Days on the Claise

The Great Flood

2026-06-23T09:00:00.001+02:00

Because we are surrounded by rivers, including major ones like the Creuse, this area has been subject to some significant flooding over the centuries. One such was the flood of 23 June 1848, which prompted Charles Mourault to compose a poem and inscribe it on a stone in a wall overlooking the river at Baratière, a hamlet outside of Yzeures sur Creuse. Here's my rough translation.

The Creuse at Baratière.

"Here is where the dreaded scourge stopped that God made us go through in these deplorable days. The water rose without end and everyone left their refuge. Which in that moment look like islands. The fertile plain, the most precious treasure, offers us nothing more than the shadow of death. The people gather on this sad shore, lamenting their fate, saying what slavery. The river ressembled the foaming sea which in its expanse had become so threatening. Oh peoples who are the successors of this century may God protect you from such a great misfortune."

Flooding like this is relatively rare, but when it comes, causes significant damage. Nowadays the municipalities involved will declare a disaster (Fr. catastrophe) and everyone affected is guaranteed cover by their insurance.

Thanks to Bruno Guitton who showed me the inscription, and to Alain Chartier who sent me a transcription and details of the inscription's date and author.

2026 Holiday Day 20

2026-06-23T09:00:00.000+02:00

Autun - Preuilly-sur-Claise

A strange day full of bittersweet memories.

Our accommodation in Autun was a convent that is now a retirement home - that rents out appartements.

Autun has a lot of very old buildings. Even if the facade looks newish.

The church is enormous and obvious.

More Burgundian roofs. This was the military college.

We stopped for a roadside picnic lunch, but it was so hot (40°) that we sat in the car. My dad loved custard tarts, so this was the obvious choice of dessert.

Distance travelled 316km, Cumulative totals:

2026 Holiday Day 19

2026-06-22T09:00:00.000+02:00

Mulhouse - Autun

A hot day: 28°C in the shade before 9:00am, reaching 38 by 2:00pm. There was a nasty road accident just outside Besançon which added a very hot hour to our day.

TGV001, beside the autoroute just outsides Mulhouse. The shape may be familiar, but this was gas turbine powered.

Burgundian roofs

The Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senons. We didn't stop, it was too hot and it appeared there was a special event on

Vineyards just south of Beaune

Distance travelled 336km

Cumulative total 3349km @ 56km/h

Ernest Brand 1932 - 2026

2026-06-22T07:28:19.047+02:00

Ernest Thomas Brand, was born on the 21st of November 1932 at Hackney Hospital, London, England, the son of Robert Percy Brand and Marie Therese Brand (nee Schlitt). He was a twin, but his brother died of meningitis in 1937 as a result of a fall.

Dad was an inspiration to me, a brave man who took his young family from London to Australia, an absolute optimist and not afraid of really hard work. His willingness to put himself in that sort of situation with good cheer and enthusiasm gave us the belief that we could also make changes in our lives, and his encouragement in our various mad projects and ability to understand what we were trying to do gave us the confidence not to give up when the going got tough.

Ernest Thomas Brand 12/11/1932 - 22/6/2026

A good man.

2026 Holiday Day 18

2026-06-21T09:00:00.000+02:00

Eight years ago we were in Mulhouse and visited the Cité de l'Automobile. This year it was time to do the train equivalent.

We stayed a couple of hours at the museum, but even though it is air-conditioned it was still mighty warm. We retreated to our accommodation which is smaller but really effectively air-conditioned.

2026 Holiday Day 17

2026-06-20T09:00:00.000+02:00

Rothenburg aub der Taber - Mulhouse

We started with stuff on a stick at the Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim, but only in the car park. It would take 6 hours we didn't have to do the place justice.

MIG23

Foreground: Hunting Percival P.66 Pembroke

Middle: Martin MGM-1 Matador, the first operational surface-to-surface cruise missile

Background: Concorde

Vertol (VFW) H-21C Shawnee

It's not all aircraft on a stick in the car park: U 17 German submarine, 1973.

Neuf-Brisach is a fortified town in Alsace. The town was intended to guard the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire and, subsequently, the German states. It was built after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 that resulted in France losing the town of Breisach, on the opposite bank of the Rhine. When that happened the french speaking population voted with their feet and moved to the new town designed by Vaubin.

Distance covered 417km

Cumulative total 3013km@ 56km/h

2026 Holiday Day 16

2026-06-19T09:00:00.000+02:00

Rothenburg - Shrozberg - Rothenburg

The church my great grandmother was baptised in, Shrozberg.

The St. Anna Chapel in Mulfingen

The brightly painted altar is designed as a family tree style piece dedicated to Saint Anne.

The Protestant parish church of St. Bonifatius located in Oberstetten. It was locked when we got there

The Herrgottskirche is in Creglingen. We didn't photo the outside. It contains multiple altarpieces.

The masterpiece is the Marian altarpiece which stands in the middle of the nave and is one of Tilman Riemenschneider's best-known works.

The altarpiece is 9.20 meters high and 3.68 meters wide. It consists of the predella, the central shrine, two side wings and the tracery.

Distance covered 100km

Cumulative total 2596km@ 54km/h

2026 Holiday Day 15

2026-06-18T09:00:00.000+02:00

A big day: cold war borders, a huge music shop, and one of the prettiest towns in Germany.

Point Alpha overlooks the Fulda Gap, which is where it was expected the Soviet invaders would come. You can see an Easy German observation point in the background, facing off against the more obvious NATO observation tower.

A restaurant for a music shop. Excellent food, excellent value

(Photo from Thomann's website)

Temptation

Rothenburg aub der Taber. The first photo is the pension where we are staying.

Distance covered 336km

Cumulative total 2496km@ 55km/h

Reedmace versus Bulrush

2026-06-17T09:00:00.005+02:00

Reedmace Typha latifolia (Fr. Massette) is the plant with the brown cylindrical seedheads that grows on the edge of ponds. It is called Cattail in North America, Cumbungi in Australia, and often, everywhere, now called Bulrush. But it is a reed, not a rush. Rushes are a different family.

Reedmace on the village pond (Fr. plan d'eau) in Preuilly.

The 'bul' of Bulrush means 'big', and true bulrush is exactly that -- a gigantic rush.

Bulrush on the edge of the étang (dam) at le Louroux. This is a nature reserve.

The confusion started in the 19th century, with mass produced illustrated Bibles. For some reason Moses was depicted amongst the reedmace. Ironically, the plant the illustrators should have been depicting was actually a Papyrus.

Reedmace.

In prehistoric times the rhizomes of Reedmace were eaten, in hunter-gatherer societies over 30 000 years ago. The plant was abundant and full of starch. In the 19th century there are accounts of it being used as low quality forage for horses in France, and pigs apparently adored the rhizomes. The leaves could also be dried and woven as chair seats. In modern times they are sometimes grown in natural water purification systems and the plant can be seen on the edges of many fresh water ponds.

A variety of plants, including both bulrush (left) and reedmace (right), in a phytopurification water filtration station at the Moulin de Malicorne (a private home).

Bulrush Schoenoplectus lacustris (Fr. Jonc des chaisiers) was once abundant and much valued as the raw material for cords, woven or plaited mats, wall coverings and chair seats. Harvesting the plants, processing and transforming them was an important artisanal skill. Nowadays, those skills are lost and the plant is rare. Where it is present it is generally protected.

Rush matting at the Chateau d'Azay le Rideau.

Today the buzz word you will see associated with bulrushes is 'paludiculture'. That's when peat wetland is used as a cultivated carbon sink. Drones are used to distribute the seed of reedmace, bulrush and other plants that can be used commercially if peatbog is exploited. The fluffy reedmace seed heads are harvested to be used as insulation in 'down' jackets, and the bulrush is being used in construction materials. Unfortunately both plants are being referred to by journalists as 'bulrush' so it can be confusing.

Bulrush on the edge of an étang at Chambon, on a ZNIEFF (site of special scientific interest).

2026 Holiday Day 14

2026-06-17T09:00:00.000+02:00

Hamburg to Eisenach. Bach and Eeemers. (I could have said Bach to Beemers to be alliterative, but that definitely would have been wrong, and the first car is a Dixi, anyway.)

Distance covered 374km (plus about 200km in Hamburg & Lubeck)

Cumulative total 2160km@ 55km/h

What To Do With a Colony of Bees or Wasps

2026-06-16T09:00:00.007+02:00

We have honey bees Apis mellifera living in a crevice between our attic and bedroom, and another colony living above our garage. We have social wasps Vespula sp living in a crevice in the wall above our back door. What are we doing about it? Nothing. And here's why:

The wasps and the bees don't have an amical relationship. When individual bees get old and start staggering around the courtyard the wasps are right there to 'clean up'. But neither wasps nor bees are interested in us, and they rarely venture inside the house. In both cases they installed themselves before we realised what was going on. Then it's too late. Ours is a very typical situation, and luckily in both cases the insects have chosen places where they can just get on with things undisturbed by us. Really the only time social insect colonies need to be moved on or eradicated is when they move into awkward places like chimneys and the space between windows and shutters. Fortunately bumble bees rarely make nest site choices that bring them into conflict with man, but social wasps (paper wasps, 'yellow jackets' and the like), hornets and honey bees quite often do. It doesn't help that people are scared of them, a few people are dangerously allergic to them, and your idea of an awkward place might not coincide with mine.

A swarm of Honey Bees moving in to the gap between our bedroom and the attic.

Removing colonies alive is possible, but messy and expensive. Your house insurance might cover it if you are lucky. So most removals are done at the expense of the lives of the insects and they are poisoned before the nest is removed. To do this legally in the case of honey bees you need to establish there is a genuine safety risk for people. A good professional pest controller should mostly refuse to eradicate colonies.

My apiarist friend Bernard removing a colony of Honey Bees Apis mellifera (Fr. Abeilles domestiques) from a window.

So now you are asking 'Why remove the nest if the insects are dead?' Well, a colony of dead larvae is an easy target for other predatory insects. An abandoned store of honey is easy work for other honey bees to rob. They don't know it's poisoned, they will be poisoned, and their colony that they take the bounty back to will be poisoned in their turn. It is not legal to contaminate the food chain and so the entire nest needs to be removed to prevent it being robbed.

European Wasps Vespula germanica (Fr. Guêpe germanique).

You would be mistaken to think that blocking access to the nest is sufficient to protect the food chain. It's virtually impossible to identify and effectively block all the possible access holes. I know it would be at our place, with its crumbling mortar, decaying timber and worn stone walls. Added to that, with the current cycle of drought and flood the building will move and gaps will appear. Once one bee or wasp has found the free food, the whole of their colony will arrive to collect it within days.

One of the wasps preying on an old dying Honey Bee in our courtyard.

For what to do about a swarm of honey bees ie when the colony is out in the open looking for a new home but not yet installed, read my blog post: What to do About a Swarm of Bees.

2026 Holiday Day 13

2026-06-16T09:00:00.000+02:00

The Hanseatic city of Lubeck. They did like their bricks.

2026 Holiday Day 12

2026-06-15T09:00:00.000+02:00

Fischmarkt on a Sunday morning. Fish sandwich, coffee, and a strawberry croissant whilst being entertained by intergenerational euro-power-pop ballads.

After lunch at the only traditional Brewhouse in Hamburg we went to the Prototype Museum.

2026 Holiday Day 11

2026-06-14T09:00:00.000+02:00

The Hamburg Flaktower.

The back to the apartment for a couple of hours of feet-up.

2026 Holiday Day 10

2026-06-13T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday our main plan was visiting the Altonaer Museum. The original intention was to visit Heligoland, but as soon as we arrived in Hamburg it became obvious that the weather wasn't going to co-operate.

We lunched at LUX-kantine, the city's restaurant for it's employees, people on low incomes - and visitors who pay a donation towards its operations : 1€. It's still incredibly good value.

The Altonaer Museum is likewise great value, the highlight for us being the old house interiors. Being old house interiors they're as dark as a boot, so pictures don't work.

Near the Altonaer station is an allegorical statue showing the towns of Altonaer and Hamburg fighting over fishing rights.

2026 Holiday Day 9

2026-06-12T09:00:00.000+02:00

Model trains and Tchaikovsky.

After Minatur Wuderland we went to a concert.

The view from our seats

A Biological Multitool in the Strawberry Patch

2026-06-11T09:00:00.007+02:00

A recent study has described the Migrant Hover Fly Eupeodes corollae (Fr. Syrphe des corolles) as a flying 'multitool', which offers pollination, can act as a vector for beneficial microbes, and is a biological control for grey mould disease in strawberries. Wow! Plus their larvae eat aphids!

Female Migrant Hover Fly.

Scientists in Sweden used the hover flies to carry the yeast Metschnikowia fruiticola between strawberry flowers in greenhouses so it would attack the grey mould Botrytis cinerea. At the same time the hover flies pollinated the strawberry flowers. The flowers pollinated by the hover flies produce better quality fruit that is bigger and a more symmetrical consumer pleasing shape. Their results showed that the hover fly activity on the flowers significantly reduced grey mould on the strawberry fruit once harvested and in cold storage. This occured even without the yeast biological control, but was even more pronounced when the yeast was present.

This species is native to Europe, North Africa and Asia, and quite abundant. With the presence of active adults and larvae you can practice interated pest control in your own garden, and enjoy these little natural gems.

Mating Migrant Hover Flies in our garden.

The Migrant Hover Fly is, as the English name suggests, a migratory species and one of the two most abundant species of hover fly in Europe. Some years there will be massive numbers crossing the Channel from France to Britain. The adults are about 11 mm long, with yellow comma shaped marks on their abdomens.

Further reading: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10340-025-01971-6

2026 Holiday Day 8

2026-06-11T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we took ourselves in to Hamburg by train and then caught a couple of ferries. We didn't walk far, Susan's leg is still a problem.

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.