Days on the Claise

PhotObjectif

2026-08-20T09:00:00.000+02:00

Rieja van Aart, a local art photographer https://riejavanaart.ultra-book.com/, recently organised a photography exhibition https://www.lepetitpressigny.fr/medias/association/Flyer_photobjectif_2026.pdf over the weekend just gone in Le Petit Pressigny. Our friend Ingrid de Winter was invited to submit works and we went to support her. There was quite a crowd on Sunday afternoon when we were there, and the quality of the works was very high. The exhibition was a credit to all concerned, and quite remarkable in such a small village (population about 350 I reckon). The venue was the old school and surrounds. I ran into a friend I hadn't seen for over a year, which was really nice, and got to chat briefly with Rieja and her husband Leonard, who I've known for a while. We encountered Ingrid on our way over as she was cycling back home in the heat!

Here are a few photos I took. I avoided taking photos of people and people's works of art out of courtesy to them as it didn't feel appropriate on the day. So you will just have to take my word for it that the exhibition was very interesting and varied.

The exhibition banner.

I got very excited as we arrived and I saw someone putting blue cloths out in the sun. Oooh goody I thought, someone is doing a cyanotype demonstration. Ahem...they turned out to be tea towels drying, after doing the lunchtime washing up...

One of the artists was producing works using compost.

You can see why I was confused -- someone had done a cyanotype!

Ingrid is a wildlife photographer, so her submissions are of birds. On the left a crow and on the right a spoonbill.

What IS That Thing

2026-08-19T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's a steam locomotive, but all is not what it seems

Outside the Cité du Train in Mulhouse, mounted on a plinth beside the car park, it's a survivor from the early days of French railways: a PLM 030 TB steam locomotive. Built for the former Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM) railway it was intended primarily for freight and shunting work.

The locomotive dates from around 1860, making it a genuine 19th-century machine and a reminder of how compact early steam locomotives were. Its open-sided cab, small driving wheels and exposed mechanical equipment make it look primative compared to the large express locomotives that dominate railway museums.

But here's the "what is": although displayed as PLM 030 TB 2 the locomotive is a confection, reconstructed from components of several early locomotives, rather than a completely original survivor.

Assumption Day Gathering

2026-08-18T09:00:00.000+02:00

We have previously been to the Lésigny Assumption Day car gathering (held in conjunction with their brocante, to which we have never been) five times: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, and 2025.

Now make it six.

This year we went with John from "Anne and John across the road". We had invited them in 2024, but only Anne was able to make it. This year John was free, but Anne was busy.

Claudette wearing her rally plaque. This is a new development this year, and at 5€, a bargain.

As is traditional we arrived just in time for breakfast (excellent home made terrine and camembert on a serve yourself basis), and then departed on the 30km circuit (theoretically 10am, but actually about 11am). We drove through la Roche Posay, Boussay, and Chambon, having taken a short cut at the start which placed us near the front of the convoy when we rejoined. The shortcut was because the signage in Lésigny was obscure, and the Jaguar driver in front of us was confused. Hey ho...

Through the Arch at la Roche Posay

As is now traditional, once we were on narrow country roads going up a fairly steep hill, the lead car (possibly the oldest car there) declined to proceed, leaving the rest of us fretting about the state of our radiators. It wasn't as long a technical pause as last year, so Claudette didn't come anywhere close to boiling and soon cooled down again.

You can see volunteers trying to push start the stalled car. That's not Claudette, we were following another Traction Avant

When we arrived back in Lésigny Susan claimed a table in the shade by a simple expedient of laying a tablecloth. We had a convivial lunch of melon and ham starter, followed by salad niçoise, and flummery, looking elegant with our period correct looking picnic hamper (and accoutrements).

You can see how hot and dry it has been

After lunch we forewent the swim in the river and came home. It was too hot.

Zucchini Slice

2026-08-17T09:00:00.000+02:00

Every summer the dreaded zucchini glut arrives. Friends (Huub and Ingrid I'm looking at you) and neighbours insist on offloading gigantic marrow sized things on your doorstep. Or you have yourself made the mistake of allowing more than one zucchini plant to grow, on the grounds that the last time you did that it was the coldest summer on record and your zucchini did not thrive. Well, I think you are safe from that one in these days of increasingly record breaking hot summers...

Half a marrow sized zucchini, seeds removed and tediously grated by hand as we don't own a food processor.

Ingredients

2 large zucchini, grated
1 large onion, chopped
150 g chunky lardons
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
Half a cup of oil
4 eggs
1 cup of grated cheese
Salt and pepper to taste.

Method

Turn the oven on to preheat to 180 C.
Grease a deep square baking dish or a lasagne dish.
Mix all ingredients together thoroughly and pour into the prepared dish.
Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Leave for 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Can serve 6 as a main, or 12-18 as part of a series of small plates (tapas, aperodinatoire, etc). Serve warm or room temperature, with salad.

A serving for two that I cooked in the air fryer because the weather is so hot at the moment and I didn't want to turn the oven on.

It is curious to think that Europeans have really only been eating zucchini since the 19th century. The ancestor of this rampant and productive squash had arrived from the Americas earlier, but it was so different to anything anyone was used to eating that it took a while to catch on. Zucchini and marrow are the same species, Cucurbita pepo, and the difference is size/maturity. The word zucchini first appeared in Italian cook books in the 1840s, after Milanese gardeners developed a small tender cylindrical dark green squash that became C. p. var cylindrica. The word marrow first appeared in British cook books in the 1820s. Zucchini is first mentioned in print in Britain in the early 20th century, a couple of decades before the word courgette is used in either France or Britain.

Zucchini Slice was a mainstay of Australian summer gatherings when I was growing up. Everybody made it, because everyone had too many zucchini. It has that extreme simplicity and low cost that makes it popular when you are cooking for a gathering or a family. The cheese and bacon ensure it tastes of something, without complication or too much cost.

Extra Added Insulation

2026-08-14T09:00:00.000+02:00

At the end of June I wrote about putting tinfoil on the outside of our windows that don't have shutters. This has worked really well, even though it's fragile enough to need taking down every evening in case it blows away during the night.

I knew there had to be a more durable solution, and this is it. I went into Norauto, the car people, and bought 3 very cheap (2€99 a piece) car windscreen sunshades. They're foil covered on both sides, with bubble wrap in between. A bit of judicious scissor work and the house is as dark as a boot, but 20°C (at least) cooler than outside.

I can fill in that inconvenient gap with offcuts

Yesterday the temperature inside was 26°C, in the shade in the back garden 40 °C, and by the back door 47°C (and climbing). I still have to work out a definitive way of attaching them, but I'm getting close.

There it Goes

2026-08-13T09:00:00.000+02:00

Like the rest of south western Europe we spent the past week unsuccessfully looking for eclipse glasses. This meant that yesterday evening we had to resort to holding binoculars up to the sun and looking at the resultant projected image.

19:38

19:51

19:54

20:05

20:13

20:20

And then just when it started to get light again, it started getting dark.

Some of these photos aren't as sharp as I'd like. It's a function of trying to hold the binoculars perfectly still at arm's length, with the correct combination of focus and distance from the target piece of paper.

The precision science team in action.

The next total solar eclipse is in Sydney the day before my birthday in 2028. We might have to start saving.

Revisiting Saint Benoit du Sault

2026-08-12T09:00:00.000+02:00

Once again we ended a lovely day trip into the Anglin Valley in the very attractive small town of Saint Benoit du Sault. We'd been here once before, on a wet day exactly twelve months before. This time it was stinking hot. It's very picturesque, well worth visiting and wandering around its medieval sandstone streets.

Medieval gateway into the old town centre.

Belfry.

A medieval street.

Further reading: Simon's post on Saint Benoit du Sault from last year https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2025/07/saint-benoit-du-sault.html

A New Pump for the Pompiers

2026-08-11T09:00:00.000+02:00

As you can imagine our local fire fighters have been working very hard lately, and in Preuilly they are all volunteers. This summer is the first time in 20 years of living here that the wild fires have reached Australian levels. The other day I surfaced in the public swimming pool to observe them making a fountain of water on the other side of the river. I was too late to get a photo of the metres high jet, but here is a photo of them packing up. I was told they were testing a new pump.

Breakfast

2026-08-07T09:30:00.000+02:00

This was my breakfast this morning (06:30) which can only mean three things:

1 I'm going out early to ride my bike

2 I'm no good at portion control

3 My body is telling me I need more protein

I'm not sure that the distance I'm going to ride justifies a breakfast this large, but them's the breaks. Anyway... Coffee, then I'm off!

The New Normal

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

You may have noticed from the news that it has been hot and there have been fires in France. None of this is fake news.

Thankfully it has now cooled down, and maximum temperatures have returned to only 3°C above average, rather than the 11°C above average of a week ago. It has even been cooling down overnight, allowing us to open some windows. This morning it it 20°C inside the house, a relief, as yesterday the temperature had built to over 25°C indoors.

Thankfully also the fires have subsided. The fire near Bordeaux is under control having burnt out 42,000 hectares, and now there are only 582 pompiers (firefighters) on the mopping up exercise. A week ago the France wide situation looked like this:

...and the situation near Bordeaux was this:

▪️ Resources deployed:

3,300 firefighters;
24 aircraft;
1,500 military personnel supporting operations;
1,400 members of the internal security forces, including the deployment of 10 Centaure vehicles from the gendarmerie to prevent burglaries in evacuated areas.

▪️ Casualty figures:230 firefighters have been injured since the start of this crisis. No new serious injuries have been reported this evening.

▪️ Preliminary property damage assessment: 240 homes are still listed as destroyed. This figure may change as field assessments continue.

(From https://feuxdeforet.fr/en/gironde-33/saumos-22-07-2026-4367/)

When the fire was at it's worse the clouds over Preuilly-sur-Claise were a dirty red colour, and the air absolutely stank. So much so that we had to keep all the windows firmly closed. This meant we didn't lose heat overnight.

Anyway. We shouldn't complain. The pessimist in me says that this is the coolest summer for the rest of our lives. We should make the most of it.

Back to Basics

2026-08-05T09:00:00.000+02:00

This is my Profile Silhouette fretless bass. It's a very accurate copy of an early (1960) Fender Precision Bass, made in Japan. Basically, what happened is that Fender had new owners, the quality control on their very expensive instruments slipped, and Japanese musical instrument manufacturers realised there was a gap in the market for good quality, inexpensive instruments.

The Profile Silhouette range of instruments were a special order for an Australian distributor, made just before a series of lawsuits kicked in. There is some discussion online about who made the the Profile instruments, but I'm under the impression that two years later Fender ordered a load of them and labelled them as "Fender Squier Vintage Reissue". The swamp that is AI suggests a company called Fujigen of Matsumoto City were the actual manufacturers. It's made of solid wood, with a maple neck, and lighter than the tree planks that Fender were doing at that time.

I'm not posting it to boast, but because I realised today that I have owned it for 40 years. I bought it new from Better Music in Canberra in 1986, and for many years it was my goto bass. It has seen me through thousands of gigs: jazz, pop, folk, rock, pit orchestras, and metal. The only thing that's been changed is the pickguard - it arrived with a plain white, which I swapped for black/white/black.

I'm stunned to think that when I bought it there was no such thing as a 40 year old Fender bass guitar - they were first made in 1951, and by the time I bought my copy an early Fender bass cost more than a normal house. Mine isn't worth that much, it's priceless to me.

Who is This Saint?

2026-08-04T09:00:00.000+02:00

Rather than a 'what is this thing?' I'm going for a 'who is this?' post.

This statue in the medieval church of Saint Martin in Prissac is clearly old and looked like it had potential to be interesting. I reckoned it was 17th century, but couldn't immediately identify the saint.

It turns out to be 15th century, so contemporary with much of the church decor, and represents Sainte Radegonde. She's a very common female saint to be featured in these parts, so I should have noticed that this nun was wearing a crown and guessed who she was. The statue has had quite a life but has been treasured in this church for centuries. Radegonde was a popular saint at the French Court, especially during the Hundred Years War, as Poitiers remained loyal to the French King and there are sites dedicated to her in several places from Tours to Poitiers. Charles VII was particularly attached to her cult and named his eldest daughter after her.

The statue was made by an unknown artist from stone and painted. She was restored in 2017. Anyone who knew her from before this date will barely recognise her. She used to be multicoloured, and I suspect, spent quite a few decades being mistaken for the Virgin Mary (due to the crown).

She came to the attention of the Regional Curator for Historic Monuments in the course of a major restoration project focused on the wall paintings in the church, which started in 2013. At that time she was in a very degraded state and restoration was recommended, although she was outside the scope of the original project.

Luckily, there was a qualified sculpture conservator, Delphine Bienvenut, who came from the village. The statue was sent to her workshop in Tours.

Sainte Radegonde de Poitiers was a Thuringian princess who married a Frankish king in 536. She died in Poitiers in 587 at the age of about 67. We spent a few days in Thuringia in June, around Wartburg. It's a small centrally located State in modern Germany, once part of the GDR (ie Communist East Germany). Radegonde set up her court in Poitiers and lived as a simple nun, known for her piety and humility. She was sanctified by popular acclaim very quickly after her death.

The Church of Saint Radegonde in Poitiers, where she is buried.

It's thought the sculpture was probably made from a single block of stone originally, but it is now divided into three pieces -- the head, the chest, and the rest of the body and arms. There would have originally been hands too of course, one holding either a sceptre or an abbess' cross. Each of these pieces have been joined at some point using wooden dowels about 2 cm in diameter.

Upon studying the sculpture the conservator discovered that there had been three layers of overpainting covering the first layer. The original paint scheme had been applied over a preparatory base coat of smooth white. The saint's gown was a layer of blue-grey applied very thinly to the preparatory coat. This coat is quite scrappy and slapdash, and is now almost impossible to separate from the layers above and below. The cloak is richly decorated with gold leaf and red lacquer. The crown is quite blingy and also covered in gold leaf, with elements of green and red lacquer. The rosy cheeks on the face are well done and seem well preserved. The eyes are green and the wimple is white.

The first layer of overpainting is strongly adhered to the layer below, making its removal practically impossible. In this layer the gown is a sombre grey-green, but the cloak has become azure blue, decorated with a gold motif. The crown was redone, but repeating the original, as was the face and wimple.

The second layer of overpainting was easy to remove. It had been applied in a slightly thicker coat. The colours are less contrasting, but of very good quality. The veil and cloak were painted in very dark green and the gown in an even more sombre shade of green, virtually black. The wimple was white and the crown ochre and gold. Once again the face has been nicely rendered, but the eye colour has been darkened.

A third layer of overpainting was then applied but it was poor quality and noticeably modified the appearance of the statue. It became a riot of clashing colour and I suspect mistaken at this point for the Virgin Mary.

The conservator opted to remove the most recent overpaint to reveal the finer details of the carving and colouring. She found that the statue was of very good quality, which given its appearance when she received it was a bit of a surprise. Personally, I'm a bit sad that due to the difficulty of taking the paint back to the earliest layer the sculpture has ended up very sombre, rather than the jewel like colours of the original.

Further reading: I wrote about the Chapelle Sainte Radegonde in Chinon some years ago and you can read it here https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2021/09/chapelle-sainte-radegonde-chinon.html

Not a Chateau

2026-08-03T09:00:00.000+02:00

In the land of châteaux, this isn't a château. In fact it is hardly even a building any more, just an end wall. I imagine it is pretty old, but we've never managed to find out how old.

It is within 1.6km (1 mile) of la Poste in Preuilly-sur-Claise, and right on the border of the commune. Do you know where it is?

The History of the Brand Family

2026-07-31T09:00:00.000+02:00

My father was singularly uninterested in his ancestry. Not just disinterested, uninterested to the point that you could see him switch off when you tried to get him to talk about it. He had his reasons, and to him they were totally valid, so we let it be. Occasionally (and always out of the blue) he would tell something of his past, but he never mentioned his parent's background.

Luckily for those of us who are interested we have my cousin Linda who is Officer in Charge: Family History. She has chased the Brands back to the 17th century, and my paternal grandmother's family tree back to the 16th century. Which is remarkable because it's all in German. This is how Susan and I had the knowledge to be able visit the places we did in Germany.

The house in which my great grandfather was born, Fritzlar.

On the 25th of August Linda will be giving a talk at the Fritzlar Local History Museum about tracing her German roots. If you're in the area, I'm sure she'll have a couple of copies of the talk in english.

Homes for Bees and Wasps

2026-07-30T09:00:00.000+02:00

The town hall (rathaus) in Schrozberg has a wildflower meadow which was created to provide a habitat for insects and other small wildlife, including butterflies, wild bees and bumble bees. The idea is to provide food, shelter and breeding areas, helping many species to thrive while also supporting plant biodiversity. To protect this delicate ecosystem, the meadow is mown only twice a year, allowing flowers and grasses to grow naturally. A mixture of different grass heights provides additional shelter and food for wildlife, while seeds and plant stems continue to benefit animals and birds throughout winter.

That's not the most fun part: what really excited Susan was the sandpit for wild bees and solitary bees to nest in. It's right in the middle of the municipal flowerbeds in front of the town hall building.

It can be done, and Susan is pushing for something similar to be done in Preuilly-sur-Claise.

Lean Times in Loches

2026-07-29T09:00:00.002+02:00

The War years marked Loches, as they did the rest of the country, with deprivation and rationing. For buying staples, especially food, families were issued with ration cards. The quantities authorised, whether it be for bread, meat, pasta etc were dependent on gender, age and how physical your work was.

In the market in Loches prices soared. At the beginning of the War a dozen eggs cost 9 francs. Two years later they were 19 francs. It was the same for a kilo of butter, which went from 25 francs to 100 francs.

The statue of Alfred de Vigny today, back in his original location.

The restrictions didn't only affect food. Many products became difficult to obtain, such as coffee, heating fuel, shoes, tyres or clothes. To save electricity the opening hours of shops were limited. Lacking petrol, the vet did his rounds on horseback. Certain car and truck owners modified their vehicles to use charcoal gas.

France was suffering a severe lack of raw materials. In 1941 the authorities collected all the non-ferrous metal they could find (lead, copper, tin). The following year anyone who handed in 200g of copper was offered a litre of wine in recompense.

This lack of metal resulted in the loss of numerous works of art. In Tours, several statues, including a famous one of Balzac, were melted down. In 1943 it was announced that the statue of Alfred de Vigny in Loches must also be sacrificed. This news provoked an immediate emotional outburst by the general public. The locals decided to act, and in the early hours of 29 July the bronze sculpture by Sicard was discreetly lifted off its socle by workers from Deschamps Carpentry and transported to a troglodyte cave in rue de la Roche Appert, where, well hidden, it waited in total safety for the end of the War.

A Mystery Cross

2026-07-28T09:00:00.000+02:00

This is another "what's that thing" where we don't really know the answer besides the obvious.

We know it's a cross, we know it's immediately next to the church in Prissac (36), and we assume it's old. How old it is, and its history we do not know, and our online research hasn't turned up any information.

So it's over to the hive mind: what's the history of that thing.

Not What I Expected to See

2026-07-24T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday as a treat we went with Niall and Antoinette to explore some of the painted churches of the Anglin Valley. As usual with these expeditions we saw a lot of excellent médiéval art, a lot of which was pretty cryptic. We did a similar trip with my cousin Linda this time last year, and things are no more clear.

We visited Chalais and its Église Saint-Léobon, which has had exploratory work done removing a thick (up to 8cm) layer of plaster removed, revealing intriguing early paintings. Unfortunately the money has run out, so at the moment you only get glimpses of what remains to be discovered.

I imagine the exclamation marks are because the 14th Century artist was as surprised as me to see a Disney Vulture

It was an excellent day out, and I even managed to find an almost sugar free dark chocolate sorbet in a tearoom in Saint-Benoît-du-Sault.

A Foreign Grotte

2026-07-23T09:00:00.000+02:00

There are 765 recognised "Lourdes Grotto" in France. In the immediate area surrounding Preuilly-sur-Claise there are at least three: Boussay, Yzeures sur Creuse, and (most impressively) Paulmy.

This isn't one of them, in fact it's not even in France. This is the Lourdes Grotto next to the Sankt-Anna-Kapelle near Mulfingen, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It's not as picturesque (or old) as those closer to home, but it's the thought that counts.

Les Telots

2026-07-22T09:00:00.000+02:00

Another "what's that thing?" from Autun. You can't miss them, two almost perfectly conical hills rising from nowhere. It's instantly obvious what they are, not so obvious the cause.

These are the Les Télots spoil heaps. Autun sits on a large oil shale deposit which by 1837 was being exploited for gas for public lighting. The Les Télots concession was granted in 1865, and production of shale oil gas started in 1881. The refinery constructed an oil distillation plant in 1936, employing several hundred workers who produced automotive fuel. Following closure in 1957, the site was dismantled and partially demolished. Remains of the installations (ruins) and these two large spoil tips still mark the landscape, overgrown with particular vegetation studied for its biodiversity. Les Télots is recognized as a natural zone of ecological, faunistic, and floristic interest (ZNIEFF).

Firebox

2026-07-21T09:00:00.000+02:00

What's that thing?

It's a close-up of one of these

The firebox of a steam locomotive is where combustion occurs, generating the heat that boils water into steam.

The brick arch is a curved wall of firebrick built inside the firebox. Rather than letting hot gases rush straight from the fire into the boiler tubes, the arch forces them to travel a longer, curved path before reaching the flue openings.

This allows more complete combustion of gases and volatile matter released from the coal, which improves efficiency and reducing smoke. It also protects the tube plate from direct flame, preventing localized overheating and leaks. Additionally, the arch helps distribute heat more evenly across the firebox and it slows sparks and unburned particles from being drawn into the tubes, reducing wear and fire risk in the smokebox.

They're not ordinary bricks. Firebricks are refractory bricks made from materials like fireclay or silica, engineered to withstand extreme heat without cracking or melting.

This one is in the Cité du Train in Mulhouse. I knew about them, but I've never seen one up close.

What to do on Sunday

2026-07-20T09:00:00.000+02:00

Go for a drive in a classic car, see an ocean of sunflowers, then go to lunch at the guinguette. It sure beats working.

Susan, Connie, Yvonne and Claudette.

Yesterday was the guinguette's classic car and oyster Sunday. Unfortunately the oyster man had a boat accident on Saturday and wasn't there, and there weren't a lot of classic cars either. Neither of those things ruined our Sunday.

The weather is getting a lot more acceptable. It was over 30°C, but at least it wasn't over 40°C!

Wear Your Helmet!

2026-07-17T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday's photo was taken on my bike ride yesterday morning. It was only a short ride, partly because it was starting to get warm again, and partly because I'd only gone out to take that photo.

What I didn't say is that I was in such a rush to take the photo and get home to publish it in time that I managed somehow to get my foot tangled in the bike as I dismounted. I landed with an almighty bang, mainly on the back of my head. This ended up with me under the bike and quite puzzled about how I was going to escape. After lying there for a minute or so I collected my thoughts, wriggled my way out, took the *#@*'!! photo and rode home.

Total damage was a bloody and slightly swollen elbow, a bit of gravel rash on my back, and a mashed helmet.

It's annoying, because it's a new helmet bought a week ago to replace my 25 year old helmet, but it could have been a lot worse.

Tomorrow I'll be calling in to Action, and buying another helmet because I've proven that they work. And I promise I'll always wear it

That Time Of Year

2026-07-16T09:00:00.000+02:00

This morning it was cooler, so:

Work (Not) in Progress

2026-07-15T09:00:00.000+02:00

I am am so grateful that before my father died I was able to send him an email showing him one of my latest purchases.

In 2008* Dad and I made a shutter for what was at the time the window in our guest bedroom, and is now the shutter hiding insulation behind the hidden window in the pantry alcove. It has stood the test of time well, but now needs a proper repaint. That will happen when the weather calms down and the paint isn't in danger of evaporating from the brush, I'm not in danger of becoming dessicated, or the rain is so heavy I can't see what I'm doing.

Dad and I, proud of small things

As it stands now. I gave it a slapdash coat of a new colour 15 years ago

My new purchase. Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?

*Looking back through our records I see it was actually 2007. I should have checked the blog first.