but for reasons that are not understood it has become rare. The caterpillar is amongst the most distinctive of any Lepidopteran. Be careful not to touch them as those hairs are urticating and can cause skin irritations on people who are sensitive.

Orchard Ermine moth Yponomeuta padella caterpillars and cocoons inside the web communal nest on Blackthorn Prunus spinosa. These poor Blackthorns have been munched twice this season. Earlier in the year it was Small Eggar Eriogaster lanestris caterpillars all over them. But they will recover.

2026 Holiday Day 1

2026-06-04T09:00:00.000+02:00

Preuilly-sur-Claise to Troyes via Joigny

Cumulative distance: 361km @ 56km/h

An Artisanal Chestnut Chair

2026-06-03T09:00:00.004+02:00

In the Haute-Vienne and neighbouring 'counties' of the south-west of France like Limousin a rustic tradition is clinging on. Developing as a commercial product in the 19th century, by the mid-20th century there were 20 artisanal workshops making large quantities of chestnut furniture that is unique to the area. All the workshops had to close during the Covid pandemic, and almost all never reopened. Nowadays, after a low point of a single workshop making this furniture, now there are a handful of people who are working to prevent the skills dying. The best known workshop operating today is that of Pascal and Martine Raffier, at la Chapelle Montbrandeix and they are doing their best to train younger artisans.

At the beginning of the 20th century there were 5000 people employed in Haute-Vienne making chestnut furniture. These artisans, called feuillardiers, would select and mark suitable chestnut trees for the foresters to coppice. These managed trees gave a range of products, including large numbers of pickets, much valued by winemakers for the vineyards of the South-West. As well, there was a range of simple, durable furniture made, with a great diversity of forms.

A chestnut armchair in the Chateau de Bridoré.

The chestnut armchair has become one of the iconic products of the region. Initially it was small family workshops making this furniture, and the industry thrived in the post-War period up until the 1970s. Multiple generations were involved in the manufacture, and some workshops were able to employ a handul of staff. The furniture was sold in fashionable Paris stores such as Galeries Lafayette. Older inhabitants of the area can remember wagonloads being sent to Paris on the train from Chalus. Luxury hotels on tropical islands ordered dozens at a time.

But plastic came to dominate the outdoor furniture market, and it could be built more cheaply in developing countries. The focus of the workshops in the Haute-Vienne switched to the repair of chestnut furniture. Pieces needing their seats or table tops rewoven would be brought to the artisans by devotees of the style who had owned the chairs for decades.

To make a chair the artisan selects lengths of chestnut that are dried in an oven. The artisan first removes the knots with a pocket knife. Thin strips called clisses (splints) are cut on a special old machine to form the 'canes' which will be hand woven to form the seat and back. After the woven panels are done they are framed in rattan and the splints carefully cut for a neat finish. It takes two hours over two days to make a finished chair, during which time the wood is prepared, the main structure is put together, the woven panels are added and everything is finished off.

The furniture was appreciated because of its light weight combined with durability. It was resistant to insect damage and the pieces have a sort of quirky creativity which consumers enjoyed for their holiday houses. Le Corbusier is said to have been very fond of the armchairs, and these days they are marketed using his name for the model.

Faking Sudden Death

2026-06-02T09:00:00.001+02:00

European Peacock butterfly Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour).

Male insects are remarkably persistent. They have to be if they want to reproduce and mate with a passing female. It is not the males who decide if mating will take place, it is the females. One of the techniques that female butterflies and dragonflies of some species will use if they don't want to mate is to drop out of the air or off their perch as if they have suddenly died when approached too persistently by a male. The bemused male will hover above for a while, but the female is capable of maintaining the charade for quite some time, so eventually the male pushes off. The female makes a 'miraculous' recovery and flies off in the opposite direction. What she's done is not without its own risk though. She could find herself predated or injured whilst on the ground. But mostly it's an effective way to get rid of a sex pest. Twenty years ago a study of butterflies playing possum showed that in 27 out of 31 instances the female succeeded in avoiding unwanted male attention in this way.

Female Brimstone butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron).

If you are in the Touraine Loire Valley, watch out for the behaviour in butterflies such as the Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron), European Peacock Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour), Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria (Fr. Tircis), or Wall Brown Lasiommata megera (Fr. Mégère).

Wall Brown butterflies Lasiommata megera (Fr. male Satyre, female Mégère) engaged in courtship behaviour. The female, on the right, has dropped her wings. She's not playing dead in this instance, but offering an invitation to the male.

Female Speckled Wood butterfly Pararge aegeris (Fr. Tircis).

Wild Strawberry Season is Upon Us

2026-06-01T09:00:00.000+02:00

There are several wild strawberry species, but only one is worth eating, so it is worth learning how to identify them. They are considered one of the greatest treats you can wild forage, and archaelogical evidence suggests we have been eating them for thousands of years.

Barren Strawberry.

Around here there are three species that are frequently confused. They are Barren Strawberry Potentilla sterilis (Fr. Potentille faux fraisier), Mock Strawberry Potentilla indica (Fr. Fraisier d'Inde) and Wild Strawberry Fragaria vesca (Fr. Fraisier des bois).

Barren Strawberry.

One has leaves that look just like a wild strawberry plant, and white flowers that greatly resemble the true wild strawberry. Many people will delightedly leave these growing in their garden when they turn up, but then be disappointed because they never have any fruit. That's because they are Barren Strawberries and if you know what to look for there are ways of telling them apart by looking carefully at the tip of the leaves.

Mock Strawberry.

Then there is another one, which does have alluring looking red fruit, but when you eat one they taste of nothing. Luckily they aren't toxic, so you won't do yourself any harm if you eat them, but they are disappointing. These are the Mock Strawberries. They are not native, but introduced from Asia and have naturalised.

Mock Strawberry.

All these species grow in the same season, and in the same habitats. It is not uncommon to encounter a mixture of species growing intermingled.

Wild Strawberries.

So here are my top tips for telling them apart:

Wild Strawberries

White flowers with rounded petals which overlap.
Drooping or hanging conical fruit.
Strong sweet floral strawberry flavour.*

Mock Strawberries

Yellow flowers with a ruff of green bracts that sits just below the pointed calyxes and extend beyond the flowers.
Globular fruit on erect stems.
Insipid taste.

Barren Strawberries

White flowers with knotched petals that do not overlap.
No fruit.
Leaves have a central tooth at the tip which is shorter than the ones either side.

Wild Strawberry.

*I know most people who know Wild Strawberries rave about them and are thrilled to find them, but personally I find them a bit too soapy tasting.

You should be aware that low growing wild fruit *might* be contaminated with tapeworm eggs (Echinococcus sp) due to the presence of wild and feral canids (foxes, stray dogs, wolves) in the environment. French people of a certain age may give you dire warnings of what will happen if you forage for fruit below knee height. In some families the parasite you are avoiding is liver fluke (Fr. douve de foie), which is transferred in wet environments from sheep. I would have thought all this applies equally to mushrooms, but I've never heard it mentioned in that context... And in the old days, the hideous disease you would be keen to avoid was rabies...

Cornflowers

2026-05-29T09:00:00.000+02:00

The Cornflower Cyanus segetum (syn Centaurea cyanus) is named such because it is found wild in cereal crops. In French it is called le Bleuet. Because of centuries of international grain trading the plant, which is native to Europe, can be found in North America and Australia, its seeds having been carried there in grain cargoes. As an arable weed though, since the mid-20th century it has become much rarer and more localised as a wild flower.

The flowers, which are usually deep blue, can also sometimes be white or pink. The leaves are a bit downy and grey-green. Right now in the Touraine Loire Valley if you know where to look for them the flowers are at their peak, and they will be visible until perhaps July. The Creuse valley, with its sandy alluvial soil and open flat farmland suits them perfectly. The plants are resistant to the current generation of herbicides, and difficult to control mechanically (rather the opposite -- they thrive on the disturbance! and their roots are strong) But earlier herbicides really dealt the population and distribution of this species a blow and modern seed cleaning practices destroyed significant numbers of harvested seed thus preventing them re-entering the natural seed bank. The overuse of nitrogen fertilisers has also caused a decline in cornflower population. Thus in some places you are now more likely to encounter them on roadsides rather than in crops, or they may have been eradicated altogether. In time they could still recover though, because the seeds may well be still viable in the soil, and modern crop rotations favour it. In France, although there is concern about the species and some projects to protect it, it is not considered likely that it will go extinct. In the Touraine the species can be abundant, but to the north, west and south-west the picture is not so good.

The name 'bleuet' to signify this flower first appeared in written French in 1380. Today there seems to be confusion between cornflowers and chicory Chicorium intybus, an abundant blue wild flower found on waste ground throughout France. But chicory has much paler flowers and is a perennial, whereas cornflowers are annuals.

Because of their colour the flowers have been much prized for making garlands, either with the actual flowers, or depicting them in ceramic glazes. They seem to be associated with a remarkable number of political movements, some of them rather nasty, some of them absolutely admirable. Here in France they are best known as the symbol of remembrance for veterans, in the same way that poppies are used in Britain and parts of the Commonwealth. Up until the mid-20th century French mothers would receive red, white and blue bouquets of poppies, daisies and cornflowers on Mothers Day (which is this coming Sunday in France).

The pigment in cornflowers is called protocyanin. It's a type of anthocyanin (a pigment that gives blue, red or purple colours to many plants). Protocyanin expresses as blue in cornflowers but red in roses, for example. The pigment is extracted commercially to colour food products such as yoghurt.

Studies have shown that cornflowers can be useful in taking up lead from contaminated soils, particularly if used in combination with certain fungi or bacteria.

The flowers are edible, although they don't add much in the way of flavour, just the novelty of pretty blue petals scattered on your cheese or ice cream. Traditionally they have been used to make a decoction used as eye drops to treat conjunctivitis, and the science seems to indicate this would indeed have helped.

Cornflowers produce a lot of very sweet nectar so they are very attractive to pollenating bees and flies. The fine seeds they produce are popular with European Gold Finches. They are attractive and easy to grow in your garden, quite dry hardy, and so they are one of the plants I recommend if you are wanting to garden in a wildlife friendly way. Studies have shown that they make an excellent companion plant for brassicas in the garden, because they produce scents attractive to cabbage moth. So plant them amongst your cabbages to lure away cabbage moth. The caterpillars will then be parasitised in greater numbers, and many of the eggs eaten by beetles. Sow the seeds in late spring or early autumn. Deadhead them or pick them for taking indoors to encourage further flowering.

All photos taken by me earlier this week near Chambon in the Creuse Valley.

Notre Dame des Champs

2026-05-28T09:00:00.000+02:00

Follow the Roman road from Boussay along the wooded ridge of the Bois aux Prêtres, as I often do, and you will come across a curious grotto hidden in the woods on top of a slope. A sort of stone bower with a nod to the famous site at Lourdes, it is topped with a rather etiolated statue of the Virgin Mary.

Every year in early August pilgrims come to honour her, and a mass is celebrated in the woods by the grotto. Benches and trestles are laid out and a meal served in the clearing in front of the grotto in the evening.

Last summer I happened to walk up there just after the pilgrimage. The path was lined with home made bunting and the grotto filled with flowers. There was not a scrap of rubbish to be seen.

The statue was erected in August 1906 and I assume the current landowner's family commissioned the entire grotto construction.

Note that the land is privately owned, so technically you need permission to visit the chapel. The site also happens to be one of the best wild orchid sites in the area. I have recorded 14 species for the site.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

2026-05-27T09:00:00.000+02:00

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Halyomorpha halys (Fr. Punaise diabolique) is a shield bug that has arrived in Europe from its native Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. It's an increasingly serious pest of fruit crops. I suspect it is the reason my rhubarb is often insect damaged. Like all bugs they feed by jabbing their hypodermic like proboscis into their food and sucking. As you can imagine this ruins commercial fruit and offers a potential vector for plant disease.

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug which blundered into Simon at the doctor's surgery a few days ago.

The bugs are larger than the various native shield bugs, and come in a mottled brown pattern. It can be distinguished from lookalike native species by the two bands of white on each antennae and the pale triangles around the abdomen. Similar looking bugs with three bands of white or yellow bands on their antennae or pale squares around the abdomen are native species and nothing to worry about.

They come to the attention of most people when they attempt to overwinter inside houses. Now that they are in France they've dispersed quite quickly. The adults can fly, and all stages of their life cycle are often unwittingly transported by humans when merchandise is distributed.

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug found in our house in January.

The French National Agronomy Institute (INRAE) was on the case within a couple of years of their arrival and has identified several species of tiny parasitic wasps which will attack these bugs. The INRAE is working with two Asian species of wasp which parasitise the stink bugs' eggs and act as a biological control.

Members of the public who encounter a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug are encouraged to report it on the INRAE database https://ephytia.inrae.fr/fr/C/20539/Agiir-Signaler-une-punaise-diabolique

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug found in our house in January.

The first sighting in France was in 2012, but initially observers did not realise what they were looking at and misidentified them as a harmless native lookalike, the Mottled Stink Bug Rhaphigaster nebulosa. They finally arrived in Indre et Loire in 2020 and are now established in the majority of French départements (counties).

20 Years Since We First Saw Preuilly

2026-05-26T09:00:00.032+02:00

It is almost 20 years ago today that we first saw our house.

May 26 - 29, 2006
As soon as Susan arrived back in the UK, I started planning the next trip to France. This was going to be undertaken with military precision.
Because the fares were cheaper, I decided we would fly into Paris (for the last time) and drive to Loches. The hotel was booked for the Saturday and Sunday night, but I decided to leave the Friday night to chance, because we didn't know how far we would drive that evening. The flight arrived in Paris at 9.15pm, and by midnight we were in Blois looking for a hotel. At 2.15am we were still in Blois looking for a hotel, because of the French custom of "faire le pont" - taking the Friday off if Thursday is a public holiday. Every hotel was full. I now know the back streets of Blois like a local. We eventually found a bed in possibly the most expensive motel in town. So much for military precision, then.
Saturday morning found us on the road to Loches. Once again we visited the market, which, if anything, is even busier on a Saturday than on Wednesday. Then it was time for a quiet lunch, and off to the Immobiliers for our first visit.
The old boulangerie, Preuilly-sur-Claise

The place we had travelled to see was an old boulangerie in Preuilly-sur-Claise. Right on the edge of the village on the main road, it was almost the first building we saw. An amazing place with many features, including the garden which had been converted into a room of over 110 square metres. That room is almost as big as the house I grew up in, which is a staggering thought. It also had a communal staircase (a stone spiral staircase possibly 500 years old) and a cellar over 1000 years old. The rooms were all higgledy-piggledy, and appeared to have grown where they landed. So tempting, but at the same time a real challenge as far as what to do with all that space! It also had no garden except for about 10 metres of shared courtyard. Needless to say we were sorely tempted.

We returned to Loches with the agent. As it was still mid-afternoon, we went for a drive around Loches and environs, visiting Loches-sur-Indrois and Montrésor. Montrésor is a beautiful village with a chateau and water meadows crossed with walks. The demoiselles were really busy (but this is Susan's field of expertise, so more of that from her).

Over dinner (at the Gerbe d'Or and including, once again, the Cointreau Soufflé) we made plans about what to do with the boulangerie. Sure it was a challenge, but we felt ourselves equal to it. The plan was to spend all day Sunday visiting the Brenne Nature Park and the area around Preuilly to see what was actually there. The day was rainy, so we spent a lot of it in the car talking endlessly about the boulangerie and our plans for it. Although we knew the work would be expensive, we thought it might be the right place for us, lack of garden notwithstanding.

First view of Preuilly-sur-Claise

On Monday morning it was back to Preuilly to see a couple more properties, including one arrangement of 3 houses around a courtyard. Most odd, and none of the rooms in any of the houses were of a decent size. Then we were taken (almost as an afterthought) to see a three-bedroom house with garage and attached barn which had once been a granary.

The Old Granary, once a barn

As soon as I walked in, it felt right. Sure it had a lot of issues, but they were, for the main, visible. The roof obviously needed doing, and there was obviously no kitchen or bathroom (or working toilet), but it had all the space we feel we need. There was even a garden. I loved the way the building felt so solid, even with the repairs that needed doing. The walls of the barn almost a metre thick, made out of carved limestone blocks, the encaustic tiles on the floor of the sitting room.

I think we decided there and then that we would make an offer, but not until we had a survey done, and we wouldn't say anything to the agent. Unfortunately neither of us knew the French for "building surveyor", so it was difficult communicating to the non-English-speaking Immobilier what we wanted. A very nice lady wandered in off the street to look at another property, and was immediately roped in to try to help because she spoke a little English. We now find out that there is no word in French for building surveyor................

We left the agent, promising to be in touch.............and so back to Paris and the Aeroport Charles de Gaulle. Never again!

Simon

Some changes have happened in Preuilly since then, not all of them desirable. The most noticeable change regarding this blog is that the old boulangerie is no longer. Susan wrote about its descent to being a ruin in 2023, and since then it has been demolished. We still haven't blogged about that for two reasons: we can't quite work out who decided it should be demolished, and I was having radiotherapy at the time and not interested in anything.

When we work out who said what about the demolition we'll write about it with photos.

A Different Post About Food

2026-05-25T09:00:00.000+02:00

Monday is the day we usually post about food. Today is the same, but different.

One of the side effects of hormone treatment for prostate cancer is difficulty controlling blood sugar levels. Recent studies suggest that using a common diabetes medication is beneficial in countering this effect. It isn't, however, part of an approved therapy for prostate cancer - yet.

My recent blood tests show that even after really careful diet control I have a problem. We have been on a no sugar, no high GI carbohydrates, high protein, lots of fibre diet for 8 weeks, and although weight loss has been noticeable, my blood sugar has been high while my energy level has been low.

Thus I am now officially diabetic, which is being treated with Metformin, the drug mention in the study linked to above. I have to admit the results so far have been subtle, but I think I'm noticing a difference.

Breakfast in preparation

I'm kind of enjoying my diet, although it is rather egg, cheese and meat heavy. Breakfast is a problem, unless I want to start having serious cholesterol issues. Thus if you're reading this soon after it's published I'm probably eating porridge oats with oat bran and Greek yoghurt, sweetened with a small amount of no added sugar apple pulp. It's better (just) than it sounds, and I refer to it as breakfast stodge. Susan has been cooking some really interesting diabetes appropriate meals, but we're still looking for a snack food that is tasty without being problematic.

Still - the cancer is being held at bay, and once the hormone treatment stops my pancreas should regain normal function, and we'll have killed two birds with one stone. (But hopefully not another kidney stone, because that's no fun.)

The PseudoSteves Turn Up For Another Year

2026-05-22T09:00:00.000+02:00

Once again our trusty Siberian Irises are in bloom. They are gorgeous as ever, even though they receive no care whatsoever - no watering, no weeding, no dividing. Nothing.

The reason they are known by us as the PseudoSteves is because they are not the variety Steve, which I bought many years ago at a Royal Horticultural Society show in Westminster (London). Steve sadly did not survive the move to France but his robust unnamed cousins love it here.

A Forest Dwelling Crane Fly

2026-05-21T09:00:00.004+02:00

Crane flies are a group of very long legged flies in the sub-order of more primitive flies known as Nematocera - you could say they are really giant non-biting gnats. In Britain they are often referred to as 'daddy-long-legs', but this leads to confusion with several groups of spindly arachnids which are also widely known by this name. Crane flies have several distinctive features and wing venation, so can be identified to family level from good photos fairly easily.

Male Ctenophora festiva photographed in the Forest of Preuilly in May 2008, with my old compact digital Olympus camera. Check out those antennae!

They usually look quite ungainly in flight but they beat their wings very rapidly (50 - 70 times a second, much faster than dragonflies). At rest they mostly sit with their wings spread open. Be careful not to handle them, as the legs are fragile and snap off very easily. Females have pointed abdomens, with an ovipositor for laying eggs in the soil or decaying plant material. The larvae live on decaying material in soil or water. They dessicate easily, so in dry years do very poorly. The larvae are known as leatherjackets and some species are crop pests.

Male Ctenophora festiva, photographed in the Forest of Preuilly in May 2008.

Ctenophora festiva is an uncommon species that I see occasionally, and adults can be found in the forest here between April and July. Despite its striking appearance, which means that you are likely to notice it if it flies near you, it does not have an English or a French name. With its black and yellowy orange body it is mimicking a wasp. About 20 mm long, they have a black spot near the tip of the wing, the upper side of the thorax is black, and the hind legs have black bands. The feathery antennae of the males are extraordinary!

Their larvae develop in the trunks and stumps of rotting trees, particularly oaks and chestnuts, and as adults they don't stray far away from the stump they emerged from.

Getting That Cherry Ripe Vibe in France

2026-05-18T09:00:00.001+02:00

Cherry season means cherry desserts. I had some blush yellow cherries from our local organic orchard Fruits Ô Kalm and the fruit flies in the kitchen were in plague proportions. So I stewed the cherries. Then I had the idea of serving them with whipped coconut cream. And just before serving I had the brainwave of grating a little dark chocolate on the combo. A total winner. Super easy, super delicious.

Ingredients

400 g sweet cherries

6 tbsp sugar

300 g coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 squares of dark chocolate

Method

Break out your cherry stoning tool from the back of whichever inconvenient cupboard you've shoved it in. Set it up, then rinse your cherries and pluck their stalks off.
Run the cherries through the stoning tool, then put them in a saucepan with a dash of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Gently simmer the cherries for 5 minutes, keeping an eye on them because they'll have a tendency to boil over.
Put the cherries aside to cool.
Put the coconut cream, vanilla and remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar in a high sided bowl.
Rummage out your electric hand beater and whip the coconut cream. This will take a while, longer than dairy cream.
Serve the cherries in bowls, topped with a dollop of coconut cream. Shave some chocolate onto the coconut cream using a fine grater.

Australians will understand the reference to Cherry Ripe. Everyone else is probably mystified.

First World War Memorial at Saint Flovier

2026-05-15T09:00:00.000+02:00

At Saint Flovier you get to see the human faces of the Great War.

Inside the church there is an unusual memorial. Put up sometime after 1918 thanks to Paul Gravier, a local benefactor, and designed by Lux Fournier, it showcases the faces of those locals that the War took away. Around a central painting representing Christ appearing to a fallen soldier, 54 photographs printed on enamel disks give a presence to these young men of Saint Flovier who died for France. Eleven other soldiers are identified just with a name plate but without a photo. Paul Gravier's grandson Patrick Chevalier de La Teillais was killed in 1918. His oldest daughter (and Patrick's aunt), Rosita, is said to have had a heart attack caused by the strong emotion produced when hearing the bells ring out to announce the end of the War. Paul Gravier had built a Renaissance Revival style chateau on the edge of the village in 1884 for a vast sum of money (a million and a half francs) and he and his wife Elisabeth Hugues had entertained lavishly. She died in 1905, and a few years after the War his other grandson died in an accident. On Paul Gravier's death the estate was divided and sold in relatively small parcels as farmland. The chateau was allowed to fall into ruin and has been demolished.

Amongst the faces is Paul Désiré Brault, born in Saint Flovier in 1894. A soldier in the 113th Infantry Regiment, he was sent to the Front in the autumn of 1914. Some weeks later he went missing at Boureuilles in the Meuse, far away from his native village.

And there is Louis Jules Blin, born in Fléré la Rivière in 1892. He joined the 90th Infantry Regiment in Le Blanc in 1912 and died of his wounds in Poitiers hospital in September 1914.

Gustave Guinot was born in Douadic in 1878. He joined up in 1898 in Le Blanc, recruited into the 9th Transport and Logistics Squadron. He died after a short illness whilst in service in November 1916 in Hospital 76 in Cannes.

Joseph Eugene Bruneau was born in Mer sur l'Indre in 1893 and was a sergeant in the 160th Infantry Regiment. He had joined up in Chateauroux in 1913 and was killed by the enemy at Ripont in the Marne in September 1915.

Victor Raoul Chasselay was born in Saint Flovier in 1890 and was a sergeant second class in the 49th Artillery Regiment. He was recruited at Le Blanc in 1910 and killed by the enemy at Eherdinghe in Belgium in May 1915. The records seem to indicate that his family were not notified for a year after his death.

When you stand in front of a memorial like this you don't just read the names. You do a calculation of how many young men never came back, and how that affected a village as small as Saint Flovier (population around 750). You look at their faces and imagine being their mother, or their wife. You wonder what they might have achieved if their fate had not been to die in the mud of some First World War battlefield. This is not just a list of names, albeit tragically young men, but men with faces, which makes them that much more present.

The service records of these men are available online at https://www.memoiredeshommes.defense.gouv.fr/conflits-operations/premiere-guerre-mondiale.

We're Difficult To Get To

2026-05-14T09:00:00.000+02:00

Anyone trying to visit us at the moment needs to know the back roads, and be able to tell the man at the bottom of our street what they're trying to do. There are works happening all over the place, including water pipe replacement on the road to Chaumussay, and resurfacing the main road between the Post Office and the turnoff to the Gymnasium.

This isn't the part of the main road being resurfaced, but it is in the same condition. Anyone from the UK or Australia will be horrified by the state of it. You can see the man at the bottom of our street (in orange) ready to tell motorists they have run out of options.

Work in progress. They were really getting on with it, to the extent it looks like it could be finished on schedule, which was yesterday evening. I haven't checked yet.

Saints de Glace

2026-05-13T09:00:00.007+02:00

The Ice Saints are those whose fêtes are on 11, 12 and 13 May. There is a saint for every day in France, and the saints for these particular dates are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancrace and Saint Servais. These are old saints, now desanctified and replaced by new Vatican approved saints, but there is much to be said for the agricultural tradition associated with the Saints de Glace. Farmers and gardeners watch the skies warily in May, because hail can damage seedlings and burgeoning fruit, and if the skies are clear frost is the enemy. In the old days, of course, one hail storm or a very deep frost could easily spell the difference between living well and living on the edge for a year. These days, it can still really affect a a producer's income. This year in our part of the Sud Touraine we haven't had any significant hail, but we have had a couple of very sharp rain storms. It's been a month since the last frosts, but that's no cause for complacency.

Looking at the skies last night I'm betting there won't be a frost.

According to Metro France on two years out of three there is a significant cold spell after the Saints de Glace

Look For the Little White Dog

2026-05-12T09:00:00.010+02:00

Jean Gourmelin was a French 20th century illustrator born in 1920, who produced works that highlighted the absurd and fantastical. He most often worked in pen and ink, but sometimes made engravings, paintings and sculptures. His works play with space, time and chance.

Stained glass window in the chapel of the Chateau Royal de Blois.

He was born in Paris and his parents worked for a wealthy Jewish family in their grand townhouse. At school the art teacher was quick to recognise his talent. When he was fourteen his parents bought a shop in Vendome and the family moved. At high school he encountered artists working in various media who mentored and influenced him.

After graduating from art school he worked designing and printing luxury wallpaper and very quickly became known in these circles. During the Second World War he worked as an industrial designer in a factory, in order to escape conscription into the compulsory work programme.

The little white dog which is the 'signature' of Jean Gourmelin.

From 1951 to 1969 he collaborated with his cousin Claude Serre, who was also an illustrator, and the master stained glass artist Max Ingrand. In that time they produced several series of stained glass windows, most notably for the chapels in the grounds of the chateaux of Blois and Amboise, and the cathedrals in Rouen and Saint-Malo.

All of the glass, both 16th originals and 19th century repairs, at the Chapel of the Chateau de Blois, and much of the glass in other churches in Blois, was destroyed during the American bombing campaign of 1944. After the War Ingrand and Gourmelin were commissioned to create new windows for the chapel. They worked together after the War on the windows of the chapel of Saint Hubert at the Chateau of Amboise as well. To recognise Gourmelin's work, look for the little dog with the curly tail, which is his personal 'signature'.

Stained glass in the Chapelle Saint Hubert, in the grounds of the Chateau Royal d'Amboise.

The windows in the Chapelle Saint Hubert in Amboise were made in Ingrand's workshop in 1952. They were conserved in 2022-24 as part of a total restoration of the chapel. Those of the Chapelle Saint Calais in the grounds of the Chateau Royal de Blois, were made in the same workshop in 1957, and have never been restored.

From 1961 onwards Gourmelin worked with science fiction writers and political journals. From 1971 onwards he participated in a television programme with other contemporary artists, illustrators and cartoonists.

In 2000 he developed a degenerative eye disease and gave up drawing. From 2008 he had a series of strokes, and died at the age of 90 in 2011. He and his wife had lived for 60 years in Hauts-de-Seine outside of Paris.

A Big Step

2026-05-11T09:00:00.001+02:00

We had a proper thunderous storm yesterday afternoon, the sort where if the road gutters aren't clean, houses get flooded.

That's not likely to worry the owner of this building.

I am interested that it still retains its Hand of Fatima door knocker.

8 Mai

2026-05-08T09:00:00.002+02:00

The 8th of May is "Victoire 45", a public holiday in France celebrating the end of the 2nd World War in Europe. The day is marked with celebrations and parades throughout France, and in Preuilly sur Claise it is no different.

We will be gathering at the Mairie just before 11:00 and then walking as a group to the war memorial for a short series of speeches and wreath laying. Afterwards we will be in the Salle de Fêtes for a glass of something and little nibbles.

The War Memorial at Verneuil, dressed for tomorrow