A BIRTHDAY BASH

Yesterday a whole bunch of friends gathered to celebrate a friend's 70th birthday. 

The picnic shelter in a nearby village was transformed to hold the party.

Those who are musically talented performed songs throughout the afternoon.

I did a little sketch entitled "An Ode to Turning Seventy", helped by my two glamorous assistants and a lot of visual aids.

Years of enjoying the work of Victoria Wood and Pam Ayres came in handy for inspiration.

 For more pictures and a review of the event see Jim's post here.

That a tiny village here in the middle of France should have such a great venue available to all for free is amazing but even more so is that we have made such a wonderful number of friends here.

GOING BACKWARDS

Going back to my most recent trip to the UK I met up with my brother at a National Trust property called Calke Abbey at Ticknall in Derbyshire.

 

On acquiring the house in the 1980's National Trust decided not to restore it to how it was in its glory days, but to preserve it in the state of dilapidation in which they found it. 

Its peeling paintwork and dusty objects set it apart from the glamour of other National Trust properties.  They often tend to merge into one after a while - it's hard to remember in which fine stately home a particular piece of fine furniture was seen.

Calke is unforgettable.

I had been before, but not for a long time.

Since then a number of extra rooms have been opened to the public, and some interesting tunnels joining various bits of the house to other parts in the grounds.

 I enjoyed the visit very much.

Apart from the tea rooms which were mainly staffed by young people who didn't seem to have much of a clue.  I also had to get five teacups from the shelf before I found two clean ones.

Which just goes to show, perfection is hard to achieve and you can't have everything!

SERENITY AND COFFEE

With Nick back in the UK for a family funeral, I was on dog walking duty.

One of our favourite walks is two laps around the plan d'eau at Le Petit-Pressigny.

I was late on this occasion so stopped for a coffee and a home made madeleine at the tea garden.

It normally doesn't open until the afternoon but I was lucky.  Someone was there and happy to serve me.

Their peach tree was full of gorgeous ripe fruit, just right for picking.

It was my first visit, but will not be the last.

It was peaceful and serene, a perfect place to enjoy a delicious coffee.

ACCIDENTAL GARDENING

We have scaled down the amount of vegetable gardening this year and only planted a few tomato plants.  A single courgette plant appeared of its own accord on the compost heap and one minute there was nothing, the next there was this.

Gardening by accident.

PALM TREE LAMP (OLD STUFF)

On my recent visit to the UK, I spotted this lamp in a local charity shop.

I had exactly the right place for it.

It came without a shade so I added my own.

~~~~~~~~~

Since I first wrote this post a friend has told me she saw an identical lamp in a very upmarket antique  shop in a very well heeled town in the south of England.

It was definitely a lucky find for me!

ANOTHER ANNOYING BLOGGERISM!

For a while now, Blogger has refused to upload any photos from my iPad into a post. Which means that photos taken using my phone, which automatically appear in my iPad library, can’t be used unless I email them to myself and finish the post on my laptop.

The wording of instructions on how to upload photos in Blogger does not mention any such obstacle to the process.  If anyone has any ideas how to fix this I'd be very pleased to hear them!

My profile picture and text have also been changed back to an old one from years ago without me doing anything!

All this covert "updating" and changing of things without my knowledge is very annoying.  The overwhelming sense of "oh for goodness sake, is it worth it?" is only just overridden by a determination not to be defeated by the "Big Brother is watching you" interference in my life!

Aaaarrrgghhhhhhhh……….

AL FRESCO DINING

 

TARRAGON

 

One of Yvonne's favourite places for a snooze is in our raised bed herb garden.

It's basically a large box on legs that Nick made from leftover decking.

Some of the herbs aren't doing as well as they should and the other day when I picked Yvonne up for a cuddle she smelled sweetly of tarragon.💕

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENT

 

In our part of France (and probably all other parts of France) there is always something to do on Sundays.  Getting about is a joy here as the traffic is rarely anything other than very light and I can't remember ever paying a car parking or entrance fee at a village event.  

The village of Crissay sur Manse is a pretty place and every summer it hosts an event for local artists.

After weeks of hot, sunny weather, it was a bit iffy on the day!

There are artworks all over the place, in garages, courtyards and every possible corner.

We had never been inside the château grounds before.

It's part ruin, part habitable.

There were artists with their work everywhere.

In the grounds there were lots of old caves.

Some of the caves still had remnants of when they were inhabited, former troglodyte dwellings.

It's a very pretty village with a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of houses.

I liked this adaptation of the French letter box.

There was continuous musical entertainment (in between the rain showers).

When we turned up there was an excellent pavement swing band performing.

The thunderstorms on the day did not dampen people's enthusiasm and the crowds turned up for what was an excellent annual event.  It was our first visit but will not be the last.

REJUVENATION AND ANXIETY

During the recent spell of fine and very hot weather we tackled the rejuvenation of our outdoor furniture.  It was long overdue and worth the effort.  

Good as new!

Nick also painted our barn doors.  Another long overdue big job.

Lots of warm evenings means we have been making the most of our new gas barbecue.

Small but perfectly formed.

We were somewhat alarmed on seeing plumes of smoke billowing on the horizon a few days ago.  According to news reports it was yet another fire in a field a few kilometres away, a casualty of the heatwave.  Several hectares of forest and "broussaille" - undergrowth, weeds or scrubland, were destroyed, presumably along with wildlife, their habitat but thankfully no dwellings.

Unfortunately that's what we have all around us - scrubland.  The farmer who owns the huge field that we are in the middle of hasn't grown anything since 2022.  We now have huge, tall, very dry weeds and thick dead grasses wafting around in the strong hot winds.  His land comes right up to the boundary of our house, i.e. up to the walls.

Apart from the fact that it looks horrible, to us it seems like a serious fire waiting to happen.  All it would take is one cigarette tossed from a passing car, delivery van or tractor to start a fire.  We have spoken to the farmer who told us he wasn't prepared to do anything about it until August.  Last August during a heatwave he came and cut down a few metres of scrub around the house and left the rest.  We presumed he was cutting a fire break.  Bizarrely he also mowed the field across the road and baled all the huge weeds - then left them there.  He would need to shift about a hundred old brick shaped bales before he can do anything else with the land.

He said the land is too far from his farm (it's about 9½ km or 6 miles) and it would be too expensive to come and cut just part of it.  He wasn't at all concerned about our concerns about fire.  He also said a lot that we didn't understand owing to his accent and speed of speech but we got the gist.  He wasn't prepared to do anything.

Nick has strimmed an area around the house to act as a fire break.  It's very hard, time consuming and exhausting work with an ordinary domestic strimmer and we have no idea if it would actually make any difference in the event of a fire.

We don't know how realistic our fears are or where we stand.  Maybe we should contact the pompiers (fired department) for their advice.  We have written to the Maire to express our concern and ask for his advice.  He is always very helpful so hopefully we will find something out before we are burnt to a crisp.

A VERY OLD TREE, A COUPE D'HONNEUR AND THREE CHÂTEAUX

A little while ago we found a note in our letterbox inviting us to a ceremony called the "Labellisation d'un Arbre Remarkable" at our local château.  All the residents of Paulmy were invited and there was to be a glass of wine afterwards - "l'issue un vin d'honneur sera servi". 

 About 50 local people turned up and all age groups seemed to be represented.

The ceremony took place under the shade of the special tree - a cedar which is truly huge.  It's thought to be at least 500 years old, is 37m high and has a circumference of 12m.  A speech was given by the Maire, who introduced the château's recent Parisian owners, and then the tree specialist from the region.

Amongst the invited guests were the Maires from La Çelle-Guenand and Ferrière Larçon, two other local villages.  It was an important occasion, done in usual relaxed and amiable French style.  The owners were clearly very chuffed to have their ancient and remarkable tree officially acknowledged. 

After the formalities a glass of wine and plates of truly delicious nibbles were served.

A "coup d'honneur" is traditional at village events.  In the UK it would probably have been a cup of tea and a biscuit, or maybe a slice of Victoria sponge if you were lucky.  Vive la Différence!

We had never been inside the château grounds before, although we drive past it almost daily.

One of the other guests, a lady from Preuilly-sur-Claise, told us that the pigeonnier is the largest in the whole of Europe.  As much as the tree was remarkable, this was even more so.  I haven't attempted to count all the pigeon holes but that's an awful lot of pigeons!

As we were leaving one of the other villagers mentioned that during the second world war pigeons from Paulmy were used to carry messages.

In 1729 the Count of Argenson bought the Château des Ormes at the nearby village of Les Ormes and he set about renovating it.  He also bought another château a bit further away at Marigny Marmande, took it to pieces and used the stone from it for his new house at Les Ormes.  Whilst the renovations were in progress he lived at the château in Paulmy.

We know this because we visited the château at Marigny Marmande last summer.

We were shown around what is left of it by the current owner and when we said we lived at Paulmy she was very keen to tell us about the connection between the three châteaux.

The château at Paulmy is a very fine building and it was a privilege to see the grounds and be part of the ceremony on such a beautiful summer's morning.  

NOT JUST ROSES

The annual festival of roses at Chédigny takes place at the end of May every year.  The roses are in bloom for more than just the festival weekend of course and there are other things to see, not just roses.

It's a very pretty village, not far from Loches.  I don't know how the residents feel about the thousands of people who descend on their village for just one weekend but apart from that it's a lovely place to live.